That doesn’t happen in Pleasant Hills, they said. Of course it didn’t. Nothing happened in Pleasant Hills. Everything was great in Pleasant Hills.

I couldn’t open the files. I couldn’t.

I knew that if I began I wouldn’t stop. Dad would have disowned me. He wouldn’t have wanted it.

And I also knew that even if I did open them, I couldn’t be objective. Innocuous things would look like intent. You can’t see clearly when everything is death.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Dad, the folders, the swerve, smash, gone, and barely anything helped except for the baths. I’d run them so hot I could barely stand it, then lower my head until just my ears were fully submerged, and stay there like that. Just me and the interminable lulling of the water. Then I’d dip again, except now it was all of me, and I’d shut my eyes and hold my breath until I felt moments away from passing out, thought maybe that must be what dying feels like, and I’d do that over and over again until I felt sufficiently nauseous and stupid.

Or I’d go to the ToD. It practically became a staple of my daily routine. Mainly, I was struck by the sheer quantity of videos. I figured the probability of actually catching someone’s death on tape was pretty low, which meant the amount of death that had to be occurring to account for all the footage was incomprehensible. God, it was so easy. Humans were fragile. Soft and fleshy. A single slip was enough to kill one. Oh, it’s a little icy out today, better walk slow, whoops, smack, dead. I’m late, better hurry without looking both ways, whoops, smash, dead. All the hopes and dreams and loving and longing snuffed out in a flash like it had never meant anything at all.

I knew it wasn’t ethical. These people I was watching die had families. Kids. People who wouldn’t watch these videos themselves, let alone be at peace with the knowledge that thousands of death-voyeurs were doing it. Not just watching them – leaving comments. Trying to be funny, to one-up each other, like it was all fake, like these people were actors, like they were never really human.

Barox90, on a video of a guy getting hit by a bus: he got busted :(

Warrenwelder, on a particularly shaky video of a car crash: Goddamn, just keep the fucking camera on the subject. It’s NOT hard.

GetMeRich, on a video of war combat: ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Headshot Honcho.

Want to know what’s worse? I laughed at some of them. A lot of them.

Because if I didn’t, I would have gone fucking insane.