This particular scene was called ‘Son Bonds with Dad on Deathbed’. Eram, unable to deal with his helplessness, makes lame jokes. Faizl tries to smile, but even that is too much of an effort for his disease-riddled body. He has hours, maybe minutes, left. Eram, unable to deal with his helplessness, punches the hospital wall. Faizl says, ‘I wish your mother were here with us. She would have been proud of the man you are today.’ Eram pulls a chair up to the bed, eyes shining. ‘What was she like, my mother?’ he asks his dying father. Faizl takes his son’s hand in his own. ‘She was the most beautiful woman I ever met. And she would have been proud of the man you are today.’ After telling Eram three more times that his mother would have been proud of the man he is today, Faizl closes his eyes. Cue sad music. Eram clasps his father’s lifeless hand and howls at the ceiling.

‘Eram. Eram, wake up,’ Faizl was snapping his fingers.

‘What, I’m up, I’m up. What’s going on?’

Faizl pointed at the dinner tray in front of him. ‘They’re trying to poison me. Go see if the cafeteria has a sandwich, will you? That will kill me too, but at least history will have it on record that I didn’t go down without a fight.’

Of course, after Eram went through a lot of trouble smuggling the sandwich past the security guards, Faizl pulled it apart and grimaced. ‘That chicken looks sicker than most of the people in here,’ he said.

Eram snapped. ‘All you do is moan and grumble about everything. Honestly, you’re like a child. If you can’t say anything nice, or behave remotely like a human being, I wish you’d just shut the hell up.’

Oh my god, he thought, I sound like someone’s dad. The idea that he had somehow become the parent in this relationship frightened Eram so much that he couldn’t bear to be in the room for another second. He tried to slam the door on his way out, but it had one of those automatic closing things attached to the top and wouldn’t slam. Stupid fucking door.

The Baron said it was never a good idea to play the game while you were angry. Eram knew from experience that this was true. Poker was all about making the right decisions, and you couldn’t very well do that if you were mad enough to bite someone. The catch was that Eram was already so mad that he didn’t give a good goddamn what the Baron or anyone else said. He just wanted to beat on someone.

He settled down in a quiet corner of the ground floor waiting lounge, tapped the PokerAce app on his phone and grabbed a seat at a mid-stakes table. Fifteen minutes and twenty thousand rupees later, he came to his senses.

Rookie move, Eram. Nicely done.