“I don’t go out anymore” she tells the camera “I’ve watched way too many people die.”
She adjusts the camera which she has sitting on a small, tabletop tripod. For a moment the autofocus shifts to a painted landscape hanging on the wall behind her, then back to her face.
“The last time I stepped outside was four years ago. I’d been holed up in my apartment for months and the claustrophobia was really getting to me, so I convinced myself I was being paranoid. I was walking to the library when a middle-aged businessman in a crappy Kmart suit passed by. We made brief, meaningless eye contact, then he stepped onto the road and was hit by a truck.”
A ginger coloured tomcat meanders on to screen, close to the camera and out of focus. She picks the cat up, holds him in her arms and strokes him while he purrs loudly.
“I didn’t feel shock when it happened, only the vaguely nauseated boredom that comes from desensitisation. He’d been crushed from the belly button down, smeared across the hot summer asphalt in violent reds, rusty browns, hints of buttercup yellow and bluish purple. He was still alive and had a look on his face like a stupid animal, it reminded me of a daddy long legs spider whose abdomen has been crushed under merciless Reeboks but who continues to attempt to walk, despite being glued to the ground by its own guts.
Some people ran to him and when a blonde, young woman knelt down to speak to him and take his hand, he must have seen the look on her face because his eyes filled with horror and he started screaming. He died before the ambulance arrived.”
She reaches for something offscreen, a book which she displays to the camera.
”Self-help for fuckwits. Yeah I continued to the library and checked this book out but I knew I wouldn’t be back. I don’t go out anymore because every time I do, I see somebody die. I don’t know why it happens, I don’t know if I cause it or if fate is a sick pervert who wants a witness but I just don’t go out anymore.”
As she leans in towards the camera, the cat jumps off her lap.
”I’m not sure why I’m posting this to YouTube, everyone will probably think I’m crazy but I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced anything like this… Please let me know if you have, in a twisted way, I think it’d be comforting to know I’m not alone.”
She turns the camera off.
The comments on her video read:
”nice tits”
“wtf lol I’m in the weird part of the Internet again” and
“Incredible! The prices are unbeatable at onlineshoesforsale.website and it has the biggest range in the United Kingdom!”