by Christopher Luke

Created on: November 24, 2011   Last Updated: November 25, 2011

COMPUTER CRASH

“F*king B*d; Uselss C*t” the author cries,
As he watches helplessly as his computer crashes,
Taking with it files of work unsaved elsewhere,
Hours of prep and days of typing,
And for what?!
Only to see characters he had created and groomed to grow in role,
Taken from him permanently and prematurely
Not unlike real loved ones,
Who had predeceased him

With such vile afflictions as lung cancer, heart disease or stroke.

Today, the author wails alone,
In what appears to be a bottomless pit of despair;
Only he, of all the passengers on board the bus,
Has any memory of the characters in his stories
Who, in many ways, became not unlike members of his extended family,
Whom he travels to visit one today;
Including the One who inspired him to write about those he has now lost,
And with whom he can now only share
Spoken descriptions and aspirations of characters pronounced dead and buried
When even “System Restore” on his PC
Did not stir Microsoft to regenerate
Those it has cruelly extirpated
In the computer crash.

Today, the author laments alone,
Looking in vain at fellow passengers
As they board and exit the bus
For characters in an altogether different story,
As he unsuccessfully tries to console himself in the certainty
That each and every life
Is a journey with a beginning and an end
With a series of episodes, some predictable and others unexpected betwixt the two;
And yet, for all he listens and looks,
Like life’s first love he soon finds
There is none to replace the deceased and the disappeared
He conceived and produced,
To share with others on-line
And possibly eventually too, to those who prefer to peruse and view,
On printed pages of softback books.

Today, the usually picturesque bus route
Is too both marred by the misty sky,
Restricting the view of the rolling hills ahead and once pretty villages along the way,
And plagued by the seemingly endless interruptions
Of fellow passengers who appear to be continually getting on and off the bus at every blasted stop,
Lengthening the time it takes to travel the distance,
Complicating what should be a short and simple journey,
Reminding one and all who care to observe
That life itself is neither seldom short nor simple,
And the more who become involved in it
The more complicated, involved and often tedious it becomes,
Particularly if one’s journey is not necessarily a happy one,
But plagued with sicknesses and viruses,
Lost love and misplaced opportunities,
Which haunt one’s memories and cause one to despair.

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