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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 bedsheets, still I sat
there, doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line, I took a disk 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, as
before
Ghastly grim they they blinked and taunted, haunted,
as my patience wore,
Saying, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
I tried
to catch the chips off guard, I 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, to which place lost data go.
What demonic netherworld is 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 one day be left to wander, lost on some
plutonium shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"
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