**Cypress Creek, Florida** – A funeral service for a beloved retired postman last Tuesday was punctuated by an unexpected display of tactical combat and frantic trash-talk, after the funeral home’s media system began streaming an intense *Call of Duty: Warzone* match instead of a photographic tribute.
The service for Gerald Finney, 78, had been a somber and traditional affair at the Whispering Pines Mortuary. As his son, Kevin, concluded a heartfelt eulogy about his father’s passion for gardening and model trains, he motioned to the large screen behind him. “And now,” he said, his voice thick with emotion, “a look back at a life well-lived.” Instead of a photo of Gerald proudly holding a prize-winning tomato, the screen flickered to life with the Xbox dashboard, followed by a chaotic airdrop into the Verdansk map. For the next seven minutes, mourners sat in stunned silence, watching a player named “xX_SniperLord420_Xx” frantically battle for survival, all set to the gentle backdrop of “Ave Maria.”
Most attendees, unfamiliar with the popular video game, attempted to interpret the on-screen action as a complex artistic metaphor. “I thought it was a symbolic representation of his fight with the HOA over the height of his hedges,” commented Brenda Finney, 76, Gerald’s widow. “Gerald was a fighter, and that young man on the screen was certainly fighting. When he took cover behind that burned-out car, it reminded me of the time Gerald hid from Aunt Carol when she wanted to talk about her pyramid scheme. It was very moving.”
The confusion was only clarified when the player was eliminated and a stream of high-pitched expletives erupted from the television’s speakers. “I was just trying to process the metaphor for Dad’s final moments when I heard someone scream about getting ‘no-scoped by a camper’,” said Kevin Finney, 45, an insurance adjuster. “That’s when I suspected Dad’s slideshow probably didn’t include that kind of language.”
The mortuary’s director, Harold Plum, eventually managed to disconnect the feed by unplugging the entire television. He later explained that a new, tech-forward intern had used the smart TV in the chapel to “unwind” the night before and had forgotten to log out of his Xbox account. As part of their apology, Whispering Pines has offered the Finney family a full refund and a complimentary premium urn. They have also assured the public that they are instituting a strict new policy requiring all staff to double-check that presentation screens are not set to “Domination” mode before a service begins.