Something Wicked This Way Comes

Every year at my school, the 8^th grade performs a Shakespeare play. This year they chose a charming little tale called…Macbeth. Murder. Mayhem. Treachery. Trickery. During the question time with the elementary school audience, a boy asked, “Who were the good guys?”

Of course, we’ve come so far from those dark times. Or have we? Behind the have-a-nice-day exterior, it’s Macbeth all the way. Midnight assassination at the water cooler, the climb to power up the corporate or political ladder with heavy boots stomping on the heads of fellow workers. Macbeth and Macduff meet at MacDonalds with a professional mediator to hear where the other is coming from and then go home and plot the next plunge of the dagger. Hands stained with blood that the “New! Improved!” cleansers can’t quite wholly wash out. Something wicked this way comes in the guise of the next upgrade on our machines brewed in the Apple cauldron to give us more instant distraction, seduce us down the dark, downward spiral of our handheld devices, away from attention to World and the person next to us.

Still fighting with machines and my Macbeths and my own vulnerability to electronic addictions, I’m in a dark mood brooding on an updated soliloquy.

  Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  To the last syllable of recorded time.

  And all our yesterdays have screen-lit fools,

  Marching their way to dust-free death.

  Out, out, o screensaver! Life’s but a changing desktop image,

  A poor player, that struts and frets his 15 seconds of fame on the Facebook page.

  And then is heard no more.

  It is tale told by Fox News idiots, full of texts and trivia,

  Signifying nothing.

Have a nice day!