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When Kris was little, the TV screen was the size of the world.
Its light glowed strangely through the kicked-up rubber soles of December’s combat boots on the coffee table, shining blue over the metal eyelets. She jostled her foot along to a music video, strumming invisible guitars and using her fingers as drumsticks.
On screen, monsters in flashy costumes danced inappropriately through plumes of smoke, led by a man in makeup lip-syncing the lyrics. Kris didn’t catch all the words, but “fight” and “freedom” and bright pink lipstick soared above the wailing music.
And sometimes, everything flashed, and the video cut away to the band: people with long, unkempt hair dyed every color imaginable. They thrashed their heads around as their hands moved over their instruments, skilled but imprecise.
From here, Dess almost looked like one of them.
Off to the side, though, behind the wild drumming and dancing, was the band’s bassist. Their hair obscured their face as their fingers tore across the fretboard, bathed in shadow by the moody lighting. Shimmering black fabric veiled their entire body. They were unknowable.
Kris breathed in and waited.
Every few measures, the bassist would move their wrist in a way that pulled back a layer of fabric, or bang their head in a way that pushed loose a strand of hair, and, behind it all, Kris could just barely catch glimpses of eyeshadow and latex and teeth, bright and blinding.
Kris shone back.
Dess was shouting along to the bridge and sang the guitar riff in a dun-dun-da-dun that crescendoed into the final chorus. The screen flared with color, red and blue and green phosphor swelling together, and noise swallowed everything.
Eventually, the music faded, but Kris’ gaze didn’t falter until the bassist plucked the final string and leaned back in a dramatic pose. Their boots gleamed as pyrotechnics flashed in the foreground, and the new angle revealed their high heels and thick platforms—how they clung to the bassist’s legs and disappeared up into shadow.
Kris held up a hand to the screen, backlit by explosions and bad CGI.
“Pretty sick, right?” Dess asked over the ambient ringing of the amps.
Kris nodded emphatically.
On the other side of the couch, Asriel said something, too, but Kris couldn’t quite hear it over the cut to commercial break.
Dess flipped the remote in the air, and then snorted. “You good?”
Kris blinked and nodded again, turning to look at her this time.
“You really liked it, huh? Aw. I knew you were a little punk, Kris,” Dess exclaimed proudly (mostly in Asriel’s direction), laughing as she leaned down to ruffle Kris’ hair over the headband. “You gotta join our band! You could play keyboard—or keytar ! Azzy, dude, that’d be fucking sick.”
“We don’t actually have a band,” Asriel added with a tired smile, although he winced slightly at December’s language, and he reached forward as if to cover Kris’ ears.
“Not with that attitude. We’ve got all the shit for it.”
“Not a keytar.”
“Dad could probably convince my mom to buy me one,” Dess argued, idly pulling at a rip in her tattered jeans. The way the cuffs fell over her boots was cool, and Kris wondered how they’d look with taller platforms.
All of Kris’ pants and shoes seemed plain in comparison, but Mom would never let either of her children wear ripped jeans. Besides, all of those too-human features would show through the holes in the denim: long legs, knobby knees, nearly bare flesh dotted with sparse hair Kris feared would darken any day now.
The last thing Kris needed was another way to stick out.
Instead, Kris settled back against the couch and was enveloped by television.
Sitting hunched over and eager on the edge of the couch, drawn closer by the inviting glow, the screen really was the only thing Kris could see as advertisements for perfumes and colognes and handy kitchen gadgets flickered by.
In a commercial for a department store at the shopping center in the city, rugged men modeled leather jackets, and Kris thought one might look good on Dess. It definitely wasn’t Noelle’s thing, and probably not Asriel’s, either, but Dess was different. It would look cool on her. Maybe Kris could pull it off, too—with hair like that bassist.
In the next shot, women stood by the ocean in long sundresses, their hair long, too, but blown back in the wind. Their faces were bared to the camera.
Sometimes Noelle made Kris wear skirts during games of dress-up, but never any like this: long and casual and formless, not showing even the slightest hint of skin until the bottom hem, where the models’ ankles peeked out.
If they were wearing different shoes, though—combat boots, maybe, instead of sandals—not a thing would be visible. In the shadow of it, their bodies would be a mystery, and nobody could know them.
And, then, they could be anything.
“Jeez, how many commercials are there?” Dess complained, holding the remote out to the TV and changing the channel.
