Coloured Me Grey (Book Two)

Chapter 12

Not naming the chapters yet. Some of the previous names suck. I'll have to work it out later. Happy reading, people!

"You are late!" An angry Zara shrieked at my face as she opened the doors for me to get in.

"I'm sorry, Princess!" I cooed and took her up in my arms, shutting the door behind me with a swing of my hip. "I'm so sorry that I apologize to you right now and right here, Your Highness."

"And how will you do that?"

I was extra giddy from my little not-a-date with a certain pretty painter boy.

"We will learn something new today." It was a Friday evening - when Zara is allowed to hang out with me instead of laboring at her school homework with her mother.

"What are learning? Tell me, tell me now!" She started jumping in my arms, jabbing her legs in my ribs. Fucking ouch.

"It's called origami," I said, carrying her into my room and dropped her on my bed.

"Or. Gay. Me?"

"No, Zara," I giggled. Where is your manliness, if you cannot giggle? "It's Origami. A Japanese art form. It means folding papers."

"Huh? We're just going to fold papers?" She looked disappointed in me as if to say, an eighteen year old you folding papers? You call that art, Dadabhai?

"It's not that easy, you know," I offered.

"Okay, if you say so." She donned a bored face.

You evil little cockroach. Don't you dare belittle the Japanese.

***

"Fold the paper diagonally, matching each corner to the opposite corner."

It was a fourth attempt at making a crane. She made some pretty neat ones for a five year old but being the little perfectionist that she is, she wanted to make cranes as perfect as mine.

Perfect is a vague term when it comes to art. Art is always perfect but then again, art is never perfect. And you cannot sit and wait for the perfection to happen. To achieve perfection, you have to go on working on imperfect things. 

"Look, it's done!" Zara waved a perfect crane in front of me. "I did it!"

"I knew you could do it."

"Maaa," the little girl screamed. "Look! I made a pretty crane!"

Mother arrived, holding a rolling pin full of atta in her hand.

Zara told her mother all the knowledge she had gathered about origami in a very serious tone. If only you were this serious in your studies, you little genius.

I would have laughed at her childish innocence had the presence of the woman not made me absolutely sour from inside.

"Really?" Mother played along. "These are beautiful! Why don't you make some more, string them up together and hang them somewhere?"

After Zara and I had finished making a couple more of the winged paper creatures, we strung them up together and Zara tore away to Baba's study before I realized what was happening. I glanced towards the kitchen and met Mother's eyes. Both of us were equally frightened, trying not to show it on our faces.

"I will go get her before he returns," I blurted, averting my eyes.

Mother sighed. "Let her be. I want to see how this plays out."

So now everything is a game for you to see how well your set-ups can play out?

***

"Did you do this yourself?"