Life Electronic

Newly aged fifteen, she is a lone and
lonely child, home in a semi-isolated
stretch of rural property, school out
for the summer months and she is
b-o-r-e-d. There is no cure for the
moody teens, one must simply forbear.
As for missed siblings, those are among
the manifold details of her young life.

Iterations and reiterations of boredom
solve nothing. Where once, in still
living memory she would have been
assigned household tasks, none now
urgently present. Time yawns at her
imaginative disposal. Social interaction
at a remote, as near as a texting cellphone,
as distant as an actual human touch.

Reaching toward and embracing
opportunity and the flexing of the curious
mind, where once an Encyclopedia, the
presence of grandparents, the ubiquity
of public libraries enabled entry to
knowledge and wisdom, now the
World Wide Web that internets us to
the information age offers her books
on order, poetry readings, geography
lessons, science facts, introductions
to art, archaeology and architecture,
studies in human development and more.

Lonely? For What, please tell.... The
whispered confidence of one standing
directly beside her. A laugh shared by
someone hosting both physical presence
and amused sensibilities. A silence and an
oppressive sense of social alienation by one
for whom extended solitude expresses a
longing for comfort in peer companionship.
Failing that, she endures, her brain steeped
in the profound mystery of life electronic.