He didn’t hear the door creak open behind him. He didn’t hear the shuffle of slippers—cheap blue-and-white rubber ones his father refused to throw away because “they still have grip, Kabir.” He noticed only when a shadow cut across his keyboard. Kabir stiffened. His heart rate spiked—not from fear, but irritation. Hurry Sickness is a low-grade fight-or-flight response to time itself. To Kabir, interruption wasn’t annoying; it was theft. He spun his chair. His father stood there in a faded grey sweater, elbows pilled, pyjamas slightly too short. He looked smaller than Kabir remembered, as if slowly shrinking to occupy less space in his son’s expensive life. In trembling hands, he held a steel plate: papaya cubes, carefully cut; a fork. A universal language of Indian parents who don’t know how to say “I love you,” “I’m proud of you,” or “I’m lonely.” They say it with cut fruit. The father smiled—a tentative hope that cracked the dry skin around his eyes—and stepped forward to place the plate on the desk.