A week ago, Kapil nearly lost his hand, and it could have been far worse. On the phone, distracted, wrestling a stuck dishwasher, a knife went fifteen millimetres into his hand, a fraction from an artery. On the three ifs that make this a second life, what a stranger's story in the hospital taught him about time, why the go-getter was not the one who got hurt, and the one shift he is carrying out of it.