Phoenix's Word

Sometimes, I lie awake at night afraid of death. I know, a weird way to start things off, but it’s true. I can’t help but stare at my ceiling, wondering what I’m fighting for, or why I’m fighting to begin with. At one point, I even ended up getting out of bed in the middle of the night just to call one of my family members from across the state. I don’t care, I needed to talk about it. Your thoughts can drive you to doing nutty things sometimes, if that’s even a good word to use. 
I found something that made me think, though. A little too hard. Not just about my life crisis, but so many other things. I don’t know whether to be scared or disgusted.
I’m in my late forties and I like to go urban exploring on a weekly basis. I own a nifty little Facebook page where I share my findings, travels, etcetera. One place I really wanted to visit but I had to save up for was Wimpstone, Warwickshire. The original location for the Teletubbies show set. I’m not the biggest fan of the characters or how they act, but I did think their designs and the overall setting was quite charming. I know that the original set is practically just a small body of water with unmown grass now, all because the original owner got tired of tourists plaguing the place, but it’s nice to look back on history. 
Part of the reason why I wanted to go there was because the idea was given to me by my cousin. This may come as sudden information, but he used to work in the production crew for the show. He told me a thing or two about his experiences working on the set. Such as when the original show ended in 2001, the original costumes worn by the actors were stolen, and all they had left was Noo-Noo, the vacuum cleaner. This resulted in the main characters having to be remade from the ground up for the 2015 reboot. This is important, please keep this in mind for later.
Anyways, I managed to get plane tickets to England after so much saving up. I was really excited to get there, and get a little townhouse to dwell in. There was a crying baby screeching in my ear, but it was worth it to get here. When I made it to the location, it was as you’d expect: a small, circular pond, accompanied by St. Augustine grass upon numerous hills. Beautiful. I just wanted to lie down and stare at the cloudy sky. 
That’s when I saw something off in the distance. A trailer, hidden within the trees surrounding the area. Strange. My best guess was that it would have belonged to someone in the production crew. I went over to where it was, cracking twigs and breaking leaves with every step, until I finally approached the trailer. The smell was absolutely foul, and it almost made me not want to go in, but then I realized: it’s probably been sitting there for decades. Of course it would smell like year-old kimchi.
I stepped in, and while it was very moldy, dusty, and dimly lit in most of the area, I spotted something. It was a small rack of standard VHS tapes, all labeled, stacked like Jenga blocks. They looked old, but I still wondered if they worked. Would make for some interesting souvenirs, indeed. I ended up taking them with me back to my rental townhouse after exploring for a bit more, taking pictures and whatnot. 
Cut to now, two weeks later. I skimmed through some of the tapes with the help of an old Panasonic in my basement. Most of the tapes consisted of various test reels, early recordings, bloopers, the stuff you’d expect. However, I did find a few with no labels. Most of them were empty, all except for one. 
It had no label. No warning, right off the bat.
I stuck the tape in and waited. The startup was very jittery, but the film eventually showed up after a short wait. Up came the usual setting for a Teletubbies episode, except the grass was untrimmed, meaning that this would’ve been shot sometime after the show ended. Shots of the Tubbies’ home showed on-screen as the sound of birds tweeting filled my TV’s speakers. There was no music. It was quite delightful… until the next scene came. 
The automatic doors of the Teletubbies’ home opened up, and out came Tinky Winky, slowly limping outside as if he broke his femur. He made weird, straining grunts as he hobbled. The strangest part about how he looked was that his face looked wrinkly, but not very detailed wrinkles, like if they were carved in. They looked drawn on with a marker, or Sharpie. 
He started lamely walking up a hill, groaning as he did so, before eventually falling on his bottom and looking up at the sky. The camera cut to his face. He looked sad, somewhat forlorn about something. He looked like he wasn’t happy with living, or himself. It reminded me of how I was in my past, more particularly my late thirties. 
