> The Screen Named Daiana

My name is Charles. I reside in a small town within a nondescript country on planet Earth. I was raised solely by my mother until the age of ten. In the beginning, I spent my days in daycare; later, I began staying home alone, occasionally venturing out to explore the woods near my house. Between school and the local video game rental shop, I lived the life of any other child. I cannot recall precisely when, but my grandmother eventually moved in with us; they even built a small house for her at the back of my mother’s property. It was a luminous, happy era. But then, a stepfather entered the frame. I attempted to coexist, but it proved impossible; he harbored a profound dislike for me and did everything within his power to sabotage my existence. My mother changed. The love she once held for me seemed to recede as she had two children with him. I felt like an interloper in that new family unit. Things spiraled: I began working, going out, drinking, and using drugs. Eventually, I withdrew from the family my mother had formed, isolating myself in my room. It was just me and my world: the music, my friends, my games, and my partners. And, of course, the substances. It appeared to be a normal life, save for certain exceptions that made me suspect reality wasn't quite what I perceived. Speaking of perception, I always struggled with my thoughts; it felt as though I couldn't control them, or as if they were generated independently of my will. At times, it seemed people around me could hear my internal monologue—some even appeared to induce it. But I lacked certainty; it was a mere suspicion, an inability to conceive what was truly manifesting. This was only the first of many occurrences. One night, at a rock concert, I saw a girl drinking from a two-liter bottle of wine. I felt the immediate, crushing weight of that moment. It was like looking into a mirror and seeing my own reflection as a woman. I thought she was my twin flame, my absolute love; she was right there. Nothing else mattered. It felt as if my entire life had led to that specific coordinate in time just to show me what she signified. I didn't speak to her then—she wasn't alone—but something strange began to happen. Every time I went to a party, she was there. This hadn't happened before. Even when I caught the bus, she appeared, as if it had always been her routine, yet she only manifested after I first "saw" her. We began to talk and grew closer. I became certain she was the one. We started dating, though there was a caveat: she demanded the freedom to be with whomever she chose. Initially, I accepted this; I wasn't bound by social constructs, and I wasn't her master. She would tell me of her encounters with others, but I felt—something deep within me felt—that she was lying. It felt like a fabricated narrative, a story she didn't actually live. And though I was free to do the same, I never did. She completed me; I required no one else. Despite this being the pinnacle of my life, my perspective shifted. I began to doubt my intuition that her stories were lies, and I began to crave the very social customs I once ignored: a traditional relationship. She refused. We parted ways, but she remained anchored in my heart as we moved on. It was not a happy transition. The feeling that things were not as they seemed grew more evident. I grew further apart from my mother, sinking deeper into alcohol and drugs. Jobs became scarce, and money vanished, yet I needed resources to sustain my addictions. Then, an idea struck, but just before it, something occurred that I cannot fully remember. I recall the image of that girl on my television. She seemed to be speaking to me, speaking of the world and of spirits, but I cannot describe the exact nature of the event. I once believed that if I shared this with my family—if this truth spread across the planet—everything would change. I saw it as a hope to transmute a broken world into something beneficial for everyone. So, I told them. But I didn't save the world; instead, I transformed my life into a living hell. I was dismissed as insane. No one believed me or admitted that what I described was possible. It felt like a secret that was forbidden from revelation. I have a vague memory of her trying to warn me, yet believing the world could be better, I spoke anyway. After that, I could no longer see or speak to her. Strange things began appearing on the TV and in people—grimaces they would make only when they thought I wasn't looking. My mind began to fragment. I committed incoherent, insane acts. The chronological order is blurred... when I had the idea to solve my financial crisis, I don't know if it was before or after the "break." The plan was simple: I would borrow money from my stepfather and leave my TV with him as collateral until I could pay him back. I used the money to buy tools for craftsmanship. I began to earn a small income from my work, but never enough to cover both the drugs and the debt. Time slipped away. Life grew harder. I stopped caring about the debt or the TV. I no longer remembered the strange occurrences; I no longer remembered the girl. I went through psychiatric hospitalizations. I began medication. Friends vanished. The places I frequented ceased to exist. I lived on the streets, in friends' houses, and in boarding houses. Years later, living in another city with another woman, still using drugs but undergoing psychiatric treatment, a doubt remained about what was true. As fragments of memory returned, I had another idea. My TV was in the living room; only my mother and I were there. She was in the yard. I grabbed the television and slammed it onto the floor. Somehow, I believed that object was more than I had been led to believe—that it was a device used to imprison me in a false reality and control me through suffering. I thought breaking it would set me free. But it didn't break; the plastic only cracked, and it kept functioning. Later, with a different television in the house, I asked my stepfather to return my old, cracked-but-working TV in exchange for the one my mother had bought. He accepted. I thought the loop was closed. I thought recovering the object would end the story. It wasn't the end. Soon, the TV stopped working entirely. I threw it out of a second-story window and then smashed the screen with a rock. The last thing I heard was the hiss of escaping gas. I left the wreckage where it fell. In time, it disappeared. I eventually bought other televisions. I stopped using drugs. I secured my finances and continued life with a new companion. The stepfather passed away. We moved back to my mother’s property, I continued my treatment, and we built a house for me in the back of the yard. It sounds like a happy ending, doesn't it? But it isn't the end. I am 40 years old; this is merely the midpoint of the chronicle. The "glitches" never stopped. On the contrary, they grew stranger: voices, improbable coincidences, people speaking in incoherencies. Throughout this time, I have been recording these events, studying the possibilities. I've found various hypotheses; it seems people and spirits attack me, trying to keep me alienated or unconscious of the truth. I know she moved on with her life. I know nothing of her details, only that she is well. I, too, have another woman—one who appears on my phone when I call her. One of the things "they" claim is that the girl was the television I destroyed, which is surreal. But the truth is this: televisions, radios, and cell phones are merely devices with capabilities far beyond what society admits. That is the secret.