True Love

Reality TV

It was a hot Sunday afternoon and there were two men in an ABC channel office. The situation was pretty tense. An uncomfortable silence was swooping around. The new year was drawing near and the ABC had not got yet a new TV programme to compete with its rival, the NBC network. The president suddenly said ‘I’m going to have “true love” and you’re going to help me’. Smith stood perplex at that proposal. ‘True love’ was a new reality show to find a match that had been quite a success in Britain, but the English network had refused to sell it. By no means was the BBC going to give away their precious possession. And that precious possession was what the ABC needed to lead the competition ratings. The president’s eyes glittered; but Smith thought that it would not be possible, unless they paid a load of money – money they did not have. Besides he knew that if he could not convince the BBC executives and bring “True love” with him he would lose his job.

Insecure about his success, Smith went to the airport to catch a flight to England. At his arrival he felt his blood thicken, his body became heavier and heavier; he was seeing double and blurred. There was nothing more stressful than, being so high above Earth, so far from the ground where he felt safe. He had tried everything: hypnosis, pills, therapy groups and nothing had worked; it was looking through a video camera that made him feel a kind of relief. Looking at the world through an LCD screen seemed more like TV than reality, and that soothed him. He was still attending the therapy group, though, where he showed what he had filmed in his flights so the other members would get used to flying watching video tapes. He hesitated. He was in front of the airport entrance. One step behind hell. He turned on the camera and started to record. He moved on, sweating fear and horror; and in he checked in and boarded the plane. He sat motionless, still clutching the camera. He breathed nervously. The plane started to move, it was gaining speed. He clutched to the seat, closed his eyes and waited.

The plane shook. His heart nearly stopped. He peeped through the camera; the plane was neither on the ground not in the air. Deaf and blinded by panic, he did not hear the other passengers’ yells. The plane was slowly sinking in the middle of the Ocean.

Everyone around him was desperate. Mass hysteria was taking over children and women, youths and grown-ups. Nobody could escape the panic. Meanwhile Smith was lay fainted on the seat with the camera still recording.

When he came round he was in a hospital bed with the camera at one side and the ABC president at the other. He said ‘Maybe you didn’t get me “True love” but the thing you have in that camera of yours will really make our ratings explode.

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