the voices that reach across the blackness
the voices that answer my profered words
the voices that embrace my hidden mind
the voices that share my deepest thoughts
they do not judge, they do not sneer
because they hear voices too

Cyberspace intrigues me. All of a sudden you can speak with this nameless, faceless entity halfway across the world and find that geography is only a colourful bunch of squiggles and letters. The physical inability to meet no longer dictates the exchange and sharing of ideas and opinions.

Cyberspace makes one a citizen of the world - our beings are no longer dictated by colour or creed or nationality but by the interests, views and opinions that we flesh out in our cyberlife. My cyber ID is my list of interests that guide my journey through the webs of this world. My passport is a mutual respect and consideration for those who inhabit the particular plot of digital land I happen to be crossing.

I am new to this strange, alternate universe but found myself falling headlong the moment I took my first tentative steps. I was instantly hooked to the dynamism found on some messageboards but was only truly converted when I experienced the openness with which these veteran netizens received my bumbling efforts. Once I opened the door I knew that there was no turning back: like magic this (cyber) world with its own gods and religion, philosophy and hierarchy, emerged before me. It ran on its own axis and was fueled by its own force. I felt like I was on the moon and had chanced upon its alien inhabitants.

I have since been carefully flexing my virtual limbs, travelling, getting to know the creatures that inhabit these uncharted lands and creating my own cyber-personality. I roam this world with a face and an appended signature representing a side of me that doesn't see the sun of the real world. I meet with similar people whose avatars only capture the side of themselves they want you to see.

Paradoxically, this anonymous interaction comforts me. My thoughts, once whispered only in the corridors of my mind, now have found a voice. My interests, once limited by the more prosaic considerations of money and availability, are given new fodder.

Still I was not born yesterday - who can really believe the truth of the voice reaching out to me? Without the audible timbres of a voice who can discern anything at all?

But I believe that this world, at least, is freeing and liberating. A freedom that needs no apologies, no defence, no excuses. An endless forum where socialisation and interaction has taken on new dimensions, where the world is split only by opinions.

And opinions are easier to reconcile than colour.