Chunghop Rm-l688 Universal Remote Manual -

Arthur set the Chunghop down on the carpet next to the manual. He didn’t put batteries back in. He didn’t wrap it in a bag. He just left it there, under the shoebox, where his father had kept it.

He turned to page one. On a whim, he dug through the closet and found the old Sharp television. He plugged it in. Static. The blue screen of oblivion. He pointed the Chunghop at it. Step 2: Hold the ‘SET’ button until the indicator light stays on. He pressed SET. The red LED blinked twice, then glowed steady. Like a heartbeat. Step 3: Enter the 4-digit code for your brand. Arthur flipped to the code list. Page 34: Sharp – 0092, 0753, 1240, 4011. He tried 0092. Nothing. 0753. Nothing. 1240. The TV flickered. The volume bar appeared on screen, sliding up and down on its own.

Arthur had just moved back into the house to clear it out. The silence was the worst part. His father, a man who filled every room with the roar of cable news and baseball, had been reduced to dust in an urn. Now, Arthur sat on the carpet where the La-Z-Boy used to be, holding the manual. Chunghop Rm-l688 Universal Remote Manual

Arthur looked down at the manual. Page 42, another scribble: His thumb hovered over the number pad. The static-man on TV reached a hand toward the glass. The Chunghop’s LED began to pulse red, faster and faster, like a panicked heart.

The LED didn’t blink. It stayed solid. Then it pulsed. Slow. Like a radar. Arthur set the Chunghop down on the carpet

“Dad?” Arthur whispered.

A small victory. He turned it back on manually. The Chunghop’s volume button worked. Then the channel changer. He flipped through the digital wasteland—infomercials, old sitcoms, a preacher shouting about the end times. He was about to toss the remote aside when he noticed a section in the manual he had never seen before. He just left it there, under the shoebox,

Arthur found the manual in a shoebox under his father’s bed, sandwiched between a broken watch and a yellowed gas bill. The cover was smudged with fingerprints: Chunghop RM-L688 Universal Remote Control – Programming Manual .

He held down SET again. The red light glowed. He punched 0-0-0-0.

The man mouthed one word: Help.

Silence.