Brandon Perrier saw the image on his computer screen at exactly 11:11 pm. The time when most people were making wishes, Brandon was doing the exact opposite.

          He was cursing everything he owned.

   nbsp;       He was wishing away all the expensive meals he’d ever eaten, regretting the pair of shorts he bought at the mall. Brandon Perrier, he was lamenting everything he had ever taken for granted. Looking around his darkened room, the shapes and outlines of his possessions illuminated only by the slight glow of the computer monitor, Brandon was re-thinking his entire life.

          One day earlier, he had just been a normal kid. Going to class and seeing friends, eating lunch, trying not to let his folks drive him insane. One day earlier, he had been frantically trying to decide what to get his girlfriend for her birthday. Reeling off list after list of purses and handbags in his head. Naming off the different birthstones, trying to remember which one she fell under. Brandon Perrier, just this high school kid trying to get laid.

          On this day, the last normal day of Brandon’s life, the bell rings for second period.

          English.

          Brandon walks through the hallway, the dimming lightbulbs in the ceiling faded to a dark orange, and pushes past people in designer shirts. Custom-fit rings on their fingers and expensive keys in their pockets. One, the key to a Lexus and the other a key to the mansion where they live. These kids, they’ve all got the most expensive brand of shorts on. The most fashionable kicks. These kids, they’re popping expensive prescription-only pills between classes. Snorting the finest cocaine their money can buy.

          And Brandon doesn’t see any of it.

          To him, they’re just high school kids. Drug addicts and alcoholics, maybe, but nobody ever says it. They’re cheerleaders and football players. School club presidents. But criminals?

          Never.

          So, with maybe twenty or thirty of these kids seated in a semicircle around him, Brandon listens as the teacher goes to work describing the folly of man. The way we let material goods rule us like kings. Nobody’s mind truly belongs to them—it belongs to the media. Whoever is spitting out the rules for fashion. For social acceptance. They are the God. The teacher says how the real messiah isn’t saving His people, He’s robbing them. He’s taking their money and replacing it with propaganda. He’s filling the heads of materialists with images of clothing and cars and food they absolutely must have. No, the real messiah is performing the opposite of salvation.

          And all while the teacher is talking, these bored kids are fiddling with their gold wristwatches or playing with the keyless entry of their beloved sports car. Leaning forward and picking expensive wedgies out of their ass.

          And when the teacher is done, nobody’s learned anything.

          When the teacher is done, these kids know less than they did when they entered the class. See, second period is a terrible time to try and teach high school seniors. Third period, most of these kids don’t even have a class. They get a two-and-a-half hour lunch break. A two-and-a-half hour break to snort a couple lines or chug a six pack or down a few pills. Second period, that’s all these kids can think about. Nobody learns a damn thing.

          The bell rings again, lunchtime, and kids rush back out of classrooms, discussing last night’s party, making more plans. Nobody’s discussing the folly of man.

          Brandon, hands in his pockets, steps out and heads toward his car, a nothing-special SUV parked in the far lot. He fiddles with the keys while he walks. And then something cold creeps over the back of his neck. It squeezes. Warm, sticky air is breathed on him. Then a chin on his shoulder. The eyes of Cari glancing sideways into his. Still walking with her chin on his shoulder blade, she grabs him around the waist and asks, “You know what tomorrow is, right?” Brandon adjusts his glasses and says, “Uh, no. What?”

          And Cari stands up straight and gives him a playful push.

          “Yes you do.”

          Brandon shakes his head. “No,” he says, “I really don’t.” He stuffs his hands back into his pockets and says, “Tell me.”

          “Whatever,” she says. “Don’t lie to me.”

          “Ohhhh!” Brandon says as though he’s just realized something profound. “Your birthday, that’s right. You’re turning…?” and he gives her a questioning look.

          “Cute.”

          “The big one-oh?”

          “That’s hysterical.”

