Our family loves television. We watch like it’s our job. Every moment not spent sleeping is for viewing. We watch first thing in the morning, mining sleep pebbles from our eyes. We watch at the breakfast table, spooning soggy Cheerios into our mouths. On the school bus, us kids smush into a single padded seat, round faces lit by the glow of our iPhones.
We watch television nestled into the crooks of each other’s arms, in cars and in beds, and on the soft suede couch in our living room. For decades, we gorge on pixels and fiber optics. We run through the bejeweled hallways of the Downton Abbey estate, get stuck in the slimy underbelly of the Upside-Down. We stumble through the streets of New York City with the girls of Girls and the broads of Broad City and the suits of Suits. We can’t bear to leave our friends when the screen goes dark at the end of an episode. So we click through to the next episode. And the next one after that. We speak to each other exclusively in lines penned by rooms full of writers that we’ve memorized as scripts of our own.
We didn’t see the plot twist coming.
Orla starts to move like weights hang from her limbs. We can’t wake her up in time for school, can’t get her to eat. We climb into bed and cradle her, trying to spoon-feed her yogurt and clips of sitcom quips. No luck. Orla is elsewhere. She lies in bed with the lights off, staring up at the ceiling like the best show of all time is projected there and she can’t bear to look away. Our mother sits at the edge of Orla’s bed and begs her to watch something that will make her feel better. But Orla is busy watching the ceiling.
One terrible night, Orla wakes us with her screams.
I AM THE ONE WHO KNOCKS. THE LANNISTERS SEND THEIR REGARDS. NOT PENNY’S BOAT. NO SOUP FOR YOU. CLEAR EYES, FULL HEARTS, CAN’T LOSE. I WANT TO GO TO THERE. LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT’S SATURDAY NIGHT.
We try to shake her awake.
THIS IS THE FINAL ROSE OF THE EVENING. WINTER IS COMING. WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR?
We pull back the covers and hold her down as she thrashes. Her ribs are a jagged mountain range. Her face is the SMPTE color bars, giving no signal.
THE TRIBE HAS SPOKEN. THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID. PICK ME, CHOOSE ME, LOVE ME.
Orla goes to the ER.
We sit in the hospital waiting room, guzzling seventy-two hours of Judge Judy, Reba, and Days of Our Lives. We chug down entire seasons of Lost. We plow through episodes of One Tree Hill. We beam Orla the laugh lines of Seinfeld, transfuse her with the silliness of Parks & Rec, and the sweetness of Modern Family. We store up comedic fat and dramatic flesh so that if she tries again to slip from her body, we can enfold her safely into ours.
When Orla finally comes home, we hover from room to room, deadpanning the lines in our script. You okay? Yeah, I’m okay. Orla sleeps a lot. We keep the TV volumes on low.
Then one day, Orla is awake and taking batteries out of every remote in the house. Please, she says. Can we keep them off? We smile nervously. This isn’t a scene we’ve seen before. But we nod. We leave the screens dark.
Orla goes for walks outside. Her cheeks freckle. Her hair grows long. She asks us to join her. We say sure, maybe later.
We try to do it Orla’s way. Really, we do. But our fingers itch for the remote. When Orla isn’t looking, we scavenge for batteries and tiptoe down to the basement.
Oh, how we love our shows. We can count on Law & Order SVU to bring us safely to neat conclusions. Every crime gets solved, every criminal is put in handcuffs. And the friends of Friends stay friends, and the Golden Girls stay golden gals. Rory and Lorelai Gilmore reconcile by the time the credits roll. What a relief, to watch a plot that doesn’t buck and maim. We want the pixels to become our eyes. We want the glass dome of the screen to become our cheeks.
Orla asks from the top of the stairs if we’re hungry for dinner.
Top Chef is on soon, we say. Then Chopped.
Orla asks from the top of the stairs if we want to get some fresh air.
We look at each other, then back at the TV. Planet Earth is fresh air.
Orla tells us she got into UCLA. She’s going to college.
College? Is she sure? Why go to college and have reality fail to live up to the plots of Greek, Dear White People, The Sex Lives of College Girls?
Orla flies to Los Angeles. She still calls us every Friday.
We ask her if she’s been keeping up with Keeping Up with the Kardashians,
No, she says. I haven’t been watching.
Has she been breaking bread with Breaking Bad, getting into How to Get Away with Murder, gossiping about Gossip Girl?
Orla sighs. She says she has to go. She’ll leave us to it.
We don’t ask Orla to come burn it all down. To take a bat to every Roku, to drown our iPhones, put all the computers to sleep, shut down Netflix, bankrupt Hulu, send a cease and desist to HBO. Gut us of every last storyline.
We would. We miss her.
But Wheel of Fortune is on. And we have consonants to collect.