THE AUTOPSY OF UNSPENT LOVE PART III: THE ANATOMY OF "TOO LATE" Chapter 9: The Contagion of Regret The waiting room at Helix Diagnostics was usually a place of silent, competitive suffering. People sat with their eyes glued to their phones, building invisible walls to keep out the reality of illness. But today, the walls were crumbling. Kabir was sitting in the center of the room. He wasn't crying loudly—that would have been easier for everyone to ignore. Instead, he was leaking. Silent tears streamed down his face, soaking into the collar of his expensive shirt. He was staring at a PDF on his phone: his father’s final medical report. Cause of Death: Acute Myocardial Infarction. Time of Death: 11:42 PM. "I was on the call," Kabir said. He didn't say it to anyone in particular, but the silence in the room was so thick that his whisper sounded like a shout. "He died at 11:42. I finished my pitch at 11:45. I was celebrating while he was cooling." Meera, sitting three seats away, looked up from her laptop. She usually hated disruptions. She called them "efficiency leaks." But something in Kabir’s voice—a jagged, raw frequency of total defeat—made her close her screen. "I hated his humming," Kabir continued, his voice trembling. "He used to hum when he watered the plants. It drove me crazy. I told him to shut up last week." He looked up, his eyes red and wild, scanning the strangers in the room. "I would give my entire company... I would give every rupee I have... just to hear that annoying, off-key humming one more time." The air in the room shifted. This wasn't just Kabir’s pain anymore; it was an airborne pathogen. It was the Virus of Realization. Meera felt a cold hand clutch her heart. The "annoying" things. She thought of her mother. She thought of the way her mother chewed betel nut (supari) loudly. She thought of the way her mother called her five times a day to ask, "Did you eat?" She thought of how she had saved her mother’s number as "Do Not Pick Up" during office hours. Suddenly, Meera wasn't seeing her mother through the lens of irritation. She was seeing her through Kabir’s lens: the lens of Finality. She imagined her house without the smell of supari. She imagined her phone never ringing again. She imagined the silence that Kabir was currently drowning in. My mother is next, the thought struck her with the violence of a physical blow. "It happens so fast," Kabir whispered, his head in his hands. "You think you have time. You think, 'I'll be nice when I get the promotion.' 'I'll be patient when I'm less stressed.' But the deadline isn't on your calendar. It's on God's." Across the room, Aarav, the young techie, lowered his phone. He had been swiping on Bumble. He looked at Kabir, then looked at the empty chair next to him. He thought of his girlfriend, whom he had broken up with because she "wasn't ambitious enough." He realized he had traded a human being for a checklist. The infection was spreading. It wasn't a sickness of the body; it was a Spiritual Awakening disguised as panic. Meera stood up. Her legs felt shaky. The "Superwoman" mask had cracked. She walked over to Kabir. She didn't know him, but grief is a universal language that bypasses social etiquette. "I did it too," she said softly. Kabir looked up. "My mother," Meera confessed, her voice breaking. "She wanted to tell me about her trip to Haridwar. I told her to get to the point. I treated her story like a transaction I needed to close." "Call her," Kabir said. It was a command, urgent and desperate. "Call her right now. Don't wait for the 'right time.' The right time is while they are breathing." Meera pulled out her phone. Her hands were shaking so hard she could barely unlock the screen. She dialed Ma. Ring... Ring... "Hello?" Her mother’s voice was hesitant, expecting to be scolded for interrupting work. "Meera? Is everything okay?" Meera squeezed her eyes shut. The tears came hot and fast, washing away the emails, the deadlines, the conditions, the crust of her ego. "Ma," Meera choked out. "Tell me about Haridwar. Tell me about the river. I want to hear it. All of it." "Now?" her mother asked, confused. "But you are at the clinic. You are busy." "I am not busy," Meera sobbed, sinking into the chair next to Kabir. "I am not busy, Ma. I am listening." In the waiting room, the silence was broken not by the calling of token numbers, but by the sound of barriers breaking. Kabir watched Meera, and for the first time in days, the crushing weight on his chest lifted just a millimeter. He couldn't save his father. But he had just saved Meera’s mother. The infection had passed. But this time, it wasn't an infection of death. It was the painful, feverish beginning of Unconditional Love. ________________________________________ Key Concepts Covered in Narrative: 1. Emotional Contagion: The phenomenon where one person's grief triggers a realization in others, spreading the "infection" of regret and awareness through a social group. 2. The "Alas" Moment as a Warning: Kabir’s tragedy serves as a "ghost of Christmas future" for Meera, allowing her to experience the regret pre-emptively and change her behavior while there is still time. 3. Breaking the "Busy" Script: Meera rejects the social script of "I am too busy" to prioritize the "Thou" (her mother) over the "It" (her schedule), marking the first step in her healing. 4. The Shift from Transactional to Relational: Meera stops treating the phone call as an exchange of information and treats it as an act of connection ("I want to hear it. All of it.").