Message In A Bottle Poem by Laurence Overmire

The television creeped in through the back door when we were on vacation. It stole into the living room disguised as a necessary component of a modern-day lifestyle. So we didn’t notice it for quite a long time.

It seemed harmless enough. Kind of cute actually. But it began to grow. We fed it little bits of attention at first, but soon it wanted more. And more. And more.

We threw it scraps of idle moments and snippets of an hour, but still it grew and grew and grew-till huge chunks of an afternoon and evening, whole weekends and slices of terribly gloomy days were not enough to satisfy its need.

It spread its boxy fingers into every corner of the house. Up the stairs into the bathroom, down on the mantel in the den, then to the kitchen and the bedroom, even beside the baby’s crib. And still it sucked away the hours, gobbling fortnights with a trowel.

We, desperate for some respite, gave it everything we had—our hearts, our minds and even more. And now this huge invasive caterwauling psychoblob of perfidious bizznobabble is holding an advertisement to our heads and threatening to take over the world!

It’s too late for us, but if you get this message, please, whatever you do—run, hide, anything, but—Save yourself! Before it’s too late.


(Previously published in ZZZ Zyne, XXVI, Jan.2000; Winner of Barnes and Noble's Fahrenheit 451 contest, March 2004)