But living is getting to be far too lonely.

CHAPTER 4

Through my night of non-sleep, I slowly and mechanically begin to pack. There are a ton of spare boxes in the garage Maggie insisted we might need someday—and how right she was—so I drag them into the living room.

All of this stuff? Harold said it's mine now. But I wouldn't know what to do with any of it. I don't want to look at it. These old lamps and coasters and throw pillows and rugs and Maggie, Maggie, Maggie. Even though I lived here, I was always very conscious that this was her home and not mine. I never left my things lying around outside the safety of my own little room. It was a way of defending myself, I guess. So I wasn't constantly reminding her I was there, and therefore she was less likely to want to get rid of me.

Within a few hours I've packed up most of the living room: movies, old records and CDs, artwork on the walls, lamps, candles. I shove them into boxes labeled for the Good Will. Someone might as well get use out of them. I'm at a loss what to do with the furniture, until the idea dawns on me to take pictures and post them on Craigslist. So that's what I do.

When I sit back at the computer to upload the photos, there's an email waiting for me.

From: HARBINGER <[email protected]>

To: Vincent H. <[email protected]>

Subject: Membership Confirmation (Do Not Reply)

Thank you for joining SW. Please click the link below, choose your username, and introduce yourself in the forums.

Sincerely,

Harbinger (Site Admin)

Any anxiety I had last night about the site being a scam has ebbed away. Maybe because I'm so exhausted that my emotions have numbed more than they usually are. After some thought and inspiration from the Beatles, I set my username as NowhereMan.

The site itself isn't anything impressive. The layout is basic and unremarkable. The links across the top read Videos, Stories, Pictures, and Forum. My cursor lingers over the first three tabs before I choose pictures. The thumbnails that load are a little too small to really make out, so I click on the first one. It's a terrible quality pic, maybe taken with a webcam, of a girl sleeping in her bed.

Sleeping, or—

Luxwood87, SW member, memorializes her passing with one last photo, reads the caption.

My heart stops.

Her face is what gets me. She has on that same slack, calm expression Jessica wore. In death, she feels no pain, no sorrow, no loneliness. And she set her webcam up so the people on this website could witness it.

I spend the next hour skimming through pictures, some more gruesome than others. Many are webcam photos taken from a live feed posted under the videos section, but I haven't brought myself to watch any of those yet. Seeing pictures is one thing. Watching it happen is another. The pictures capture a mere flicker in time, usually after the person is already dead. Even then, some of them I have to click out of quickly or risk losing the Cheerios I had for breakfast. It's the gunshot ones that get me the most. People who put a bullet in their heads. At the bottom of one reads: AscottPrice, long-time SW member, has left this world to join his wife in the next. Photo taken by site admin, Harbinger.