 As best as I can recall, I found the old VHS tape in a cardboard box on someone's front lawn. The yard sale signs had pointed me there, and since I'm big on finding cool old junk without paying extortionately the prices. I was game. The box was marked 25 cents, but just to show how much of a cheapskate I was, I had to ask. 25 cents each, or for the whole box. The book read and shot me a glare, then her expression softened. Well, that's my jerk ex-boyfriend's crap, but I'm not an idiot. I rummaged around in the moldy smelling, slightly damp container. Nothing seemed that interesting. There were a few dusty action figures I didn't recognize and a Nintendo controller wiggits cord stripped and frayed. Then, my aunt found something hard and square, something brick like hit the bottom of it all. Sib's video. That's what was written in thick, red marker on the VHS tape's star-quite label. I asked the redhead. Who the hell has a VCR anymore? I did, but there was no reason for her to know that. I don't know. I told you, that's my ex's crap. Said? I asked, not really intending anything by that. No. She replied. And how is that any of your business? I'll give you a dime. I reached into my pocket and extracted the coin. Just to see what this is, the redhead got up from the rainbow lawn chair she'd been inhabiting, stormed over to me until we were nearly nose-to-nose, and took the tape from my hand with a rude yank. Just as suddenly, she threw the tape to the sidewalk and mashed it in with one hippo's top. Black plastic trapknoll shot up a few inches from the pavement. It's all yours. She mumbled, storming away once more. For a few moments, I stood there in a bit of shock. Then slowly, carefully, I retrieved the mashed casing from the ground. Thanks a bunch. I passive-aggressively called out to the yard sale meanie. Honestly, the thought crossed my mind that Sid's video might somehow, some way, be footage of the girl herself. You know, in a bit of a compromising position. It was a long shot, totally unlikely, but it occurred to me that leaving the tape there would be letting pride overtake my interest in the item. Besides, even if it wasn't smut, it could have been something strange. I was a big fan of strange at that point. I put the video aside for a while, thinking that at some point, when I had nothing better to do, I would see if there was any point in trying to save it. There are tons of things around my house, tons of broken, weird things, that I intend to get to someday. The video fell by the wayside, just another piece of clattering on orders' paradise. Then came the night I decided to re-watch a film. Jogs. I popped the VHS tape into the VCR, both of which I'd had since childhood, having taken them, along with other videos, when I left my parents' house long prior. The classic opening scene, the steady build-up, I'd always loved the movie. It wasn't until the end that I noticed something strange. You know how it ends. We all know how it ends. Jogs ends up with an oxygen tank in its mouth, then boom, a single bullet detonates it along with the evil monster shark. Not this time. Roy Skeeter took the fateful shot, and missed. I was quiet for a second as my mind took in this change. Before I could even register what had just happened, that something impossible had occurred, my eyes were already following the ongoing footage. Jogs worked the tank out of its razor-toothed dog. The ship continued to sink. The shark slowly, agonizingly devoured Skeeter and he kicked, flailed, and screamed bloody murder. It wasn't supposed to end this way. He shrieked seconds before the teeth clamped down and pierced his lungs. Only a bloody gurgle issued forth after that. The Richard Gryff has surfaced. Oh, God. Richard said sickly, already exhausted from the ordeal he'd suffered previously. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. That dreaded fin sliced through the waves, and Richard disappeared under the surface. He only reappeared once after that, one bloody eyeball dangling from a fresh gash in the side of his face. With a quick, quiet splash, he was conaganned. The video played on four minutes on end. Just sparkling waves, open water, a long shot of empty sea. There were no credits, no closing theme, nothing. I watched, perplexed and terrified, until the tape ran out and the loud roar of static overtook the screen. My thoughts ranged from, what the fudge, to, how the fudge. I studied the Jaws cassette for any signs of anything. It looked the same as it always had, right down to the mysterious stain that marked its label since the early 90s. Someone, I concluded, must have switched the tape out while I'd been away. Never mind the how or why, especially since there was no how or why. I was sure this had to be the case since there was no other logical explanation. Testing this theory, I returned to the shelf that displayed my video collection. Pushing aside Sid's video, I retrieved my copy of the fifth filament. It happened again, and again