Aubrey

I'm sitting on my bed, watching Youtube on my computer. It is pitch black outside, and perfectly silent. Judging by the darkness and the quiet atmosphere, it must be like three in the morning. I am the only one awake. The video I am watching is very disturbing. A man is chopping off his own fingers with a steak knife, one by one. He screams so loud it makes my stomach sick. Strangely, there is an English narrator describing the whole event in detail. “And now,” he says, “the man proceeds to chop of his middle finger. Watch closely as the steak knife severs the finger, revealing the inner layers of muscle, and the bone.” Eventually I can’t take it anymore, and I try to turn my computer off. But for some reason, instead of turning off, the volume just gets louder and louder, until my ears hurt. I turn away from the video and cover my ears, but the man’s screaming still manages to get through. I attempt to drown him out by screaming myself, as loud as I can. Everything goes black.

In this next clip, I am not included. However, I can see everything clearly through the lens of a video camera. I can tell I am watching a home video taken by a wife of her husband and son. They are on a yacht, sailing around in a little lake on a sunny day. The husband is sitting in a plastic lawn chair by the edge of the boat, but I can’t see his head. The camera is focused on his leg.
In his hand he holds a large knife. He stretches his leg out on the long chair, and makes a long, deep cut in his leg. Almost instantly his innards spill out of his leg like a bucket of chum being poured out, and it falls into the ocean, leaving a flappy skin-baggy leg behind. The man doesn’t stop there, he continues to mutilate himself. This time, he makes a wide gash across his stomach. Again, his guts and muscles and everything else pour out of him, leaving a skin bag stomach. The little son is crying and screaming in the background. “Daddy, please stop!” he shouts, but the father continues. “Whee, isn’t this fun?” says the mother.