Oplæsningsøvelse: From rewind to rewrite

Oplæsningøvelse fra onlinekurset " Acting English"

Niveau: Svær


From rewind to rewrite

Victor Williams first saw Louise one sticky summer night in 1982, when Wham were still nobodies and compact discs were said to be unscratchable. She was a newly qualified police officer, standing in her crisp, new uniform by the kebab van on Leicester Road. Victor, twenty-three, in a thin leather tie and a mist of Brut, thought she had the most serious eyes he’d ever seen.

By the end of that year, they were married. By the end of the next, they’d opened Victor’s Videos on Walthamstow High Street. Rows of VHS tapes stood like soldiers in their battered sleeves, neon explosions and dripping horror fonts daring customers to choose. On Saturday nights queues spilled onto the pavement. Families bickered, teenage boys sniggered at the adult section on the top shelf, and Victor, with his permed hair and wispy moustache, dispensed recommendations with the solemnity of a priest.

The eighties were good to them. Louise worked shifts with the Met, Victor minded the shop, and together they believed they’d cracked the code to happiness. Outside, the world buzzed with Walkmans, Rubik’s Cubes and shoulder pads. Inside, life slowed to a ritual: browse, choose, rent, watch, rewind and repeat.

Then came the nineties. DVDs – sleek little traitors – arrived, followed by multiplex revivals with nachos and surround sound. Even Louise preferred the Odeon after a late shift.

Pirated discs sealed their fate. By 2003, Victor stood behind the counter with no one to serve, the rewinding machine ticking like a life-support monitor. The rent rose, his self-esteem sank, and finally Louise packed her bags for a younger, gym-honed colleague who had never rewound a tape in his life.

Six months later, the shutters came down for good. Victor drifted across to the Walthamstow Working Man’s Club, finding solace in darts, pints and sticky carpets. But the weight of failure lingered. The shop had been more than a business – it was his youth, his marriage, his very identity.

One Friday in 2007, a gravelly-voiced punter named Steve growled, “You gonna mope over there all night, Vic?” and pointed to a corner where cloaked figures sat rolling dice. They offered Victor a choice of wizard, ogre or elf. His long-lost smile returned to his face. “I’ll be a Viking,” he said
And so Bjorn Ironhand, raider of coasts, slayer of dragons, was born. On Friday nights, his belly didn’t sag, his beard was magnificent, and he feasted in candlelit halls. Across the table sat Vera the vampire – sixty, divorced, with a laugh that rattled pint glasses. Once a dinner lady, now a drainer of peasants’ blood between Bloody Marys. One campaign night, she took his hand. “You make a very convincing Viking, Victor.” He blushed like it was 1982 again.

Where Victor’s Videos once flickered with stories now stands a vape shop. The “Be kind, rewind” sign is long forgotten. But with dice clattering and Vera at his side, Victor knows the stories never really ended. Once, he lent them out. Now, he lives inside them.

Mvh Tommy Duus

Caster/ Branchevejleder