Power Button

A dark screen reflected the boy's image back at him, brown eyes, brown hair, tousled a little near the front. He also saw what was behind him, the scratchy plaid blanket stretched across the back of the couch and simply whitewall behind that. Everything was boring, flat, lifeless, powerless. The kid quickly lost interest in examining the inanimate world shown back at him. With one deft sweep of his arm, he scooped up the silver remote and, with the press of a single button, gave life to a whole new world, one overflowing with color and noise, movement and sound, science and art. Each channel was like its own nation, with its own unique identity in the world of television, and with each channel change he bunnyhopped oceans and skimmed continents. With a little pressure from his thumb, the seventeen year old flew around the planet.