Arya announced the performance at breakfast.
“Four o’clock,” she said. “Living room. Assigned seating.”
There were six people in the house and twelve dining chairs, but Arya had drawn tickets anyway. Each ticket had a crown on the front and a warning on the back:
No late entry during dragon scenes.
Jiya was playing the queen. She had already changed the queen’s name three times and lost one royal sock.
Uncle Mayank had been given a single responsibility.
“You introduce the kingdom,” Arya told him.
“How long is the introduction?”
“Two minutes.”
“Excellent,” said Uncle Mayank. “I have enough material for nine.”
After lunch, Arya built the stage between two chairs. She hung a bedsheet for the curtain, taped paper towers to the wall, and balanced a cardboard moon on the floor lamp.
At three fifteen, Uncle Mayank lay down on the sofa.
“You cannot sleep,” Arya said.
“I am not sleeping. I am protecting my voice.”
“Your eyes are closed.”
“The voice is connected to many systems.”
At three twenty, he began to snore.
At three thirty, Jiya sat on the cardboard moon.
At three forty, the left tower fell and took the curtain with it. One chair tipped over. The moon rolled beneath the coffee table. The dragon—made from a green pillowcase—lost an eye.
Arya stood in the wreckage holding a roll of tape that had stuck to itself.
“This is a disaster.”
Aneeta looked at the clock. “What must be true for the show to begin?”
“The stage must stand. The curtain must open. The dragon needs two eyes. The queen needs both socks. Uncle Mayank needs to be conscious.”
“Which of those are essential?”
Arya stared at the fallen kingdom. “I don’t like this question.”
At three fifty-five, Uncle Mayank opened one eye.
“Why,” he asked, “has civilization collapsed?”
“Because you slept through rehearsal.”
“No kingdom has ever survived by blaming the historian. Give me the facts.”
Arya gave him the facts quickly and without kindness.
Uncle Mayank sat up. He removed the tape from her hand, set the fallen chair upright, and clipped the bedsheet to it with two clothespins from the laundry basket.
“One tower,” he said, tossing the other aside. “The second was a vanity project.”
He found the moon under the coffee table and turned it over so the dent faced the floor.
“The moon has phases.”
He drew a new dragon eye on a grocery receipt.
“The dragon has insurance.”
“What about the queen’s sock?” Arya asked.
Jiya walked in wearing one sock and a paper crown sideways across her forehead.
“The queen,” said Uncle Mayank, “has rejected symmetry.”
At four o’clock, the audience took its assigned seats.
Uncle Mayank stepped before the crooked curtain.
“Once,” he began, “there was a kingdom with two towers, two moons, and an extremely punctual dragon.”
Behind him, Arya whispered, “One tower.”
“Then,” Uncle Mayank continued, “a terrible storm destroyed the unnecessary tower, sat on the spare moon, and removed one of the dragon’s eyes for tax purposes.”
Jiya giggled so loudly that her crown fell off.
Uncle Mayank described a queen who ruled with one sock because the other had been sent on a secret mission. He described a dragon who could see the future with its paper eye but could not see anything on its left. He described a young architect who repaired the kingdom with two chairs, a bedsheet, and no patience for historical inaccuracies.
Arya stopped whispering corrections.
She lifted the curtain.
The play began.
Halfway through the dragon scene, the green pillowcase slipped from Jiya’s hands and landed on Uncle Mayank’s head. He fell sideways onto the sofa and produced one perfect snore.
The audience applauded.
After the show, Arya found him in the kitchen eating the emergency cookies reserved for cast morale.
“Did you plan any of that?” she asked.
“Every detail.”
“You were asleep.”
“Planning is quieter than people think.”
Aneeta raised an eyebrow.
Uncle Mayank considered this.
“Fine,” he said. “I planned to be available horizontally.”
Later, Jiya found him asleep again on the sofa. She placed the sideways paper crown on his head and tucked the one-eyed dragon beneath his arm.
“Kingdom closed,” she whispered.
Uncle Mayank smiled without opening his eyes.