Nothing but a dream - it's not on TV, and so it isn't real; there is no smell but the sweet perfume of Natalie, no feeling but the touch of Richard down the wife's face, no extra heat except the warmth of a family together. The sound of the fire alarm is drowned out by the soft whispers of Britney and the captivation of America by the new media. And so a house burns, 4 people die, they call it suspicious but they can't find the guy. You can't find what you can't see and he knows it.

He knew the calling well, because he answered it for 7 years. He had a beautiful blonde wife and two lovely children. But they were on separate channels: she was a Channel 1 blonde, he was a man of the black industry. They met in high school, when tolerance and racial equality were the norm. They grew up through college and were married in 2007, and when Britney came for them, she welcomed them with open arms. Then as her grip tightened, she pulled his lovely wife and children away from him. She started accusing him of being a thief and a liar, and took his kids to her mothers. But she still sang to him, and he still listened, and so he drowned his sorrow in a labor that was all-inclusive and gave him no time to think about what he lost.

And then came the cold water that awakened him from his ignorant dream and into this current madness. One day two white men came within an inch of running him down. He had to jump back into the bushes to miss them. Then he tried to cross again, the light with him, and someone ran the red, as if the street was clear. He didn't understand quite that well. It was 2015 and the Chinese War had separated the races: the whites fought in the trenches, the blacks made all their tools of the trade. But despite this he thought whites were aware of blacks' existence. He tested his theory and stole a purse from a white woman in broad daylight. She just kept walking, her arm still wrapped around a purse string that didn't exist, and no one made any outcry. He no longer wanted to be a slave in the ghetto so he freed himself and worked as a thief.

And then he saw how helpless they were. As he pillaged invisibly, he saw how captivated the family was, how wrapped up the program had them, how they never took their eyes off the screen. And he had an idea. He looked at the stove, and turned on all the burners without lighting the pilot, letting the house fill with the stink of gas. They smelled nothing and felt nothing as their house exploded when they took their post-programming cigarettes before the news.

He tracked this fascination with TV for weeks, noting the best time to strike, between 10-11, when their minds were most saturated with programming, but before the news sharpened their senses with rage and hatred.

He struck again, this time in his own ghetto. Nothing was manned during primetime, so he slipped into the building and each apartment, stealing all the clothes and rags he could find. He placed them strategically and lit them ablaze, causing a four-alarm fire. The whites barely responded and his own people had to resort to a deadly primitive bucket brigade. After that he realized his own people were innocent, and only attacked whites from that point on.

He visited a supermarket to pick up supplies, and then he noticed a sameness. Everyone walked the aisles in the same way, stopped halfway through to gossip in the same places. Their only differences in choice seemed to come more from where their cart landed in the middle of the aisle. Two inches one way meant beef stroganoff, two inches the other way meant tuna casserole. All seemed to point beyond normalcy and to a newer evil, an evil he couldn't place. But he knew what he saw: every woman the same, white blouse, black skirt, black heels, blonde hair. All pushed their carts the same way, all picked up their food and read the branding the same way and smiling. He picked up some matches and bags of fertilizer and he got a strange look from the checker.

"Gonna have a green lawn or are you going to burn up some dykes?" he said.

The hatred made him burn with more passion, yet he saw an innocence in this evil. And now he is back to the present, another fire burning brightly, another family permanently etched into their television. He runs and then smiles again. He senses accomplishment in his destruction.

The Chinese War was raging and with each day his morbid task got easier and easier as the television drew them deeper and deeper into the sameness. He now could time to the exact second when to strike the match, the time when the people were most under, the time when the people were numb to the heat, could not smell the gas or smoke, see the flames, or hear the fire alarms. 10:45:10 - the perfect moment, the climax of the high drama, the one that seared the highest levels of hate into the brains of the captive audience. They know nothing but what is on the screen, he's seen it with his own eyes. Any later and they are being primed for the news, their senses sharpened with the hate that was just planted in the hours before. 10:45:10 - the match strikes and the fuse is lit; seconds later the fire engulfs the building, and minutes later the house collapses, killing anyone inside it. He noticed that the fire department has stopped responding until 11:00. No call to 911 is made before that time, because no one can see anything until then; all they see is Natalie, and it is she who leads the victims to Heaven as the flames of Hell rise all around them.

The fire within - it burns with rage and cools with understanding. He realizes that they no longer know what they do. All the lynching, the gluttony, the hatred, the God-fearing- none of it is them. But he cannot stop, the sameness is too great, but he cannot kill people he now knows are innocent. So he does the next best thing. On his way to Canada, he sets a fire in the forest, one that consumes more than people. The northern hills burn; no people are harmed, but they endure a year's worth of suffering trying to put it out. Lost trees, burned wildlife, threats but no actions to nearby houses, maybe more will be lost...

After all, between 8-11, no one is there to put it out.