Day 25

Part of me is relieved, as only a doting father can be. Another part, however, feels a growing concern. It’s not her behavior–my darling daughter is a bubbly, adorable infant as she should be–it’s the behavior of–well, things, around her. I still feel a dread at sharing any of this with her mother, who cannot be grieved with vague, probably unfounded worries; but I wish to write my observations, if for no other reason than to discount them with the lifetime of normalcy surely to come.

Two events stand out in my mind: a mere five or ten minutes out of the last week. How important can such a small span of time be?

First is the cat. Not the frightened one, the other one. He purrs when she does. That is to say, she does not purr, but when she is content and comfortable he purrs. He may not be in the same room, but I have tested this several times–he purrs. When her contentment ends, so does his. I have half-convinced myself that he is also more surly and irritable than normal when she is out of sorts, due to an imminent diaper change or a delayed feeding. But perhaps he simply has an affinity for his new sister. Perhaps this is not unusual, even though his behavior seems  keyed to hers even when he is out of earshot and has had no contact with her for hours.

Then there is the television. We are a simple family, with no need for cable TV or a satellite dish. We content ourselves with three computers constantly connected to high-speed internet service, a Netflix account, two personal MP3 players, some thousands of songs on hard drives, perhaps two hundred DVDs. The lack of good hockey–especially during the Stanley Cup playoffs with Vancouver involved–is a trial, to be sure, but we prefer our lifestyle, even though some might call it ascetic or even Luddite. Due to our lack of cable television, when our DVD player ceases to play discs the television eventually reverts to the random static that–as I understand it–reflects cosmic radiation, a galactic or even pan-galactic phenomenon reflected in the interstitial spaces of our quotidian entertainment schedules.

The incident, if that’s what it is, involved this static. Sam’s bassinet was, for reasons I can’t now recall, parked in front of the television for some minutes. The DVD–Mystery Science Theater 3000′s Shorts, Volume 1, I think–had finished prior to relocating her bassinet thus. The DVD player’s screen saver had been silently running for perhaps half an hour. As it does, it suddenly terminated when the DVD player automatically powered down. The television reverted to static–as I said, we are a bit old-fashioned;; this is an old-style CRT, not a modern flat-screen model–though it remained silent, a nice feature when I bought the TV back in 1999. I kept on with my activities, cleaning or something similar, while liminally noticing the switch to static out of the corner of my eye. Then some unexpected stimulus from that quarter of my visual field attracted my attention. I turned to see the static bunching and spreading… I don’t know how else to say it… as if it were waves in a pond or shifting sands in a windstorm. The waves of static fluctuated from left to right as I watched, back and forth, quickly and nearly randomly, though with a repeating pattern: back and forth, as if two wave patterns were intersecting without any system to their movement. I stared for many seconds before I saw a resonance below the television screen. My daughter, as is her wont, was waving her arms and turning her head from side to side. She happily flailed away, unaware that the static behind and above her, like an animated headstone from a low-budget futuristic movie, waved and fluctuated in time with the motion of her hands.

I watched for some minutes, unwilling to believe what I saw, but unable to look away. The spectacle ended with a scowl on little Sam’s face at the exact instant the television turned itself off–another attractive feature on a 1999 model 32-inch Philips/Magnavox set. Or I assume it turned itself off. It seemed a little too soon for that to happen, but I neglected to look at my watch.

Naturally, Alex was nowhere around. If she were, what would she think? But she was not, and what would she say if I were to tell her that perhaps her daughter can control the static pattern on the television? Or perhaps it can control her? Of course I screwed up my courage, later that day, to attempt to replicate the phenomenon, but with no repeat of the inexplicable sight I have described. The static showed no responsiveness to my daughter’s motions. I don’t know what to think, but if I were a drinking man, I might have a drink right now.