I was presenting this morning. To the whole team, VPs even. Talking about the new microservices architecture, how we’re going to hit Q4 numbers *hard*. Like, this is my baby, right? I designed the whole damn thing from the ground up, ate ramen and slept under my desk for six months straight when I first started here, just to get this far. My father back home, he still thinks I’m a glorified IT guy, fixing printers. This was supposed to be the proof. Then Sharma, the new junior guy, he raises his hand. Asks about a specific data serialization library. A basic one. Something I’ve probably typed ten thousand times. And I… just blanked. Not even a little hesitation. Just... gone. My mind was an empty room, echoey, like after everyone leaves a wedding and all that's left is plastic cups. I could feel the silence, hear my own pulse thrumming in my ears. The air conditioning hummed, I swear it was mocking me. I could see the VPs, pretending to not notice, but their eyes… they were cold. Not angry, just cold. Disappointed. Like my father’s eyes when I got a B on a math test, instead of an A+. He just said, "Is that your best?" I mumbled something about "checking the docs later" and quickly moved on. But it’s been hours, and that moment is still stuck in my head. A high-level architect, forty-seven years old, forgot a basic syntax. Fucking basic. My hands are shaking a little even now, typing this out. What if it’s starting? The decline? The one my *abba* always warned me about, the "you work too hard, you’ll burn out your brain" lecture. He’d say it in Punjabi, then switch to English for the punchline, "Then you’ll just be a… *dabba*." A box. Empty. This isn't just about a coding error. This is about everything. All of it.