Abort, Retry, Ignore?
Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision
bleary, System manuals piled high and wasted paper on
the floor, Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I
sat there doing spreadsheets. Having reached the bottom
line I took a floppy from the drawer,I then invoked the
SAVE command and waited for the disk to store.
Only this and nothing more.
Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there
wond'ring, fearing, Doubting, while the disk kept
churning, turning yet to churn some more. But the
silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no
token."Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data
from before!"One thing did the phosphors answer, only
this and nothing more,Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced
before. Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made
impish noises. The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting,
baiting me to type some more. Clearly I must press a key,
choosing one and nothing more,From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the
keyboard bending, Longing for a happy ending, hoping all
would be restored, Praying for some guarantee, timidly,
I pressed a key. But on the screen there still persisted
words appearing as before. Ghastly grim they blinked and
taunted,
haunted, as my patience wore,Saying "Abort,Retry, Ignore?"
I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again,
but twice as hard. I pleaded with the cursed machine: I
begged and cried and then I swore. Now in mighty
desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as
before. Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking
nonsense as before. Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine
accosted. Getting up I turned away and paced across the
office floor. And then I saw a dreadful sight: a
lightning bolt cut through the night. A gasp of horror
overtook me, shook me to my very core. The lightning
zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
To this day I do not know the place to which lost data
go. What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data
will be stored, Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond
the ether, into black holes? But sure as there's C,
Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more, You will be one day
be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
*by: Anonymous*
