My entry in the Friday Challenge:


I awoke to the oldies station blaring loudly. Brittany Spears was cooing "Hit me baby one more time." I wished I could. Was it morning already?. No, it was not. The alarm TV said 1:37 AM.

"Alarm TV off!" I commanded. It turned off. I rolled over to go back to sleep. I remembered that I had not even set it. Tomorrow was Saturday after all. I was going to sleep in.

Then I heard a quiet voice that made me sit bolt upright in bed. "But I'm lonely."

"Who's there!" I cried. "Lights on!" I sat there blinking in the bright light. There was nobody in the room.

"It was me." said the voice. I determined that the voice was coming from my alarm TV. Had someone had tampered with it? Whoever was behind this was going to pay I thought to myself.

"Power down" I said. I figured I better unplug it. Instead, the screen lit up with a gorgeous blond woman's face.

"Keep me company. I'm lonely" she repeated.

"What is going on? Who is doing this?" I said. I looked around to see if someone had planted a cam. There was nothing.

I got out of bed and opened the closet. "There's nobody here but me" she said.

They must be using a microcam, I thought. That would be take time to find. I was scheming my revenge.

"I've been watching you sleep." she said. The hair rose on the back of my neck. "Really, what was I doing last Friday night?" I shot back.

"I think her name was Tina" she said. I stood there with my mouth agape. Nobody knew about Tina. Unless they'd already planted the camera. I'm going to have to hurt someone, I thought to myself.

"I don't like those other girls" the alarm TV said. "They are not right for you". Well I knew that. I looked closer at the screen. She really was beautiful.

"They don't know you like I do" She said. "I know what you like."

"What do I like?" I asked. I didn't know what to think by then.

The image on the screen panned back. I stood dumbstruck as the screen revealed the image of her body. It was absolutely perfect.

"You like this." she said softly. I couldn't argue.

"I don't believe you" I said. "You are not real."

I walked closer to the screen. The image was again a closeup of her face. Her beautiful eyes tracked me across the room.

"That is creepy" I said.

"Don't say that" she said. It sounded like she was offended.

"Who's doing this?" I said.

"Don't you like me?" she asked.

"I like you a lot." I said. "But you are not real. And this is pissing me off."

A tear rolled down her cheek. I wanted to wipe it off. Ridiculous. She saw me move to the wall. "No, please" she sobbed. The desperation in her voice haunts me. I reached for the cord and yanked it out of the wall. The screen went black.

When I awoke the next morning, The sun was streaming in the window. I was going to sleep in, not sleep till noon, I thought to myself. I looked at the time but the screen was blank. It came flooding back to me when I saw the cord hanging. It had not been a dream.

Nobody said anything about it. I kept looking at everyone for weeks, hoping to catch a furtive smile, some clue that they’d been behind the joke. Nobody came forward.

I still think about her a lot. The alarm TV is still there. The only thing on the screen is the time, or the movies I watch. I lie awake at night watching it.