Late Lesson

A delayed presentation prevents a catastrophic misquote.

He stayed up all night to craft this hundred-slide deck,
divided into four, four-hour sections
perfect for a filibuster
or a dawn to midnight meeting.

Before his laptop, he closed his eyes;
his forehead crashed onto the keyboard,
and he never hit send.
An accidental key press sent the PowerPoint
to the recycle bin.

At nine in the morning he was three hours late.
Angry calls and texts had failed to wake him;
his phone was out of charge from the all-nighter.
He gulped coffee, heart racing and hands shaking
as he mass-replied apologies.

He retrieved the PowerPoint, no longer
drunk from sleep deprivation;
checking the AI sources, he fixed 15 misquotes,
replacing them with truths.

He condensed the wordy 100-slide deck
into a 20 slide power piece
with the things that really mattered,
took a four-second breath in,
a four-second breath out,
said, "Maybe this delay was what we needed?
Please take a look."

This was written for a daily contest, The Writer's Cramp. Today's prompt was to write about the consequences of being three hours late.

FORUM

The Writer's Cramp  (13+) Write the best poem or story in 24 hours or less and win 10K GPS! #333655 by Sophy