Poe on PC

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.
Having reached the bottom line, I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand,
I then invoked the SAVE command;
But got instead a reprimand:
It read, "Abort, Retry, Ignore."

Was this some occult illusion?
Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon had never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the options,
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must now adopt one:
Choose Abort, Retry, Ignore.

With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored.
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key --
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: Abort, Retry, Ignore.

I tried to catch the chips off guard --
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards. I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation:
Choose 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 an awful sight:
A bold and blinding flash of light --
A lightning bolt had cut the night and shook me to my very core.
I saw the screen collapse and die.
"NO NO, my database!" I cried.
I thought I heard a voice reply,
"You'll see your data NEVERMORE!"

To this day I do not know
The place to which lost data goes.
I bet it goes to heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity, well...
I fear that it goes straight to hell.
And that is the tale I have to tell.
Your choice:
ABORT, RETRY, IGNORE.