A middle aged man was found dead in his home office recently, right next to his computer. "It was the strangest thing I've ever seen," said the coroner. "I conducted a thorough examination of the body to determine the cause of death. I could only reach one conclusion. The man died of old age. His hair was white as snow, his skin was wrinkled. He looked ancient. Like he was well over 100 years old. But he was only 51 years old. I can't explain it. I'm still stunned by it. I'm shocked by it. This is the strangest, most bizarre medical mystery I've ever experienced."
His wife discovered the body?
The deceased man's wife nodded, visibly shaken. "My husband had just gotten a dial up modem for his computer. He was very excited to finally get on the internet after talking about it for so long. At first, everything was fine. He started surfing the internet for a couple of hours each night. But each night he would stay online longer & longer. Until it was all night long. When he started complaining about how long it took for some of the websites to download, I started to get concerned, because he only had a dial up modem. He told me that a lot of the websites on the internet are so loaded with ads & graphics that it takes forever just to download one page. Then he found this one website in a search engine that he was really interested to see. But every time he tried to go there, it would take forever to download. In fact, it was so slow, he told me he never even saw it. That just made him more determined than ever to see it. So a few nights ago, he told me he was going for it, no matter how long it took. I told him not to. I begged him not to. But he was on a mission. He had to see it. He's very stubborn. That's the way he is. I mean, was."
So what happened?
"Well, I waved goodbye. I had the strangest feeling, like I wasn't going to see him ever again. He went into his office, the study. I heard those funny modem sounds. And he was up all night, on the internet. Trying to get to that one website. I heard him banging on his desk many times. And yelling at that site to hurry up & download. I even heard him yell that he was going to die of old age before it did. And he used a lot of profanity. The next morning, I knocked on his door. But he didn't open it. It was locked. I tried several more times all day, trying to get him to eat, at least. But all I heard was him yelling at the website. Until late that night, when it got quiet. That's when I really started to worry. So I called 911. They sent some people right over. They broke the door open. And he was dead. I screamed when I saw him. He was an old man."
What did the paramedics have to say?
"I've never seen anything like it," said one of the paramedics. "And I've seen lots of dead bodies. He looked like 120 years old. He was clutching his computer mouse with white knuckles. He was dead, but his eyes were wide open, staring at the computer monitor. He had a scary, desperate look on his face, too. It was right out of a horror movie. His computer was still connected to the internet. We saw that he was trying to download a website. It was one of those really bloated ones, full of ads & graphics. You know, the kind that takes forever to download. He shouldn't have even tried to do it with only a dial up modem. Even with a broadband connection, it would've taken quite a while to download. It's pretty sad."
So according to the coroner, the official cause of death was old age?
"I almost put that down," said the coroner. "I almost wrote down the cause of death as 'Old age caused by slow, internet website.' But it would've been laughed at, & I could've lost my medical license. Officially, it's death by natural causes. But in truth, it's a medical mystery. I believe he literally died of old age because of that slow website. Under certain conditions, the passage of time can seem like an eternity. In his case, it WAS an eternity. And it aged him a lot in a very short period of time. It's like a scary 'Twilight Zone' episode. Except that it actually happened."
Can anything be done to stop this tragedy from happening again?
"Probably not. I suppose they could try to pass a law. To make slow websites illegal. It should be illegal for a website to take more than 24 hours to download a page with a dial up modem. I just wish that people who run websites would show a little mercy to those who still have dial up connections. It's all those damned ads & graphics. Websites are just overloaded with them. And don't even get me started about popup ads. Slow websites are not only driving people crazy, but they're killing them, too! This case is proof of that. How many more have to die before we start to deal with this? If you'll excuse me, I'd better go get some more body bags ready."