Weekly Challenge #897 – Old Videos

I blew up a bit in this one... leave a comment to let the writers know if you liked their stories.

• Richard
• Lizzie
• Lisa
• Serendipidy
• Tura
• Norval Joe
• Planet Z

The next topic is Riot Of Color

RICHARD

Old Videos

Tucked away at the back of the wardrobe, I’ve several boxes, stuffed full of old videos.

I’ve had them boxed up for around twenty years now, and they’ve followed me through at least three house moves, carefully packed up, transported, and put away in their new home.

Why have I kept them?

Through some vague sense, of ‘I might want to watch them, one day’? Not that I’ve anything to play them on anyway.

And the fact is, I’ve not watched any of them in the last twenty years, and probably never will.

But I keep them.

Just in case.

TURA

Old Videos
———
I have a stack of VHS tapes I’ve never got around to watching. I still have a VCR, but I never have the time. I could convert them to digital files, but my video to USB converter is so old it’s not compatible with my current OS. I could replace it, but when will I find time to do the conversion? Will I ever watch them anyway?

If I put this off too long, the tapes will degrade and won’t be playable at all. Then at last I’ll be able to dump them.

Maybe I should just dump them now.

LISA

Something Nasty in the Woodshed

Me and Simon had only gone round to help Fay next door clear the attic. Her husband had died a month ago, him and Dad had been as thick as thieves. She was moving somewhere smaller.

There were boxes of old video tapes up there with dates and girls names on. We’d seen the documentaries so joked about our serial killer neighbour.

After unearthing an old player we stopped for lunch and watched a video. It was much worse than we suspected. And it looked like he buried them in their garden.

“Fuck!” said Simon “is that your Dad digging?”

SERENDIPIDY

There are old videos of life in the village: Life before the calamity.

Grainy, blurred videos in washed out colour of picnics on the village green, laughing toddlers at the playground, couples, friends, families happy and relaxed, without a care in the world.

There’s even the odd wedding video.

Good times. Nobody could ever have imagined the horror that was to come.

It was a fine spring day, late in June. The sun was shining, and people were going about their business, blissfully unaware of what was coming their way.

For that was the day I arrived at the village.

LIZZIE

“Come on. It’s starting,” I said. Old videos and popcorn!
But... I had forgotten. Our old videos don’t go with popcorn. They go with sorrow.
“Say cheese for the camera,” they would say cheerfully.
We never did, no.
“Don’t be so grumpy all the time, you two.”
We were kids. We weren’t grumpy. We weren’t stupid. We weren’t shitheads. We were just kids.
Memory is such a trickster, isn’t it? It erases everything.
And here I was, in front of the TV, a bowl full of popcorn on my lap.
I wanted to cry, but I had no tears left.

NORVAL JOE

The woman seemed surprised by Billbert’s request for a back exit. Then she smiled and led them past a rack of dusty VHS movies for rent, through a door and into what appeared to be the woman’s home. A chunky man in a sleeveless t-shirt and gray slacks, sitting at a dining table didn’t look up from his newspaper as they traipsed past.
A back door led them to a wooden porch, forty feet above the placid Matole river.
The woman nodded to some stairs. “These will take you to a trail along the river, if that’s what you want.”

PLANET Z

Old Man Pinella sits in his home theatre, watching videos of the band.
Jason on guitar, Billy on bass, Joe on keyboards, and Wally on drums.
And then there was Vicky... oh, how she could sing.
The crowd was spellbound... after every song, silence.
And then the loudest applause and cheering and shouting.
The last video ends, and Pinella sits in the dark.
Remembering the band coming backstage, roadies packing up the equipment, and Pinella handing out plane tickets.
“I’ll see you in Chicago,” Pinella said to the dark screen.
He sips his coffee, and walks out of the theatre.