It's Not My Fault

Prologue

This is almost a prose poem or stream of consciousness. The Vocal "Just A Minute" Challenge closes soon and I see so many people who are trying to submit at the last minute, and sometimes failing to hit the deadline. Sometimes it is Vocal's fault, when the server goes down, and that must be very annoying, but sometimes it may be the creator's own set-up, or some real-life episode like a family or work issue that has stopped them, and the fact that they have waited til the last minutes before submitting.

The music is "Worried Man" by Paulo Nutini, and earlier it wouldn't post, which is ironic considering the subject of this story.

It's Not My Fault

That's it

I'm finished, now I can send it to Vocal, and get it published, and I know I have a good chance of landing the $500 prize. I am on first-name terms with a lot of people in Vocal, and I have won many of their challenges, so I am an old experienced hand at this.

I press the final save button and it is taking its time.

I then get a "story not saved" message asking me to try again. I have fifty seconds left.

I am sweating.

I try and save it again and then I get a message in red that I don't understand. My story is finished in my head but not on Vocal.

This is not my fault.

They know there will be lots of people trying to get their story into the Challenge, and they need a server that can deal with it.

Forty Seconds.

I press save again, and this time it comes back and asks me if I want to "Submit for Review". I hit that button hard, almost smashing my keyboard, I am so nervous.

Then the community dropdown comes up and it's empty. Feck. Their server is rubbish. I try to refresh the screen and it goes back to my profile.

I select "Stories" and my story, go in and then resubmit it for the review. This time I can select "Fiction", then "Sci-Fi" and "Microfiction" (it's just over five hundred words).

That all looks good and I remember to select the Challenge (there's only one, and it's "Just A Minute", Vocal are being a little tardy with their challenges and when this closes there are no new ones for us).

Five seconds

I wait, has it been published?

Am I going to be rejected?

I really am sweating.

This minute seems to have lasted hours while seeming to pass in an instant and I am sweating all over, my hands are sticky and there are wet marks on my keyboard.

Then it comes back, it published an in the challenge, there are two seconds left on the clock assuming that we are on the same time.

Then I remember, daylight saving came in last week, so I didn't have a minute I had an hour and a minute. Oh my god, I got so stressed and if I had just thought I could have taken my time.

Although the reality is, if I had known I had another hour I would have gone and done something else, and still tried to submit my story with only sixty seconds left.

But that is just the way I am.