[ WP ] A software developer sees bugs in code as literal bugs , all around him .

How many cups of coffee?... How many hours after dawn?... Deadlines. Sleep can wait. He'll sleep when he's dead... 
 
 Another one. A pesky irritation in the delicate skin of the program. How did he miss this?... he corrects the issue and scrolls, continuing to search his screen. 
 
 The next one is different, as he highlights the selection, eyes jumping from the running demo screen to the screen containing the raw code, he attempts to correct it, but the symbols on the screen begin to slip. 
 
 It's impossible, of course, for the letters, numbers, slashes, and dots to drop off the window, drifting down to the bottom of the screen, but at the bottom, along the task bar, they come to rest. 
 
 Absent mindedly, he tries to click and drag them back into place. He has a deadline. Rest will wait, food will wait. Even breathing will be put on hiatus as needed. 
 
 The shapes of the symbols, so familiar to him until now, shrink into small black blobs. 
 
 Not funny, he thinks, and goes back to the now empty line, attempting to replace the fallen symbols with a new set. A correct set. 
 
 He is half way through the line of code before he realizes the blobs at the bottom of the screen have begun to sprout legs. 
 
 His eyes narrow, and he stares at the blobs as movement scatters them across the screen. Several fall into his keyboard. 
 
 `` This ca n't be happening!'' he says angrily. `` I have a deadline!'' 
 
 He ignores their bites until his hands are slipping off the keys, dripping with blood.