it was at the end. The film is a bit obscure, so I've elaborate for those who haven't seen it. In brief, a needle planet is hurtling toward Earth. If it reaches Earth, everyone dies. It should come as no surprise to you that the good guy's winning and the bad guy's lose. The evil planet is destroyed before impact. Or rather, it was until now. I made the mistake of watching the entire movie all the way through, expecting to see differences elsewhere in the story. I got into the story and nearly forgotten by I was watching until the change came. The fifth filament, that white light of creation, didn't activate. The crucial character died of her injuries, died in Bruce Willis's arms, and while he wept, the world ended. First, the evil planet collided with Earth. The film switched to a pulled-back shot of the impact, then focused in on different characters. The main cast laws obliterated since they stood at ground zero. They were immediately reduced to black and ash. Every other character, no matter how inconsequential, was shown burning to death in gory detail. Ugly dressed stortices and armor-heavy police screamed in terror as wave after wave of searing heat battered their carcasses against the ravaged space-age landscape. I watched, again until the tape ran out, as the Earth itself crumbled. It was the same with every tape I tried. The end, ended with Ripley dying from acid exposure. Batman, the Tim Bourbon version, closed in the motionless face of Bruce Wayne, a lethal joker venom twisting his face into a pale grin. Movie after movie, bad ending after bad ending, it was all the same. Even TV shows and concerts I'd recorded in my youth had been altered. A 90s Metallica show closed with the bandstand collapsing on the group. The audience, fleeing from the carnage, trampled itself into a crimson paste. It didn't take me much longer to realize what you've most likely caught on to. Sib's video. Silently, just as carefully as I'd first scooped up the broken tape, I removed it from the shelf and began ticking over the cracked surface. Somehow, I knew that this object was the cause of this strange occurrence. Working meticulously, I glued together the bits I could, and taped up the rest. In the end, I was left with an incredibly ugly, yet functional VHS tape. Well, Sid. I said to no one in particular, let's see what this is all about. It was a cartoon. A strange cartoon. The entire video was just this little cartoon guy walking across an ever-ending loophole by Delix scenery. The same identical scene repeated itself throughout. Well, that's not entirely true. Every so often, a flicker of static or horizontal roll brought on by the damage had a strange effect on the scene. Sid would jump, and I don't mean jump like the picture would shift. He actually jumped in surprise, his tiny brown shoes leaving the cartoon soil. When the screen would roll suddenly, he seemed to wobble as if he wasn't steady on his feet. Nothing seemed to get him down, however, as the little man continued walking on after every jolt. Are you Sid? I asked, again really addressing no one. Now I was the one who jumped, as the little man stopped in his tracks, turned to look directly at me, and gave a jolly wave. Hi there. Came a happy little voice from the television speakers. The next few days were a stand in a haze of morbid curiosity. I dug up every movie I owned. VHS tapes, DVDs, anything. I threw in a few music CDs and tapes as well, just to see what happened. I figured out that leaving the videos next to or on top of the broken tape had much the same effect across the board. Shaun of the Dead, for example, was a little less funny when he and his girlfriend had their throats ripped out by the ravenous zombie hordes. The music remained completely unchanged, however, which was felt a little disappointing. It's absurd to think I actually felt cheated when I found no effect there. The weirdest video by far had to be Adore the Explorer DVD I picked up in a thrift store binge. I figured that said, if that was the little guy in the infinite paradise might have a more interesting effect on another cartoon. I'd never seen Adore the Explorer before that night, but I made sure to watch every episode all the way through, so I'd know enough to spot any small tweaks. Imagine my surprise when those tweaks stood out like a sore thumb. The show apparently revolves around several life or death situations where Adore will turn to the viewing audience and ask the children what she should do. Kids' voices scream the answer like good little step-forward brats, and Adore continues on her mad quests. This time, however, there was no help to be found. Adore hung from a cliff surge and looked toward the imaginary camera. How can I get off of this place? She asked. There was no answer. She stared blankly, out of the scream, her expression never changing from that slight smile. How can I get off of this place? She inquired again, no more frantic than she had been before. How can I get off of