No emails!

‘There are no emails in the box for you,

There are no emails,’ it said,

That message had sat on my page for days

Like a note for the newly dead,

I sat and stared at the vacant screen

Like a litany for the lost,

All of my friends were a cyber dream

As I soon found out, to my cost.

 

My thoughts went back for many a year

When the friends that I had were real,

The ones I’d meet in the supermart

The ones I could see, and feel,

The friends that I’d had of flesh and blood

Who had drifted into my past,

Did they sit and stare at an empty screen

And hope for a word at last?

 

When I was away they had written screeds

And sent by the penny post,

While I’d sit nights by a reading lamp

Replying, not all, but most,

We told each other of babies born,

Of fights we’d had with the boss,

And laughed together when I came home

Over dreams and the schemes we tossed.

 

But as life went on and the world got old

Our friends had drifted away,

While all of us got too busy then

With the fax and the phone to play,

We would close our doors when the day was done

And stare at a silent screen,

Would reach on out to the people there

Who lived in the cyber scene.

 

And we forged new friendships over the net

As we roamed in the world out wide,

We made us hundreds of friends out there

In towns and the countryside,

It was mind to mind, there was nothing else

No flesh to press, no kiss,

We knew that we’d never meet, no hugs

Our link, a computer dish!

 

I sit alone and I wait for you,

Your messages on the screen,

That make me feel I’m connected, though

The best I can do is dream,

For a single glitch in the i.s.p.

Will stop the electron flow,

And cut us off from our new-found friends

When the email box says, ‘No!’

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Daisie Vergara (Dhaye)]

How funny that I also do that when I emailed someone, I wait for long hours at the front of my computer monitor, just to be dismayed by the truth that he hasn't read my mail. Another day will be the same...wishing for an email on my screen.
That is what we call HOPE.

[spiritwind]

I think I made a mistake when I thought friends over the internet would be more mind accessible, friends who would last for years....

[gcp]

Email says No :( That's never a good sign!

I love internet communications - they help keep in touch with people when I'm traveling - but when the connection goes down it can be really frustrating - that doesn't happen so much with local friends ;)

Well phrased - kinda nostalgic and current at the same time :)

[redflutterby]

You echo the very thoughts that have bothered me for a few years. We have become a society of convenience relationships. Even in real life many of our friendships are through where we live, work, or worship. They are built on single commonality and easy access not actual bonding. Our children and grandchildren text, tweet or Facebook instead of spending time with their peers. I grieve that they will not know the beauty of true companionship. Or the warmth of a friends embrace during times of difficulty. Very sad.... :-(. As always your talent is amazing!!

[Valentine]

For me..when I became ill with Neurocardiogenicsyncope and had 10+ years of seizures, I found that friends were not interested in an ill person..and none came around..I called them..no return phone calls..Only a few true friends stuck with me..childhood friends, forever friends..and also family..I never think of my email box as a friend calling..I have long distance for that..Kathie

[Emerald Seas]

Technology, as everything else has its good and bad, its pros and cons. I prefer the old fashioned meeting or drop in for shared coffee and conversation. However, I have also met irreplaceable friends through this technology. Yet, we're at it's mercy to a degree. I find I myself pulling away from it of late and that too has good and bad entwined - yet a necessity for my own state of mind.
Wonderful write, David.

[JM Russell]

This is excellent! My life is a email of do this and do that. Come here and go there until I want to screem. I have even had an argument on an email--it was nice I deleted him!! But, I have had a wonderful time meeting people from other countrues that I would never meet in life and developing good friendships. It is amazing what we can do. I have also experienced the ``glitch in the i.s.p.`` mine go to Mars. Great work.

[Mark]

Both Marie and Roarke make a good point, in the awareness of how superficial and dispensable email has made our "friendships", though KD Krominga does as well, pointing out, despite that, how many fewer people we'd never have met, thereby having more relationships, if not as deep or as involved. Heck, Dave, look at all the people from all corners of the globe, whom I now "know" and treasure, which I owe entirely to electricomm: Emma Green, Ron Furioso, Chris Cooke, Rachael Shenyo, Tate Morgan...to say nothing of the redoubtable David Lee Paget!

[David Lewis Paget]

Yes mate, but it would be nice to be able to drop by and share a coffee and a chat sometime, wouldn't it.

[Mark]

Indubitably...but my point, I think, is that regardless the lack of coffees and hugs, e-friends CAN be R (real)friends, and that cannot be argued.

[Marie]

The spam folder is always so full...the mail folder always so empty...

I can't remember the last time I wrote or received a real letter.

E-mail has done so much for us...and taken so much away...

[Tate Morgan]

I can relate to this .It puts me in mind of a story of Mark Twains when his maid said everyday he would come down at noon to meet with the reporters and well wishers in the front room.All of them were there to here some witticism of his for the day and gain copy for the paper. As she said i fear the day he comes down and no one is there.that is the day he will die.I never look at email anymore just the cafew ,

[quinfinn]

i almost completely ignore my e-mail account, going there about once a month just to end up deleting 99% of the garbage which collects there....i hate the concept because some a******s out there will use it to try to entice you to click on a link which will plant a virus..so i never give anyone my e-mail address until i am absolutely sure who they are and their intentions. this write is relevant and real and rather humorous, albeit profoundly accurate. well done, sir!