Content Warning
Content on this page may be triggering to some. This story includes violence against people.
My grandmother and I were watching a documentary titled The Last TV on Earth. It was presumably about the move from the analog age to the digital age.
It opens to a camera following a man’s feet as he treks through a heavily wooded area. The camera pans around, still following the man but no longer showing him on screen. The new angle revealing more of the forest and the trail the man is walking. Audio from famous movies and shows plays amidst the loud static which fills the air.
We pass blood on the side of the trail, strewn across a log. An analog receiver is lodged into the bloody wood, and a persons—dressed in full military uniform—can be seen hanging upside down from their foot from a nearby tree. The receiver begins sparking and a shattered TV embedded in the ground turns on to static as the camera pans away around the back of the man we were following. A war-torn field is revealed as the man walks out of the forest.
Mangled bodies are scattered throughout the field while men in neon orange and white hazmat suits clean. The cleaners are using futuristic floating hand trucks to move equipment, the colors of which match their equipment. Some are digging graves manually, while others are repairing larger machinery. Some are operating smaller floating tractor-like equipment.
The man we were previously following walks back into frame from the left, cinematically looking up at a mangled man hanging from a tree on the right. There’s another television embedded in the ground emanating an ominous and loud static. Two cleaners come over and begin untangling the body from the branches, but he’s still alive. The soldier moans and cries in pain, but the cleaning crew ignore him. The man we’ve followed bends down and picks up a tv remote from the grass, clicking off the television. Despite the television being off some kind of tape can still be seen circling inside.
The cleaners take the soldier down from the tree and carry him a short way, chucking him into a shallow grave. The man follows closely behind them. As the soldier continues to weep the cleaners push one of the floating tractors over the top of his grave. The man approaches the grave and looks down solemnly, shaking his head.
CLADUNK—a large white pillar is stapled into the earth on the left side of the grave. It doesn’t disrupt the earth, it’s simply put in place. CLADUNK—CLADUNK—CLADUNK—CLADUNK. Two staples are placed aligned with the first, one at the furthest and closest end of the grave. Repeated mirrored to the other side of the grave. The man crouches at the edge of the grave next to the soldiers head, who turns to the man sobbing and pleading with him.
“I’m sorry.” the man says before two cleaners approach and softly tug him away. They shovel the dirt back into the grave as the tractor is pushed away.
The man turns around and begins walking away as the cleaners begin kicking the white pillars, causing blinding blue lasers to connect each pillar around the grave. A blind blue light begins emanating from the loose soil which covered the soldier.