I once woke up to a loud noise and bright lights, I don't remember a lot else, but I did find myself in my living room with my tv on to static.
The noise wasn't an alarm or a crash. It was a surge, almost — like every bulb in the apartment had fired at once and then kept firing. My ears were full of it. I came up out of sleep already standing, which is the part I still don't understand. I don't remember getting out of bed. I don't remember the floor under my feet. One moment I was under the blanket and the next I was in the doorway to the living room, barefoot, cold.
The room was bright in a way that had nothing to do with morning. A blue-white glare thrown off the television. It was on. No input, no channel — just static, the old kind, snow and grain rolling down the tube. But the static wasn't random. There were shapes in it. They'd pull apart and then knit themselves back together, like a face deciding whether or not to be a face. I watched it for a while before I understood I was watching it.
Under the surge there was a hum. Lower than the noise, almost a note. It came from the TV, or from the wall behind the TV, or from somewhere I couldn't point to. It was the closest thing to music I'd heard in a long time, and it made the hair on my arms stand up.
The remote was on the couch, on the other side of the room. I had not turned the set on. I did not check whether it was plugged in. I'm not sure I wanted to know. I stood there until the hum went thin and then gone, and then I went back to bed and did not open my bedroom door again that night.
In the morning the television was off. The cord was where it always was. There was no noise, no glare, no shape in the snow. Just a room. I have slept with the door closed since. I don't know what I'm keeping out, or what I'm keeping in.