This is one of a collection of stories that are like “Final Destination” meets “The Monkey’s Paw” (W. W. Jacobs, 1902). As such, they are tragedies more than either mysteries or horror, and would appeal most to readers who enjoy the inexorable pull of a story arc that leads to doom. In each story, a protagonist makes a wish that comes true with fatal results for someone, often the person making the wish. Nothing supernatural, but just how things work out. (Or is it?) The technical details surrounding the fatal (or near-fatal) event are drawn from real cases in the US OSHA incident report database or similar sources and are therefore entirely realistic, even if seemingly outlandish. The plots draw lightly from cultural beliefs around actions such as pointing at someone with a stick or knife, wishing in front of a mirror, or stepping on a crack.

Harvey was a perfectionist, or—as others in the department called him—a “nit-picking pest.” His work was slow and sure and tightly focused, garnering eyerolls and sighs from his peers, and his path to death was the perfect outcome of a broken process of his own design.

Harvey was the manager of the team that made the industrial robot in the biotech lab move. It was their instructions, written in an unspoken language, that meant something specific to the yellow robot arm that towered over the workbenches. The team labored under the yoke of micromanagement that Harvey had constructed: not trusting others to be able to master their jobs, work to a shared purpose, or be free to choose how to do things toward that purpose. The team creaked under the weight of his scrutiny, and his staff dreaded the dawning of each weekday. They all knew from sour experience that every day at work would bring scrutiny and criticism at every step, of every process, in every project, and that was when work was progressing perfectly. When there were problems with the software or the robot, or anyone made a mistake, Harvey would be all over everything, all the time, and spin himself up into a froth like a churning propellor, dragging everyone else along in his wake like debris.

Things were not going well with the project. After a mandatory security update, the interface with the robot was no longer communicating properly. Sometimes the interface let only part of the code updates through, and then the robot behaved erratically. They eventually solved the issue, but now the upload procedure included a step that wasn’t needed before, and they were woefully behind schedule. Harvey believed in “agile” development, which to him meant doing the same work with fewer people and no slack built into the schedule to cope with unexpected delays.

The whole week had been at a record level of stress, and Harvey had kept everyone working double shifts to get back onto schedule. Because he was the bottleneck in the critical path to getting on schedule, things got slower as Harvey became increasingly exhausted. He saw it differently, accusing the staff of slacking and getting in his way. Eventually one of the junior technicians made a mistake after being yelled at, and everything ground to a halt while it was rectified. Harvey tore into her, and after accusing her of sabotaging the project, she gave him a choice piece of her mind, called him a “petty-ass piffle pump,” and resigned before his gaping mouth could find the words to fire her. At that point, Harvey threw a tantrum, and with spit flying and adjectives bouncing off the walls, two of the senior staff walked out.

Left with nobody to do the actual work, Harvey decided that he didn’t need them anyway, and set about finalizing the day’s code updates. Not letting good sense of proportion get in his way, he set about reviewing the code for uploading. The events had distracted Harvey, he admitted to himself, and it had taken him too long to review the day’s code. He hurried it through its transformation, uploaded it into the robot, and initiated the code. The hydraulics whined, and Harvey had no time to duck as the arm swung and bounced his startled head off the solid steel workbench.

The team bonded over the shared entwined shock of grief and relief. They would long remember the messy event that had brought them together and given them wings.