this place? A few of her fingers loosened as fatigue started overtaking her small form. How can I get off of this place? How can I get off of this place? How can I get- Her hand slipped. She dropped like a stone. Her expression remained hung, capped, as the footage followed her all the way to the Rocky Valley floor. She landed with a gruesome bounce and laid still. Cartoon blood pooled around the child's broken body. The rest of the DVD beyond that episode was affected just as clearly. Every following episode consisted of shifting backgrounds and a myriad of wild animals who would walk on screen, stand there dimly, then wander back off. There was no main character. There was no Dora. I have to say that looking back on things, I feel almost privileged to have seen the episode where Jerry falls from his apartment window and lands directly on George. Similarly, watching a version of Finding Nemo, where Nemo's never born, and his father, Marlon, committed suicide. It was really intriguing. It seems that fish have a tough time with that sort of thing, but he managed. For your information, Breaking Bad is an entirely different experience when Walter and Jesse are gruesomely murdered at the end of the first episode. I want to say everyone is a lot happier from then on, but unfortunately they all met and timely ends of their own as well. By season four, it was just a series of vacant-set sandbuss, was running a chicken restaurant until he died screaming in a sudden grease fire. I was kind of enjoying it. Call me what you will, think whatever you want, but I felt like I'd stumbled across something special that one cheap find of something priceless that I'd always been looking for. Still, I wanted to see more, to know more. What else could I do though? How else could I test the effects of this dark, funny little tape? I was reading through TV died when I realized what my next step would be. Sleepy Hollow, a new fantasy slash horror show, was premiering that night. I removed the DVD player and replaced with the VCR once more. Then, I put Sid's video into the machine. I pressed record. My mind raced, along with my pulse, as the little red light blinked. I was recording over Sid's tranquil environment, and I couldn't wait to see what would happen. Sure, maybe the whole thing would come to an end, but it was just as likely I'd discover some new trick he could do. The screen flickered. A fleeting burst of static interrupted the show. Was it the video, or just a glitch in the network's transmission? Flicker. Static. Before long, I was sitting in front of a violent strobe light off chaotic, hissing noise. Characters on screen were shot, slaughtered, beheaded, and I wasn't sure if that was supposed to happen or if something was being changed with, right in front of my eyes. Then, characters who had been killed started appearing again, only to quickly suffer more gruesome and cruel fates. Characters would stumble on screen with missing limbs, gaping holes in their torsos, heads ripped open and bones exposed. It was never the same twice as the sickening slideshow unfolded before me. Finally, when I could bear no more of the sickening, senseless mess, the screen cut to black. Stark, empty, endless black. Though the room was relatively dark, a chill washed over me as I noticed no reflection on the screen. Leaning forward on the couch, I picked out a small pinpoint of white on the otherwise dark screen. It was as if one single pixel had remained when all around it disappeared into nothingness. The light grew. Soon, I could make out a form dimly looked by a glowing, pulsating square beside it. As the figure came closer, that fuzzy glow illuminated its silhouette. Its feet hovered well off the ground, or the darkness where the ground would be. Its limbs seemed not the end contorted, like those of a corpse. The figure's head lulled to one side, and the square of light that traveled with it seemed to float just a few inches by its side. The figure stopped, as it nearly took up the entirety of the screen. The shimmering square seemed to display its own contained span off-static. Thinking it was clearly time to remove Sib's video and get rid of it, I turned on the lamp next to me. As soon as the light filled the room, it also illuminated the figure on the screen. It was as if that light had pierced the television glass itself and cast an immediate and horrible beam across that face. That wretched, wormy and desiccated face, its missing eyes shitted by tattered lids, its shallow tiffed mouth pulled back in a postmortem grin. Now I could make out the object it had arrived with, another television set, its wires weaving in and out of the cadaver's flesh. Its screen now displayed the same image I was viewing, a smaller corpse, a smaller television, and on that screen, another identical copy of the grim site. The levitating corpse raised one-sided, withered hand, the skin on its arm crackling and tearing as it did so. Its mouth, however, did not move. Hi there.