The sound of the channels flipping by were rythmic. Each channel managed to fill the room with just a few syllables, words usually being cut in half before the the split second of high pitched silence that indicated the tv was tuning in to the next channel, the next story, the next little universe not all that different from the last.
There was pattern in the colors as well. The few miliseconds of graphics, hair and car commercials that bellowed out could be grouped into varying palletes that more or less followed suit across the broadcast range. The early numbered channels, the network channels, had the broadest range. From the disney blue of ABC, the sexagenarian dark-gold of CBS to the oversaturated yellow of FOX. PBS and the mexican soaps were more washed out, overexposed, probably less money. The shopping networks were overwhelmingly pastel, clean, like you'd want to buy something and eat off it like plate from Target, by Martha Stewart only its jewelry or a video-camera or a laptop with X amount of RAM.
Next came the 24/7 news channels. CNN, MSNBC, FOX-NEWS. Their graphics and hair were the most bombastic. Their oversaturated blues and reds subconsciously indicating how red-blooded and blue-collared they were. They saw things the way anyone would see things. Although CNN did employ a slight auburn hue - a more refined look that referenced the graphic design of the BBC's more worldly perspective that liberals could fantasize themselves as possessing.
Overall the colors and sounds came in numerical waves, clicks, hisses, flashes, sweeps and smiles that Glenn's senses could anticipate after having flipped through all the channels more than a dozen times in the last 10 minutes. It was around those bombastic news channels that a group of spoken morphemes caught Glenn's attention, giving the 'channel up' button a brief rest. The word or rather the letters and numbers that caught her ear were "AC-130." The story appeared nearly simultaneously on all the news channels. Apparently the military had sent this AC-130 flying gunship to destroy some terrorist stronghold somewhere in Somalia.
Glenn had heard of the AC-130 somewhere before, it might have been her husband or a coworker or a previous news story. But this time she was more interested. She watched until the story had echoed it's way from the 24/7 channels, maybe reappearing briefly once or twice on the network news. Something about imagining this airplane, this flying fortress raining expensive death from the sky had tickled something, inside her.
The phone rang. It was her husband. He was in Scottsdale, at a conference. He had planned on coming home that night. They had planned on the Olive Garden. But he decided to stay another night to "avoid traffic." Although she didn't have any evidence and would never admit it to herself, underneath she suspected him of fucking Janine, her husband's employer's business manager. She once caught Janine flipping her hair in front of Glenn's husband at a company barbeque back in march, back when her guilt over the cellulose build up in her thighs had reached a peak. Of course Glenn didn't admit any of this to herself, these thoughts of her husband fucking Janine the business manager were still more feelings that had yet to manifest into words she spoke to herself.
So she pushed it away.
And she thought about something else.
Something that felt strangely good to think about. Something more powerful than her weight problems or her husband's job.
The Lockheed AC-130 gunship. This beast of a machine was so big and powerful and expensive. It is 97 ft 9 in long. It has a wingspan of 132 ft 7in. It has a takeoff weight of 155,000lbs and can hold a crew of 13. 13 uniformed men, inside a big, lethal, flying $190 million phallus. The more Glenn imagined, the more it made her quiver.
It felt like looking up porn.
Which Glenn had never done, except one time with a previous boyfriend but she didn't really like it and so she had forbade her husband from looking at it although she knows he still does because she finds "HORNY TEENS FUCKING, SHAVED PUSSY, LIVE WEBCAMS" in the browser history every other time she goes to bed before he does.
But this felt good. It wasn't porn, it only felt like it. It wasn't sexual, but strangely it most definitely was. She was on image search, looking at pictures of those big rotund enforcers of judeo-christian justice. Pictures of them firing tracers at night brought her heartbeat up. She went to wikipedia:
"These heavily armed aircraft incorporate side-firing weapons integrated with sophisticated sensor, navigation and fire control systems to provide targeted firepower or area saturation while spending long periods flying over their target area at night and in adverse weather. The sensor suite consists of a television sensor,
infrared sensor, and
radar. These sensors allow the gunship to visually or electronically identify friendly ground forces and targets in most conditions. The AC-130U is equipped with the
AN/APQ-180, a
synthetic aperture radar for long-range target detection and identification. The gunship's navigational devices include the
inertial navigation systems and
Global Positioning System. The AC-130U employs technologies developed in the
1990s and can attack two targets simultaneously."
The thought of one of these big birds blowing bricks, boards and shrapnel through the shit holding entrails of some ragheads in the desert made her reconsider her aversion to self pleasure.
She finished up on youtube. Slept really well that night. And the next night went to the Olive Garden with her husband as they had planned.