The bulbous figure that filled each nook and cranny of the oversized brown leather recliner snarled at the TV.
“Are you still watching?” It prompted.
He grunted as he lifted a rotund arm from the armrest and moved the half a foot necessary to retrieve the remote control from the end table, flicking the button for “yes”. He sucked in a deep breath as the next episode began to play and relaxed his arm; the controller kept in his hand this time.
There’d be no more reaching on his watch! He grinned.
Comfortably relaxed once again, Grant resumed watching until his eyes glossed over and his ears went numb to the repetitive barrage of meaningless conversation on the television.
“Hi there!” A smarmy guy dressed in workout gear appeared on the screen, waking Grant from his daze. The douche had a gleaming white smile and one of those butt-chins that was the trademark of all assholey douches. “Enjoying some TV, huh? Well, why not take this break to get up and move?!” The annoying jock asked as he began jogging in place.
“Ugh.” Grant snorted, changing the channel with a twitch of his index finger, immediately ridding himself of the athletic nuisance. “I’ve been meaning to catch up on Parallel Worlds anyway.” He shrugged, navigating the menus until he located the newest season.
It seemed like an interesting premise but, like most Parallel Worlds episodes, it dragged a bit in getting to the point, and - fifteen to twenty minutes in - Grant found himself staring blankly at the shapes and shadows that danced across the screen, lost and numb once again.
A flash of bright yellow jumped onto the screen, disrupting his daydream. “Let’s take a five-minute break to get up and move!”
The athletic douchebag was back, this time with a neon workout shirt that was hard to miss. “Alright, everyone! Stand up and let’s jog in place for five minutes! Ready? Go!”
Click.
Only the douche was on the next channel, too.
“C’mon, you can do it. Let’s get healthy!”
Click.
“Have you had your eight glasses of water today? No? Me either! Let’s go to the kitchen and get a nice, tall glass of wa-“
Click.
Finally, there was a reprieve as Grant caught a glimpse of Jennifer Aniston in a coffee house. He remained on alert, waiting for that pesky gym guy to pop back up onto his screen for a moment or two before finally letting down his guard.
He relaxed into the thick padding of his recliner, turning on the vibrate feature and feeling his muscles simply melt into the warm leather as his concentration drifted.
“WE WERE ON A BLATHE!” A character yelled.
Doesn’t he say “break” in that line?
Grant pondered for only a second before becoming distracted once again but, in time, he noticed other oddities about the familiar show.
The popular couch-in-the-stairway scene now shouted “Votil!” instead of “Pivot” as Grant remembered previously, and another scene kept referring to coffee as “qlopic”.
Frustrated and confused, Grant flicked the remote and watched as the scene before him changed…but the problematic dialogue continued. At first, it was just a random word here or there but to Grant’s horror, he soon found that everything the actors said sounded like pure gibberish.
In terror, he clutched the remote tightly in his ham-sized fist and flipped through channels but, alas, the confusing banter continued. Even the commercials that played used rubbish instead of English.
Grant’s eyes flicked towards the coffee table where he had previously laid his cell phone.
Yes! He’d call someone!
Maybe his brother, or his dad. He just needed a simple chat with them to assure himself he wasn’t losing his mind. It was a technical glitch. Maybe Grant had changed the language setting without intending to….
Grant dug his palms into the recliner's fleshy arms to push himself up…but he couldn’t move.
His breath caught in his throat as he struggled, doing his best to kick his legs and build momentum but failing miserably. He sat forward to peel his back from the backrest, only to find that his body had somehow melded with the furniture: skin, leather, and clothing meshing and mixing, fixing him to the spot.
He dropped the remote control into his lap as he attempted to thrash, a searing, tearing pain in his shoulders as he attempted to remove himself from the chair.
“Argh!” he cried out, slamming his fist into the arm of the chair and jarring the remote from where it was seated on his thighs. Grant watched in absolute horror as the remote flipped, landing on his knees, tumbling down his legs, and landing at his feet, flipping the channels as it went.
“You should have gotten up.” The athletic man in yellow chimed. “You should have gotten up.”
Grant twisted his foot the best he could, nudging the remote control with his toe, but the controller remained just out of his reach.
“You should have gotten up, Grant. You should have gotten up.” The douche chanted over and over again as Grant began to scream...
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