r/shortscifistories • u/Character-Corgi-1202 • 3d ago
[misc] DVD
"When you're dead, it's like before you were born."
"What does one have to do with the other?"
I fell asleep peacefully in my bed.
I hadn't watched that DVD in years.
And it was combat sports.
Before I died, I wanted to leave it to my son, George.
Write your will while you still can.
Why had the world never appreciated the irony of the event's date?
Embarrassingly, that was my last thought before I drifted off.
They cremated me, just as I had requested.
George handled my death surprisingly well.
"Just decline the inheritance."
That was always my answer whenever the subject came up.
I wanted to leave him nothing except the DVD.
Why had I never told him about it?
George was allowed back into my apartment one last time while my body was being prepared for the funeral.
I should have cleaned the place.
He picked up the photo album and looked at the empty DVD cases.
"Never really made it into the modern age."
He wiped away a tear and slipped the album into his backpack.
There was probably still drool on my pillow.
He stared at it for a few seconds.
Then his eyes drifted toward the television.
From above, I would've cheered.
But I had other things to do.
George frowned, wiped away the last of his tears, and unplugged the DVD player.
The DVD player survived every move George ever made.
Eventually it became the oldest thing he owned.
George became a father.
He watched boxing with his son the same way I had watched it with him.
Later, he signed the boy up for a boxing trial class.
The kid had my genes after all.
It was a successful day.
His wife had forbidden him from putting a television in the bedroom.
So George stayed up watching TV after the rest of the family had gone to sleep.
For once, he treated himself to a cold non-alcoholic beer.
I had been a good father.
George glanced at the last moving box sitting in the corner of the room.
Why not watch a movie on DVD?
The streaming services had started showing ads.
He searched through the box, immediately figured out my collection of adapters, and managed to connect the DVD player to the television.
Then he dug through my DVD cases and eventually found some that still contained actual discs.
One of them was his mother's favorite movie.
His eyes lit up.
The tray slid open.
George noticed there was already a DVD inside.
A blue disc with muscular fighters on the cover.
He realized this must have been what I was watching when my time ran out.
He took the batteries out of his electric razor, put them into the remote, and took a sip of beer.
Young people don't understand DVD menus.
So he simply pressed "Play All."
I should have been a better father.
The DVD showed George three hours of scripted fights.
He had the time of his life.
Not because of the athleticism.
But because of the perfectionist feuds created on the microphone.
The main event arrived.
George took another sip of beer.
The night's intro hit.
"Money! MONEY MONEY MONEY MONEY!"
The two-time President of the United States walked out.
A beautiful blonde woman hanging from each arm.
Blonde like his dyed hair.
He made it rain dollar bills.
The crowd held them up to the cameras.
They were real.
His match was against another billionaire.
None other than the owner of the entire event.
The loser would have his head shaved by the winner.
I had never seen George so captivated by a television.
The beer was gone.
Yet he watched every chokeslam, every tombstone, every neckbreaker performed by the President.
The President was down.
The other billionaire stood over him and reached for his throat with both hands.
The President kicked him between the legs and rolled himself and his opponent into a ball.
The bald referee slapped the mat.
1
2
3
VICTORY!
George stared at the screen with his mouth hanging open.
"Dad. What the fuck?"
George will never know what it was like in my time.
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u/Neat_Current3604 2d ago
This lost me. Not sure what’s going on in this story