TIMMINS, ON – Local man, Mark Mcphee, discovered an unmarked VHS tape while packing his recently deceased father’s belongings, a tape which he claims to be not worth the risk of attempting to watch.
George McPhee, 77, died last Tuesday after a heart attack, leaving an ominously unlabeled video tape hidden within a makeshift compartment above his closet.
“There’s no way I’m watching that thing,” citing the inherent risk that the content may shatter the treasured memory of his beloved father.
“I love my father. I had so much respect for him. But this tape could easily ruin all of that. It would be like him dying all over again.”
Given McPhee’s mother’s passing five years ago, no one in his immediate family could give an explanation for what the mysterious tape might be, which his father took obvious pains to conceal it’s potentially horrendous contents.
Speculation that the tape may contain anything from a heartfelt confession, to a VCR recording of CNN’s Year 2000 New Year’s Eve special, to a run-of-the-mill snuff film, have run rampant.
“It’s like Schrodinger’s cat. Because I haven’t watched it, for me, the tape is simultaneously in a superposition of homemade pornography and an old bootleg copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special,” said McPhee.
“I figure at best this is a cursed tape, like in that movie The Ring, and maybe that’s why he died so suddenly,” he said justifying to himself against satisfying his morbid curiosity given the hideous possibilities the tape might contain.
Despite the imaginably hateful tape, McPhee says he can’t bring himself to part with the it, adding that the best way he can think of to honour his father’s memory is to keep it hidden forever.
“I just want to protect what I think I know about my father. Maybe one day I’ll watch it. I just hope before then my own son doesn’t go into my secret nook above the attic and find it… among other things.”
