See, when you’re programming too, the world grows small and still. You forget about everything else. You’re in a zone. There are no backward glances. The sound and the lights keep pushing you onwards. You gather pace. You keep on going. The variations comply. The sound funnels inwards to a point, like an explosion seen in reverse. Everything comes down to a single point. It might be a voice recognition program, or a chess hack, or writing lines for a Boeing helicopter radar — it doesn’t matter: the only thing you care about is the next line coming your way. On a good day it can be a thousand lines. On a bad one you can’t find where it all falls apart.