Musings circa 1996

The brightly hued thorns danced out from every conceivable corner of the room. The more he spun in sudden terror, the closer they came until they formed a shimmering rainbow laser crown of thorns. The tips were glowing red with heat, and his skin crackled and shrank moments before the needle sharp beams incised his brow. The worst perhaps were the ones which pierced the back of his occipital lobe. He felt strands of hair being pushed into the entry wounds, and watched as swirling mandelas surrounded by inky spots of blindness burst in his vision. He watched himself become invisible, and mercury thick blood ran like lava lamp innards down his furrowed cheek.
This was that sordid flip side of VR technology.
Doug sat heavily on his knees and held transparent hands up to his eyes. Eyes that could not stop seeing. He shook his head violently back and forth until vision blurred, turned inscrutable, and finally became mercifully...
White?
He was seated naked against a stone wall. Cracked and dusty dirt surrounded him in a desolate and alien landscape. A sun, so intense it was a fuzzy ball of sinoid headache, filled half the sky. The prickle of sun heat on his flesh began to manifest, and he felt himself literally roasting in the sun.
A sudden intense sensation about his genitals brought his swift attention. The organ had taken on a bloated, sluggish appearance in the afternoon heat. The thick hair surrounding it was moistly fragrant with coagualted sweat. In speedy time elapse his genitals exploded in a blossom of putrefaction. Inky blood pooled onto the dusty carpet of concrete between his legs, and burst into a wavering fence of blue flames. The hum of superheated air and expanding tympanic membrane filled the air, finally shattering under the barrage of his own phlegm throwing, larynx shattering scream.
Then the muffled thump of gloved hands against protective headgear. It was the basement, subterranean womb, awash in red glow. Strands of colored Christmas lights bordering the ceiling. The silently artistic undulations of the lava lamp.
Doug threw the tainted VR unit from his head.
"Fucking Disney."