Chunghop Rm-l688 Universal — Remote Manual

He pressed SET again. Then MUTE.

A small victory. He turned it back on manually. The Chunghop’s volume button worked. Then the channel changer. He flipped through the digital wasteland—infomercials, old sitcoms, a preacher shouting about the end times. He was about to toss the remote aside when he noticed a section in the manual he had never seen before.

Breathing.

Arthur raised the remote. He didn’t know why. He pointed it at the screen. Chunghop Rm-l688 Universal Remote Manual

He turned to page one. On a whim, he dug through the closet and found the old Sharp television. He plugged it in. Static. The blue screen of oblivion. He pointed the Chunghop at it. Step 2: Hold the ‘SET’ button until the indicator light stays on. He pressed SET. The red LED blinked twice, then glowed steady. Like a heartbeat. Step 3: Enter the 4-digit code for your brand. Arthur flipped to the code list. Page 34: Sharp – 0092, 0753, 1240, 4011. He tried 0092. Nothing. 0753. Nothing. 1240. The TV flickered. The volume bar appeared on screen, sliding up and down on its own.

Arthur looked down at the manual. Page 42, another scribble: His thumb hovered over the number pad. The static-man on TV reached a hand toward the glass. The Chunghop’s LED began to pulse red, faster and faster, like a panicked heart.

“Dad?” Arthur whispered.

The television in the living room turned on by itself. The volume maxed out. Then dropped to zero. Then came back at half. A channel was changing—not flipping, but scanning, agonizingly slow. It landed on an old black-and-white movie. A man in a fedora was walking away from the camera, into fog.

He tried 4011. The TV shut off.

The man mouthed one word: Help.

Arthur shivered. The house was cold, but the thermostat read 72.

Arthur found the manual in a shoebox under his father’s bed, sandwiched between a broken watch and a yellowed gas bill. The cover was smudged with fingerprints: Chunghop RM-L688 Universal Remote Control – Programming Manual .