The door opened with the sound of voices. Male. At least two. Maybe three. They entered quietly, not at all with the bombastic tone and stomping that would indicate they knew someone was trespassing. From the squeaks and metallic rolls ahead, he knew they had sat in the chairs at the switchboard-looking terminals with all the dials and buttons and rows of screens.

“Roger that, Randy,” one of them said into his headset microphone. “In three…two…” When he reached one, the lights in the booth extinguished, leaving only the constellation of glowing yellows and reds and greens on the various machinery. And the screens.

He snuck a peek at one from the corner of his hiding place. Carol Burnett shared the stage with Maggie Smith and were singing some song about London, looking like sisters from opposite sides of the pond with matching hair, loose-fitting jumpsuits (sequins sparkling as both women glided across the stage), and belts with large buckles with silver stones. He recognized Maggie Smith from the Harry Potter movies, but it was still weird to see Professor McGonagall forty years younger…and singing.

If anyone had sensed his presence in the booth, they didn’t say anything. Which was good, because he didn’t know what he would say to justify his being here. Discomfort trumped the prospect of an awkward explanation, so he remained still.

He didn’t know how long he sat like that, scrunched up against the back wall. Based on his cramping legs, it must’ve been at least a half-hour, during which he ran through all he had seen and heard (hallucinated, he reminded himself. But the 911 operator…“Are you in the Los Angeles area?” He supposed that could’ve been part of his delusion, but now he wasn’t so sure): the lights, the stage, the audience, the cool, circulated studio air, the scent of the metallic machinery and cheap cigarette smoke that clung to the wild-patterned shirts of the sound booth operators. He ran his fingers across the gray shag carpeting. Hell, he could feel each fiber! He’d never heard of a hallucination like this. Either he was a medical marvel—destined to be documented and studied by future neurological students—or something else was going on.

They took another commercial break and when they resumed filming Carol stood at the center of the stage following another costume change (a thin dress of orange, green, and tan) and began singing her signature closing song, “I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together.” Her voice was crystal clear, hitting each note perfectly as she did every show (two every Friday), the song her reminder to the audience that she genuinely enjoyed spending the hour with them, that they were her comrades in comedy, not merely a collection of fans. She held the last note and, as she let it go, tugged on her left earlobe in that familiar gesture done to let her own grandmother know she was thinking of her. “Good night. Thank you,” she said, smiling into the camera. Then the exit music cued up and Jordan peeked from his hiding place to see the credits rolling across the banks of screens until the production company logos rose. Behind the names and titles, Carol was exchanging hugs and kisses with Vicki Lawrence and Tim Conway. Maggie Smith came out to share in the camaraderie, too, and signed Carol’s guestbook.

The voice of the man closest to him startled Jordan and he retreated. “Okay,” he said. “We’re gonna cut it in five…four…three…two…”

He reached one and an intense ache bloomed behind Jordan’s eyes, wedged deep into his brain. He felt off-balance and nauseous—pukey, his sister would’ve said. Raised his fingers to his eyes and pressed into them, kneading them like balls of jelly-filled dough. Finally the ache subsided and Jordan opened his eyes. When he did, he saw nothing but black and a thin horizontal line quivering in the center of his vision. The kind that sometimes signaled the videotape you were watching was over.

Immediately, he noticed two things that were strange.

One, Carol was gone, replaced by the screen of black and the thin quivering line. And two, his hands were back on the wooden corners of his grandfather’s television.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4