          They get out to the parking lot, hot as the Sahara Desert, and Cari asks, “Where are we going?”

          “My place,” Brandon says and shrugs. “If you want,” he says, “I could give you your present early,” and he winks.

          “Shut up. You’re such a perv.” Brandon starts the car.

          “I try.”

          “Seriously, though. Where are we going?”

          Twelve minutes later, Brandon is sipping Dr. Pepper out of his McDonald’s cup while Cari tells him, “I really think my mom’s getting me that handbag. You know the one.”

          Brandon takes the straw out of his mouth and says, “Sorry?”

          “Oh, you know, the one I saw at the store the other day. That place next to the Taco Bell.”

          He shrugs. “Not ringing any bells.” He takes a sip and says, “No pun intended.”

          She says, “That wasn’t really a pun.”

          “Whatever.”

          “Anyways,” she says, “these bags are, like, top-of-the-line. They’re made in Paris,” Cari says, “Only 3 percent of the stock made is shipped to the U.S.” She says, “These handbags are world-renowned.”

          Taking a bite of his cheeseburger, Brandon asks, “They got a name?”

          “Don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s not polite.”

          “’Kay, mom.”

          “They’re called Vutuee.”

          “Voo-twah?” And Cari folds her hands on the table top and says, “V-U-T-U-E-E.”

          “Why do the French have to make everything so complicated?”

          “Oh, be a little more open-minded.” Brandon sets his cheeseburger down and says, “I still don’t know what I’m getting you.” Cari gives him a confused look and says, “Okay?”

          “Just thought you should know now instead of later. I’ll have something for you, I just don’t know what yet.”

          “Well,” Cari says, “pretty much, if I get the Vutuee handbag, I’ll be happy.”

          “’Kay.”

          “But, like I said, my mom is probably getting me that.”

          Brandon says, “I’ll think of something.”

          Cari says, “But seriously, you have to see these bags. They’re incredible. Have you ever heard of Kram’s World?” and Brandon shakes his head. Cari tells him that Kram’sWorld.com is a website that posts outrageous internet photographs and tells users whether or not they’re real. For example, Cari says, the photo of the headless man walking down the street in Calcutta is a fake, but the picture series of a man producing a gallon of cum in his toilet bowl is completely, totally real.

          This guy, Cari tells him, this guy ate nothing but egg whites for an entire two weeks. You know, to up his sperm count. He sat on buckets of ice and went commando under his robe. Everything a man can do to get his sperm at its peak, this guy did. Then, after his two week regiment, the guy gets himself really horny and starts masturbating over his toilet.

          The rest is history.

          Anyway, Cari tells him, there’s one photo, taken in Paris, which shows a wealthy woman sporting one of these Vutuee handbags. The bag, it’s made of thin-stretched leather dyed a deep red. The bag is embroidered with real gold lettering and the two loop handles are made of real ivory. Narwhal tusk, Cari says, the most expensive and rare.

          This lady, she’s just standing in a circle of friends, laughing. Nobody really knows who took the picture. Nobody cares.

          The woman, she’s wearing a fur coat, probably mink or some kind of wolf. She’s got white Lillian custom sunglasses on. Ruby Red Caroll Burnett lipstick, $129.00 a tube. Her skirt is an Eva Florence original, not the German knockoff. Her heels, sparkling violet Gildery’s. This woman’s head is cocked back, her mouth open in what looks like mocking laughter.

          You can almost hear her cackling, Cari says.

          “And I want that bag.”

          “Just as long as you don’t end up like her,” Brandon says.

          “Don’t worry.” And that’s all she says. Right as they get up to leave, Cari says, “Remember, that website is called Kram’s World.”

          “Right.” And Brandon still doesn’t know what to buy his girlfriend.

          Hours later, sitting at home, Brandon is surfing the website, looking at pictures. One shows a mysterious creature washed ashore on a beach somewhere in New York. The animal looks like a cross between a fat catfish and a German Shepherd. According to Kram, the picture is true.

