Modern Day Slavery

It is my duty, Brothers and Sisters, to outline a curse of our modern-day living. We are slaves; we are not free; we are shackled to a way of life from which there is little hope of escape.

Not so long ago, the curse to which I refer was a work-place matter; a factor of the need and desire to put bread on the table for our loved ones. Slowly, this drooling beast insinuated it way into our homes, unnoticed. The worst thing is, we allowed it near our children and loved-ones and with a willing smile - a gladness in our hearts.

We are utterly beholden to this mocking mistress. She will not allow us to go far from her medusa-gaze. Her cry pierces our homes and shatters moments of intimacy and warmth. Stories told to young-ones, adventures shared with loved-ones - all shattered mid-sentence when the Mistress calls our name. Not satisfied with looming ominously in our homes, this harridan has found a way of haunting us beyond our walls. Her cry echoes in the moments of our seldom recreation, walks in the park, the engaging storyline of a good film. She cries into our very soul and and we are drawn inexorably and without hope of refusal.

She has no care for our well-being; she mocks our times of sickness; she goads us out of sleep. Her message is often facile and pointless, a mocking smile at the victory wraught in our homes. She calls and we answer. She calls and we drop everything that is good and whole and pure. She calls and when we answer her moment will not be levitous. 

...no, this unremitting Mistress, upon calling us forth, lays upon us the pointless burden of a cure for erectile dysfunction, or the mockery of a false promise of $18,700,000 that we had not earned. 

This whore upon whose breast we suckle, she goes under the name Email. We let her into our homes and we have invited her into our pockets, we even pay for a place for her to lear and salivate in the corners of our precious castles, our once safe domains. She is our Mistress, and we her slave. Days off, sick days, holidays - all boundaries that this vile temptress defiles. "You have mail"...

...we have to look, we must look, we shall never sleep until we have looked.