The Glitter Jungle:
Fiction:
Ecto
A Circle of Modern Life
She crawled out of the television set in a cloud of ectoplasm. A little girl with dark hair and big, empty eyes. Looked around in awe at the brand new world before her. On shaky legs she took step after step, advancing into the living room and dripping ectoplasm wherever she went. It was kinda gooey. Left spots on the carpet.
We treated her like one of the family, like she was our own. When she cleaned off her ghost goo, she looked almost like a normal human girl. We sent her to school, and she came back talking about boys and hair and pop music.
She grew up, got herself a job and a career after university. Got a place and a TV set she could call her own. We never talked about where she came from, and turned the carpet upside down so you can't see the stains. She never asked, anyway.
When we'd visit her, she'd turn off the telly but sometimes talk to us about her favourite soap or the latest in daytime drama. She also watched the teen shows the WB had to offer. It was cool; not creepy. Just like all people. Mom and dad said she didn't watch any more TV than the other kids in the family. It was all normal.
With the years we drifted apart a little. Families do. We met at weddings and births and birthdays and funerals, and sometimes talked on the phone. Mom and dad got older, we all did. Some of us had families of our own, some didn't yet. She used to talk to my sister a lot more often than she did to me; they liked the same kind of reality shows, that I didn't care for much.
Last we heard from her, it was her roommate who called my mother in panic. She said they were watching this conspiracy type documentary about supernatural phenomena and parallel dimensions and laughing, when she got up to get drinks and sort of went by the TV and "disappeared", said the roommate. We all rushed down to her place and looked around. There was ectoplasm around the television.
The roommate had a nervous breakdown after that. Mom and dad grieved, but not like they lost a child; not like they would when someone died, but like they did when someone moved to another state. We didn't know where she was, but like mom said,
"She went back home."