Copyright 1993(c) 
                             ECHOES
                         By Michael Hahn
 
     I guess I was just in too big a hurry. The television set was 
eight years old and had moved cross-country twice. It wasn't that 
much of a surprise when the tuner started to drift. The problem 
with the electronic stuff is that it'd probably cost me as much to 
fix the tuner as it would to buy a whole new set. 
     I started looking at the ads in the newspaper, thinking I 
could buy a brand-new television without having to spend a lot of 
money. I was wrong. All the new twenty-five-inch screens were 
about twice as much as I was willing to pay--I'm, uh, between jobs 
right now. So I skipped the glossy advertisements and went to the 
classifieds. 
     Thursday's paper had an ad that sounded too good to be true. 
A guy was selling a twenty-seven-inch console for $100. That I 
could afford. The address was on the other side of town, so I 
grabbed the checkbook and hurried to the address in the ad. 
     The man who answered the door looked sad. He invited me in, 
and right away I noticed the bare look of the house, and the 
boxes. "Moving?" I asked. 
     He sighed, said, "Yeah. My wife died recently, and I decided 
to move away. That's why I'm getting rid of the TV. It's a 
little too big to move around." 
     It certainly was. It was a big, beautiful oak console 
television, couldn't have been more than a couple of years old. 
I tried not to drool. It'd be a perfect fit in the corner of the
living room, the perfect companion for the Lazy-Boy I bought right
before I was laid off. 
     He hesitated about the check, but took it anyway. I called my
brother the mechanic, and he showed up about forty-five minutes 
later with a pickup truck. I thanked the sad-looking man again, 
and my brother and I loaded the TV into the pickup. 
     Jack gave me the usual grief about getting a job, but he 
helped me haul the TV into my apartment. He waved off the beer I
offered and headed back to the shop, leaving me alone with my new
toy. I hooked up the cable, picked up the remote, and settled 
into my chair. It was perfect--a bright, clear picture, remote 
control, the works. 
     The gunfire woke me up at 3 a.m. I crawled out of bed, 
staggered into the living room. The TV was on, and there was a 
war movie playing. I guess I must have had a beer too many and 
left it on when I wobbled off to bed. At least that's what I 
thought at the time. 
     It wasn't more than a few days before I stopped thinking I'd
forgotten to turn it off. I'd come home from the unemployment 
office in the middle of the afternoon to find it on. It'd wake me
up in the middle of the night with a movie or an infomercial. It
didn't seem to have anything wrong with it. When I turned it off,
it stayed off, at least for a while. 
     I guess I'd had the television for about two weeks when I 
first saw her. I was sitting in the Lazy-Boy on a Saturday night,
working on my fourth or fifth beer, when I caught sight of a blur
out of the corner of my eye. I very slowly turned my head toward
the couch. She was sitting there with her legs tucked under her,
a slightly-built brunette wearing a blue bathrobe. She was also
slightly translucent. 
     I guess it was the beers doing the talking--I wasn't even 
scared. I watched her for a while, then she just disappeared. I
thought about it, then called my brother and spent the night at his
house. 
     The next day I went back to the guy that sold me the TV. His
house was dark, there was a "For Sale" sign in the front yard, and
no one answered. I pounded on the door until the elderly fellow 
watering the lawn next door called out to me. 
     "Moved out last week," he said. "You know him?" 
     "I bought his TV," I said, walking over to the fence. 
     "Nice fellow, all broken up over his wife," he said sadly. 
     "He told me she died when I bought the TV," I replied. 
     "Yeah, poor woman. Lost her baby, stillborn. Got real 
depressed over it. Sat home all day watching TV." He paused, 
frowned. "Killed herself. Shot herself with her husband's gun, 
sitting on the couch, watching TV." 
                               END