Nothing Virtual About Some Reality

The image shocked me, making my heart nearly stop.

Immediately, I knew that the man I was looking at was going to die. That fast. And I could do nothing but watch, the lights of the monitor's power switch blankly staring back at me.

A heavy steel-reinforced boot had the man's head pinned down to the rough gravel. Tears so small you could barely see them trickled down his pressed cheek. The knife, one you might see clenched between the teeth of a Navy Seal as he climbs silently out of the water, danced briefly over the man's neck. Then the muscular arm holding it turned the blade downward and drove it into the man's neck, opening a wound easily an inch in length.

The window in the middle of my screen shone into the dark room like a beacon, giving a sharp hue to the wall behind me. Odd shadows wrapped beneath my arms as they sat motionless on the keyboard, frozen in their urge to move to the mouse and make this terrible picture go away. I'd simply clicked on a link, the Web site promising to "shock and surprise!"

A slight turn of the blade before it was drawn out gave you a peek into the gap where his blood already began to rush out. The grimace on the man's face, his attempts to speak, to cry out, gave me a chill deep in my bones.

``That's it, show's over,'' a voice off-camera said, and the image vanished. A pop-up window told me the connection had been lost, can't do much about it, so sorry, just click on `Ok'. See? Easy enough.

Nothing to it.