In My Castle. (BxB)

Prologue

"Mom told me I would marry Naja." I stated, purely to hide the silence as I cut into the paper face of Marilyn Jones.

My grandfather had sunk into his own flesh as he robotically teared tiny pieces of paper from the magazine and stacked them into a small pile.

Marilyn Jones played Gwendolyn in The Juvenile, a 1984 television broadcast. It featured a detention group of students that heavily damaged an important business property and tried to cover their tracks from the business owner who was also the main funder of their school.

"Yes, do you like her?" My grandfather answered, slowly and with litlle intonation.

"Yes, I play house with her often," I answered, " But Dhrut always ruins it, he calls us terrible parents."

My grandfather nodded quietly. He signaled me to grab a blank piece of paper from the stack on the coffee table before us.

"He's just jelous you two don't play with him, he's a good kid." He answered.

It made me wonder why he didn't play with his fiancé. I was always told it was good to spend time with them if one day you were going to marry them. Actually, I didn't know if he had a fiancé. He was always home when I was made to play with his sister.

"Is Dhrut going to marry?" I asked him as I handed him the paper.

"I don't know Milan," He said, then he moved on, "What do you want this piece to be about?"

I thought about it:

"Episode 3 in the second season," I decided " The scene when Mika and Gwendoline visited the plane fields and found Kate cheating on Mason."

My grandfather grumbled out a laugh.

"You quite like the drama."

He began picking out the green and brown pieces of paper he'd teared and carefully stuck them with a glue stick on the paper to create the plain fields. Then he handed me a black marker and the paper.

I answered him an absent minded 'yeah' and with precision I began to draw the outlines of the bodies of Mika and Gwendoline hidding behind the colaged tree.

My grandfather, Geet was his name, watched me motionless. I often worried he'd die and because of his regular immobility we wouldn't realize.

Once I was done drawing all the bodies my grandfather glued the faces of the actors I'd previously cut out onto the bodies I'd drawn.

I then titled the scene 'Caught Red-Handed' in a silver marker. I wrote my name and my grandfather's name behind the paper: 'By Milan Kawle (8) and Geet Kawle (89)'.

"Are you going to submit it today?" My grandfather asked.

The poster was for a weekly contest hosted by The Playtimes magazine in which you had to depict a scene from any show, in the week's theme, in some sort of creative way. I'd done one with my grandfather everyweek for five months now, it was entertaining for the both of us, and sometimes I won toys or merchandise from the show.

I nodded "Mom will drop me at the post office on our way home."

Then, as if she'd heard me, my mother knocked at the door. I knew it was her because she knocked three short times followed by one heavy knock, and I went to answer.

"'Morning love," she greeted me and held my cheeks as she kissed my forehead. "Had a good time?"

I nodded and let her contemplate the poster we made while I hurried to pick up my bag and quickly kisssed my grandfather goodbye. He waved me as I went back to my mom and she shouted her goodbye.

"Is Dhrut going to marry?" I asked my mom once we were in the car.

"Who? Dhrut Shah?" I nodded "Oh, I don't know love. Why do you want to know?"

I thought about it.

"I think he's preety." I answered.

My mom watched me from the corner of her eye. Then she nodded slowly.

"So you think he should marry someone because he's pretty?" She asked for confirmation.

"I guess." When she said it, it didn't make much sense. Somehow I think I knew why I asked. All I knew is that I was excited to go to the Shah's house today. It was my turn to play the mother in our game of house with Naja. Of course, we couldn't tell anyone, because Naja said it wasn't tradition. But she also said, as she'd heard it on TV, that tradition was only comfort for the weak of heart. And that she would never be weak. I thought so too, but I more did it because it felt right.