To kill some time I opened another thread at random, something posted by a computer science major in London who wanted to kill himself. I read the thread all the way to the bottom despite knowing that nothing would happen. They never ended up killing themselves—except for the times when they did. That was why people read them. There was no way to know if the thread you were reading live was going to be the one where he did it, and those threads became legendary, their screenshots passed around for years and the bragging rights going to the guys who had read along and posted as it happened. They had been there. True, this privilege was unverifiable. The board was anonymized and left no way to prove to someone else that you had actually witnessed it and weren’t just recycling screenshots from somebody else. But you, the bragger, would know the truth, you and your god, and that was enough in a place like this.
Two or three guys were trying to talk this London kid into killing himself. Another one or two were trying to talk him out of it. The usual arguments went back and forth:
> You’re a loser. You have nothing to live for.
>> You can turn it around
>>> It’ll only get worse
>>>> Think of your mom
>>>>> It won’t hurt that bad
>>>>>> She’ll be so sad
>>>>>>> You don’t matter to anyone
>>>>>>>> You matter to me anon
>>>>>>>>> You’re going to die alone
>>>>>>>>>> She’s not worth it
>>>>>>>>>>> No bitch is worth it
The London kid, who had started by posting a few pictures of himself with a straight razor and a timestamp, ended up ghosting, either out of boredom or to actually kill himself. He was cute so it was sad to see him go either way. Someone else, now bored that the London kid had vanished, started posting Teletubbies vore. Then the thread was shut down for posting Teletubbies vore, which was against the rules, and we all had to find something else to look at.
Jordan Gisselbrecht’s work has appeared in HAD, Cleveland Review of Books, Burial Magazine, and The End Magazine.