Obsolescence by Alan Lastufka

Author:Alan Lastufka
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781959565024
Publisher: Shortwave Media

DISC ROT

ADAM CESARE

It’s like dust, but it isn’t dust.

And it’s all over everything.

Everything the old man’s got on the two folding tables.

Happy Meal toys. Incomplete board games, their boxes held closed with rubber bands. A tangled-up mess of landline phones. And movies. So many movies.

And some of the movies are gems. I can tell at only a glance.

A lot of junk, but some nice stuff tucked in there too. Rarities.

So I stand here, wanting to make a purchase.

But. . .

But everything the old man’s selling is covered with this. . . dust that’s not dust. I run my finger along the spine of a DVD, to see if any of these cases are salvageable, and the residue does come off, cakes on my fingertip. Which is good. I can clean whatever I buy, don’t have to swap the inserts out into new cases.

I look at the chalky, fungal powder on my index finger. It doesn’t have much of a smell. Which is good, because it looks like crumbled blue cheese.

So not-dust. Should I call it slime? No, slime’s too wet a word. It’s more like a powder it—

“They’re not pretty, but they all work. I promise.”

I look up at the old man. He blinks at me, little mole eyes. Then smiles, which makes me less comfortable, not more. None of his Happy Meal Toy profits are going to dentistry.

“And if they don’t work, I’m here every Saturday. Just bring ‘em back. I’ll refund you or swap them.”

Getting to this flea market is a forty-five minute drive. I doubt I’m coming back to make exchanges.

I nod. Try and smile. I’ve never been good at social stuff.

When I was younger, in school, I did okay. Went to parties, had girlfriends, even talked one into being my wife for a while. But I started losing my hair at twenty-eight and now, in my late thirties, most people I meet think I’m in my fifties and find my presence off-putting.

Which is fine, I don’t care, I. . .

“Are there prices?” I ask, picking up a copy of an Adam Sandler comedy. It’s a very common disc, not worth the price of the recycled plastic. But I don’t want to immediately reach for the good stuff and give myself away.

“They’re all three-for-five. Get more and we can do deals.”

My smile comes easier now.

“Great, thanks,” I say, and get to work.

I open each case, check that the right movie’s inside, then hold the surface of the disc up to the sun. Which, if the old guy thinks I’m being too particular, too precious, he gives no indication.

And I’m not checking for scratches and fingerprints, like he probably assumes.

Fingerprints can be buffed. And scratches, unless major, are never really an issue.

What you have to inspect for is disc rot.

Spots on the disc where the information layer’s begun to degrade. It’s rare, but, some discs, you hold them up to the sun and they look like a slice of Swiss, irregular pockmarks of rot where the light comes through the plastic easier, the result of the thin metal data layer becoming compromised.

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