Is there anyone on the planet that doesn’t have a relationship with the smiling box which magically appears on the doorstep? 

Ping! You’re package has been delivered.

Since I purchase many types of items from the behemoth, I have different levels of response to that ping.

Ping! You’ve got shampoo – meh.

Ping! You’ve got Scott’s lawn insect killer – groan.

Ping! You’ve got your new itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini – yay! (Well, maybe it’s not so tiny)

Ping! You’ve got curtains… the curtains you’ve been waiting for. The curtains that will make your library look like a garden on the bottom with their robust pink and yellow blossoms and tiny bluebells amid stalks of greening stems and leaves; the curtains that provide the English Garden near the ground while the white spanse above softly filters the light; the curtains that will allow the reader to be immersed in a virtual garden experience. Yes! The curtains have arrived! Let’s get them up!

Amazon, always at the fingertips. The thought enters my mind that I need hooks, prang, you’ve got hooks. Oh darn, my earbuds stopped working, thank you Prime. You need it, they’ve got it. Just pick up your iPad (or phone or laptop or anything that gets you to the internet) and Amazon’s smile turns to a gaping mouth that spews forth innumerable options, beckoning – come in my dear, while it eats you alive. It’s a kind of hell, where the devil laughs, “muhahahahahahaha!a Come buy… I have all the answers for you.”

This same devil beacons the lumber scavenger to the Amazonian jungle. Men (and women?) who think that these natural resources are theirs for the taking, and they, rape the majesty that is the namesake of store of the future – a future without trees, but surrounded by an endless supply of things. Hopefully, we can still breathe.

creative non-fiction, commentary,