That’s when the view cut to a shot of the Sun. You know how the Sun has a baby face stamped on it with after-effects in the actual show? Well, here, the Sun had the face of a mature woman. I’m positive she wasn’t the original actor for that baby based on my research after this occurrence, and the stories my cousin shared with me. Tinky Winky sighed and whimpered, before looking back up at the Sun.
The Sun Baby, or in this case, Sun Woman, began to speak to him. It was slightly echoed, but coherent enough to hear.
“Poor thing. You’re frightened, aren’t you?”
Tinky Winky nods.
“You’re afraid of what will come next, do you?”
Tinky Winky sniffs, looking like he just realized how long it took for him to walk up that hill. The sheer speed he had going up there to look at the Sun made him want to regress, or go back in time to be young again.
“I understand how you feel, my dear. You could pass on in the next year, day, or even minute, but I can assure you, your life was not created in vain. You were put on this precious earth to make people laugh, and cry, tears of hope.”
Tinky Winky’s eyes widened slightly. Past scenes from the show involving Tinky Winky and his friends began to fade into view in various transparent shots as the Sun spoke.
“Look around you. If your life was in vain, you wouldn’t have been given these gorgeous fields, or this entertaining little home of yours… or your friends. Think of them.”
Tears seemed to flow down Tinky Winky’s eyes, presumably from eye drops given behind the scenes. The Sun sighed gently.
“My child, live your life to your very fullest. That's what I did, up until I was two.” 
Tinky Winky’s belly-vision thingamajig came on, and static erupted from it. Startled, he quickly looks down at his belly as the camera zooms into the static. Up came some rather real security footage. What showed up was something I really didn’t expect, and I don't ever want to see it again.
A large ballroom, possibly for a religious event, with a toddler running all over the place. Certain props were placed around the area, like small crosses, an offering box, things to keep the offering table lit up, stuff that would probably be found at this type of party. The child seemed happy and carefree… until her dress met a candle. 
The adults around her were focused on their own conversations, up until she started screaming when she was fully engulfed in the flames. By the time they were jumping in to help her, it was too late, as her panicking caused her to run into a table, and bottles of alcohol toppled over, pouring onto her. Her skin burned up, and the smoke detector began to go off. The fire quickly spread, with one lady in particular screaming and crying her lungs out the most out of anyone there.
The footage then cut to static and zoomed out of Tinky Winky’s stomach. A moment of silence came about, with Tinky Winky and the Sun sharing a stare. The purple Teletubby would then sigh, and lie on his back, looking up at the sky with a tired look. 
“Now you know the true answer. Its real importance.” 
Tinky Winky slowly shut his eyes, and he didn’t move afterward. The camera would cut to a side view of him lying against the grass. The other Teletubbies, those others being Dipsy, La-La, and Po, would limp towards him like he did earlier, and inspect what was going on. They all would get on their knees, with Po gently shaking him, trying to wake him up. 
Upon realizing Tinky Winky wasn’t alive, they all began to let out soft whimpers. Quiet cries. As the Teletubbies were mourning over the passing of their dear friend, the Sun’s voice could be heard, one last time.
“Your next life will be great. You’ll grow, and find some new friends, I’m sure of it. I love you. Rest in pea-”
With that, the video began to distort, and the Sun’s dialogue would cut off there. I was terrified with what I had just watched, and I couldn’t help but put my head in my hands. That’s when I heard a noise come from my VHS player. The tape was rapidly unraveling, stripping itself apart to the point where it became ruined. I tried to save it, as I would’ve been able to show the police what I had just seen, but I was too late. Despite my self-loathing for not being able to get the tape out in time, it made sense. It was indeed old and probably damaged too.
I had so many questions nailing through my brain at once. Was this what the stolen costumes were used for? Who was that lady who voiced the Sun? Was this meant to be an actual, genuine lesson compared to what is actually shown in the Teletubbies? Why did they leave the tape in that trailer of all places? However, none of those questions came close to the one I had on my mind for a hot minute.
Where and how could they have gotten that security footage?
Category:Lafawnda's Reading Hour
Category:Teletubbies
Category:Death
Category:VHS