RIP Morley Blockbuster 1985–2019, Gone But Never Forgotten

Amy Budrikis writes short stories for the fun of it, and is part of an oddball writers group in Perth. By day she works as a research assistant on Aboriginal languages and music, and is finishing he ... [+]

They closed the last Blockbuster in Australia in March and a week later my husband died. The coroner said heart failure and I knew she was right – my husband loved that place. He went there every week. After his funeral I wanted to honor his love of Blockbuster so I pushed the old Monaro out of the driveway into the swamp across the road and set up a Blockbuster Video Rental in our garage. We didn't have any videos so I wrote the names of every movie I could find off IMDb on post-it notes and stuck them on the walls. The garage looked like a pinata. My son said I was crazy. Now he works at the front desk, which is an old chest of drawers in the garden. We're open every Friday night and people come in with their kids to browse the post-its, get their choccies from the old fridge, then go home and watch the movies on Netflix. People like to be seen making their movie selections. They like being insulted by Adrian about their choices on the way out. We've had a couple of romances spark over the foreign film section, a proposal in the rom coms next to the hot water heater, and a break-up in sci-fi over Star Wars and Star Trek. And you never get charged for overdue movies. I was employee of the month last month. I think Benny would be proud.

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