Kris stared through the screen as the channels blinked by. Dess cycled through footage of ballerinas in broad tutus, athletes in dirt-caked spandex, newscasters in business attire, shirtless surfers, sepia-toned cowboys, scantily clad women, politicians in crisp suits, fantasy knights in gleaming armor, elementary schoolers in patterned tights, sitcom characters in pajamas, period-inaccurate historical costumes—
“Hiya, Dess! Azzy! Kris!” Noelle said with a small wave as Mom unlocked the front door for her. Kris wasn’t even sure when Mom had come downstairs. “What’re you watching?”
“Nothing,” Dess said, stopping briefly on an inconspicuous commercial when Mom walked past again. “Were you at the library?”
Noelle nodded. “Um. I couldn’t get in the house, so…”
Dess and Asriel laughed back and forth about something, but Kris didn’t hear it.
The TV hummed with life as the others fought over the remote. It washed Kris’ face in warm light, folding around the room like a cloak or a blanket or a hug.
Eventually, Dess was victorious—Kris would have bet on her, anyway—and changed the channel back to the music videos while Noelle and Asriel both fussed about it in hushed concern.
The band from before was gone, and now a softer song played over swirling visuals, but Kris could still picture the bassist there, off to the side, their shapeless silhouette burnt into the CRT display.
If nothing else, they were burnt into Kris’ mind, a shadow image against the brilliant light they’d lit there.
“Noelle.”
“Huh? Kris?” Noelle asked, jumping slightly in surprise at Kris’ voice and the touch on her shoulder. “Hi! Do you, um… wanna play or something?”
Kris nodded, albeit a bit more shyly than usual, and took a breath. “Dress-up?”
Noelle immediately broke into a huge toothy grin. “Really? Kris!” She hesitated for a moment, waiting for a nod of approval before squeezing Kris in an excited hug. “Yay! Do you have dress-up stuff? We can’t get in my house, but I have wings and tiaras and magic wands and a stethoscope and—”
“Mom and Dad’s closet,” Kris offered, already envisioning an ensemble involving Mom’s heels and several of Dad’s neckties.
Noelle giggled. “You’re silly, Kris. If your mom will let us, then sure.”
Kris nodded again, harder, so the hair Dess had messed up earlier tumbled down from behind the headband and down over Kris’ face. It wasn’t quite long enough yet to cover everything, but Kris was able to pull it forward to conceal a growing smile.
“Ooh! Kris is a real rocker now!” Dess shouted when she noticed. “Now we really gotta get this kid a keytar.”
“It’s different! I like it,” Asriel agreed, trying and failing to sound sincere.
“Can you even see anything?” Noelle asked with a snort.
Everybody laughed over a cartoon theme song playing from the TV, and Kris quietly laughed along for a moment before creeping toward Noelle, hair swishing ominously. “Boo.”
Noelle shrieked.
Kris snickered.
“Meanie! Quit scaring me like that!” Noelle whined, although she was trying to stifle a laugh herself. “I’m gonna make you wear something really silly now, and I get all the jewelry. Wait—Mrs. Dreemurr, can Kris and I play dress-up with your jewelry? Mom never lets me. Ooh—and makeup! Please?”
Noelle ran over to talk to Mom, and Kris glanced back at the TV, still cycling hypnotically while Dess and Asriel chatted, one of them pressing the channel button over and over but not really paying attention to where it landed. They were probably just stalling until Mom and the little kids left the room so they could watch a scary movie or something, Kris thought.
Kris’ eyes lingered on Dess’ choppy haircut, her antlers poking up through it in a way that was effortlessly cool, even when she was just sitting around in front of the TV. In that moment, she looked like she should’ve been on the other side of the screen.
As Noelle grabbed Kris by the hand and headed upstairs, smiling victoriously at being allowed to wear jewelry (but no makeup; Mayor Holiday would throw a fit), Kris reached out and grazed the side of the box TV.
It was a promise.
That night, Kris would come back to the TV to play Super Smashing Fighters with Asriel, and the next day, everybody would come over to watch shows again, and everything would stay the same, even if the channel changed—even if Kris changed.
Kris looked back across the beige living room at Dess and her combat boots, the eyelets still reflecting the brash colors of the screen, sharp and bright.
And, for just a moment, Kris saw the shadow of that bassist, who could only ever exist on the TV, somehow impossibly brighter against it all, and resolved to make them proud.