          Another displays three children playing at a city park in Cleveland, all of them barefoot in the sand. One of them is climbing on the swing set. And there in the background of the photo, standing behind a chain-link fence is a middle-aged man with his flaccid penis poking out the front of his cargo pants. Kram tells viewers that it’s fake. Much to everybody’s relief.

          And then Brandon remembers the picture Cari told him about, but there are hundreds of pages of photographs. Brandon’s been on for an hour, and he’s only gotten through three of them.

          He scrolls up to the search bar and clicks so the cursor appears. The clock strikes 11:10. Brandon, he means to put in “Vutuee” but instead, the fast typist that he is, keys in “Vulture” and hits Enter. And only one result shows up on the computer screen, with a brief description and a tiny thumbnail so small it’s impossible to tell what’s in the photograph.

          And while he could have corrected his mistake, could have re-typed “Vutuee” in the search bar, Brandon instead reads the description. Brandon clicks on the photo thumbnail.

          What appears is the worst thing he’s ever seen.

          So much worse than decapitated men and cum-filled toilets that Brandon can’t move. He can’t speak. He can’t even gasp.

          Worst of all, Kram tells him that the picture is 100 percent, entirely true.

          And just like that, Brandon’s life is completely pointless. His English teacher’s “folly of man” speech rings in his head. And the clock strikes 11:11.

          The glowing image is so utterly horrific that Brandon shudders, tears pooling in his eyes. He sucks in air and breathes out hard. Whispers, “Oh my God…”

          Even now, thirty-nine minutes before his girlfriend’s birthday, he hasn’t bought anything for her. No gold jewelry or fancy dresses. No Lillian custom sunglasses or Caroll Burnett tube lipstick.

          Here and now, everything Brandon knows is completely, utterly worthless. All because of this photograph. This true photograph.

          He clicks the monitor off and picks up his cell phone. He dials Cari’s number. After three rings, she picks up.

          “Hello?”

          “Cari.”

          “Brandon?”

          “I’m not getting you anything for your birthday. And you don’t deserve that handbag.”

          “What are you talking about?”

          And Brandon tells her, I care about you enough to give you this warning. He says, Don’t log onto Kram’s World. And if you do, he says, don’t type “Vulture” in the search bar. Don’t click on the thumbnail. He tells his girlfriend, I want you to keep living the big lie that is your life. You and everybody else. He tells her, It’s for your own protection.

          Will she? he wonders. Will she log onto Kram’sWorld.com and type “Vulture” in the search bar and click on the thumbnail?

          Probably.

          Why wouldn’t she? She probably thinks she’s just going to see another photo, one that’s either true or false, but it doesn’t matter. She’ll see it, and it won’t make any difference whether it’s real or fake.

          The photo itself is the end of life.

          The point at which all of the cocaine and pills and handbags and money and beer and skirts and lipstick lose their meaning. The point at which nothing matters, and nothing will ever matter again.

          That night, when his parents are sound asleep in their Sleep Number bed, resting comfortably under their thick blankets, that’s when Brandon quietly creeps out of his room. He walks down the hallway in his socks, not stumbling through the thick darkness. He comes to the kitchen and steps inside. Opening one of the drawers, he takes out a long butcher knife. So silver and smooth it almost glimmers in the total blackness.

          In one melodic movement, Brandon brings the blade across his neck and collapses onto the tile in a warm pool of something. Here in the dark, the liquid shooting out of his windpipe could be anything.

          The last thing that flashes through Brandon Perrier’s mind is the Kram’s World image. In the morning, his parents will find him here, curled up on the tile, stained and unclean. They’ll call the cops and paramedics and cry for days and days, until eventually somebody will turn on his computer screen.

          And they’ll see the image too.

          Whether or not Cari looked at the picture isn’t ever figured out. Brandon doesn’t know. He doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter.

          He warned her.