the time we have spent preparing our project, I figured you would be the type of person to get a kick out of our activities. The group is always looking for new members if you would like to join.” This was fascinating. I was moments away from death— a death prompted by my utter loneliness in the world—and now a girl was inviting me to join her group of friends. It was the most spectacular coincidence, one that you may find unbelievable, but trust me that it is undeniably true. Oftentimes truth can be stranger than fiction. I accepted Dawn’s offer and she told me she looked forward to seeing me in class on Monday. We then ended the conversation and I stood in my room with my phone in one hand and the noose in the other. I looked down at the two and wondered which path I should take. One was guaranteed to end my suffering; the other had potential for doing so. I thought long and hard about the decision I had been presented with. In the end, I decided to give Dawn’s friendship a shot. After all, even if it spectacularly failed and I was made more miserable than ever, I always had the noose as a last resort. The only downsides to all of this were that I was now out of my life savings and I’d made my mother happy. The following Wednesday I attended my first ever Triflers 24 meeting. It was there where I met the other five members for the first time. There was Mason, the cool, older 24 1 once inquired Dawn as to where the name had come from. I believe she said it was borrowed from a relentless band of outlaws that were infamous back in the Old West days. athletic one, Chao, the quiet, Asian one, Dorianne, the freak show, Truman, the tall, awkward one, and Tao, Chao’s uncle who ran the laptop. Of the student members, I had recalled seeing most of them at school from time to time 25 , but naturally none of them had ever spoken to me before. Not wanting to ruin a potential good thing, I tried my best to seem friendly. Once Tao started the first video, I knew immediately that this club would be the right fit for me. It was a video of some guy lighting his dick on fire. I’d never seen anything like it before in my life, but I thought it was fucking awesome. I looked over at Dawn, and she seemed as enthralled by it as I was. A bunch of the others looked uncomfortable, however. I found it funny that it was only my first day in the club and I already felt more comfortable than the rest of them. After the video was over, the lot of us sat around talking about it, telling jokes, stories, and generally having a pleasant time. Unlike at school, these people actually acknowledged my existence. They listened when I had something to say and made me feel as though my contributions mattered. They laughed at my jokes and I at theirs. And despite all of our differences, we did have one thing in common. For one reason or another, we all were interested in watching disturbing videos. It seemed clear that in regards to the videos the most passionate member of the group was Dawn. I was seeing her in an all new light. At school, and even during our group work sessions, she seemed like nothing more than a quiet, 25 1 even had a class with Mason. calculating girl. But now there was a fire in her eyes. Her attitude towards the uncomfortable and the grotesque made her glow. Where the others’ discussion contributions were elementary in nature, focused primarily on how the content made them feel, Dawn focused on the ramifications of the actions displayed. Others would avoid questioning how the pain likely felt, or in what ways the man’s life would be changed forever, or how he would explain his injuries to his doctor, because it forced them to consider his pain from their own point of view. Dawn felt no fear in this regard. She not only loved exploring these questions, but she flourished in them. I began to feel as though the Triflers, and Dawn in particular, were going to fill the emptiness within me. This was just the beginning of my newfound relationship with Dawn. She noticed that I, much like her, was far different from the rest of the Triflers. We shared an important connection—a love for the grotesque and a disregard for life. I think that’s what set Dawn and I apart from the other Triflers, and really everybody else in the world. We didn’t take life seriously. We knew that none of it mattered and that the end was inevitable. We could die any moment and we wouldn’t care. Life was nothing more than a game—a joke. We soon began to spend much of our time together. We discovered we had the same lunch period, so we began eating at the same table. We made plans to get together as often as possible to “work on our psychology project.” I continued attending the Triflers meetings every single Wednesday. Life was improving drastically. So fuck Aubrey, and fuck Marissa. It wasn’t until Dawn that I experienced true friendship. She and I had so much in
