Inspector Yesteryear paced the drawing room, where all the murder suspects had been assembled.  “You have been trapped here for 48 hours,” he reminded them.  “No way in or out, thanks to the blizzard, or we’d have seen your tracks.  There have been no deliveries, not even the mail, and the telephone wires have all been cut.  So how did you know,” he said, suddenly rounding on Bartleby Scriven, Esquire, “that the coroner found an obscure Indian poison in your father’s body?  Only the murderer could know that!”

“Or someone with a cell phone,” replied torch singer Lana Fofana, waggling hers in the detective’s face  “– and a boyfriend in the Coroner’s office.”

“Or a Blackberry,” added Kurt Weisenheimer, venture capitalist, pulling one from his designer jacket pocket. 

“Or a wireless laptop connection,”  confessed Mrs. Bottle, the cook.

“You have a laptop?”  Everyone turned to look at the stout gray-haired lady.  “Why do you need a laptop?” 

“She doesn’t even have a lap,” muttered Lana.

“You don’t think I keep all those obsolete recipes in my head, do you?”  retorted the cook, her three chins shaking in indignation.  “‘Toad in the Hole’ and ‘Cock-a-Leekie,’ my foot!  Every morning I have to check 50 websites, depending on what that lout of a butcher’s boy sees fit to bring me.  Besides, how am I supposed to track pork belly futures, or the price of tea in China, without it?” 

“That’s it, I’ve had it with these folks,” grumbled Judy Epstein, as she slammed the murder mystery shut.  “Another perfectly good story, ruined by modern technology.”

Where will we be if this trend continues?  How many great works of literature would be ruined by the use of cell phones?  For example: 

 Listen, my children, and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

But it all happened quite a long time ago

So the tale, as recounted by Longfellow

Is in need of a little revision.

 One if by land, and two if by sea

In the tower of the old North Church will be, 

With Paul Revere waiting to sound the alarm

By riding to many a village and farm.

 But then bethought Paul,

“There’s no need to ride

Like a maniac through the countryside

In the dark and the cold – plus I’m all alone

Why not just turn to my cellular  phone?

 “I’ll call two Minutemen

They’ll each call two more

And soon I’ll be done with this dangerous chore.

And after I’m dead,

When this poem is read,

More up-to-date times it will presage:

 “Press 1 if by land

Press 2 if by sea

Press 3 if the Redcoat oppressor you be;

If I’m out on the town

Riding up dale and down,

Press 5 to leave me a message.”  

What if not even Shakespeare’s works are immune to this retro-infection? 

In fair Verona where we lay our scenes

There once lived two young lovers, in their teens;

Their parents bitter enemies – but worse,

Each used a different phone plan to converse.

Juliet:

O roaming charge, roaming charge,

why must there be a roaming charge?

What’s in a plan, our hopes and dreams to thwart

and keep us so unhappily apart?

Your voice on any phone would sound as sweet

Especially since the ‘rents won’t let us meet. 

So doff thy charges and forswear thy plan

Become a part of mine, and be my man!”

Then Juliet feigns her death from Friar’s potion

— It’s one half of a plan he’s set in motion,

The other half that Romeo will get her —

It’s all explained in the good friar’s letter.

But the all-important letter goes astray

(Then, as now, snail mail’s subject to delay)

And Juliet is lying on her bier

‘Ere Romeo, distraught, finally draws near.

He thinks her dead.   Beside himself with woe

He’s just about to kill himself– but lo!  

Just as he thinks he cannot live alone,

He spies an Instant Message on his phone:

Juliet:  Romeo where R U?

Romeo:  I’m @ the cemetery.  U?

Juliet:  I’M IN THE CRYPT!

Romeo:  R U  OK???

Juliet:  I will B… C U soon.  LOL

 Our tale of woe, now changed, ends happily

Thanks to the boon of high technology. 

But the risk to works of literature, prose and verse,

Is that they may end up a great deal worse!