When the game finally ended I won, barely, and she leaned back on the sofa and said fine, what do I have to do. I had been waiting for this. I said the loser has to act like any animal the winner chooses, for one full hour, no complaints, no negotiations. She looked at me for a second and said okay, what animal.
I said koala.
She thought about it for exactly one second. Then she climbed on. Arms around my neck, legs around my waist, full weight, no sorry. "One hour," she said into my shoulder. I set the timer.
The first fifteen minutes were interesting. I was still trying to move around normally, which was difficult because Anjali had decided that moving around normally was not something a koala does. I got up to get water and she came with me. I sat back down and she settled. I picked up my phone and she shifted her chin to look at the screen. "Koalas are curious," she said. "Koalas also sleep twenty hours a day," I said. "Main so sakti hoon," she said. "Tum chalte raho."
I tried to complain. "Anjali yaar kitni bhaari ho." She said koalas don't respond to insults and tightened her grip.
After a while I said tum koala nahi ho, Vetaal ban gayi ho, harkat dekho. She lifted her head and said okay fine, Vetaal ki tarah penalty system hai mera. I said what penalty. She bit my ear, softly, and said this. I said okay noted.
Ten minutes later she bit my ear again. "Koala is hungry." I asked what koalas eat. She said eucalyptus. I said we don't have eucalyptus. She said figure it out.
I walked to the kitchen with her on my back, opened the cabinet, and stood there for a while. We had mint leaves, green tea, and a pesto jar I had bought six months ago and never opened. I told her this. She considered the options seriously and said mint. "Koalas are adaptable," she said. I handed her a mint leaf over my shoulder. She took it, chewed it slowly, and then said this is not eucalyptus. I said I know. She said give me another one. I gave her another one. She accepted it without further complaint and we both pretended this was a completely normal Sunday.
The high shelf was a mistake. I needed my phone charger and it was on the top shelf and I reached for it without thinking and Anjali shifted her weight at the exact wrong moment and for one long second neither of us had any balance at all. We landed on the sofa together, both looking up at the ceiling fan. "Koala okay hai?" I asked. "Koalas are resilient," she said, and climbed back on.
The food delivery came at six. I looked at the door and then looked at the situation. I found my oversized hoodie on the armrest and pulled it over both of us, which took some effort, and then walked to the door. The delivery boy handed me the bag and looked at my back and then at the two socked feet hanging on either side of my waist. He didn't say anything. I tipped him extra.
Around the forty minute mark she started tracing letters on my back, slowly, one at a time. I focused. S, C, R, A, B, B, L, E. "That's not a high scoring word," I said. She thought about it and started again. Q, U, I, X, O, T, I, C. "Triple word," I said. "Bohot zyada points." I felt her smile against my shoulder without seeing it.
Then she went still. Her ear pressed lightly against my chest. Not talking, not moving.
After a while she said, without lifting her head, "Shaadi kab karoge." I said whenever you want, just say the word. She was quiet for a second. I said seriously, kal bhi kar lo, mujhe koi problem nahi. She tightened her arms and said koalas are not ready for marriage. I said the koala was the one who asked. She said the koala was just making conversation. I said mere parents ko bhi koi problem nahi hogi, tum batao apne parents ko. She said koalas don't have parents. I said Anjali. She said koalas also can't read calendars. I said tum bahut convenient ho. She said thank you, and put her cold nose back into my neck and said nothing else.
Outside a bike went past and someone was laughing somewhere on the street and the ceiling fan made its usual sound.
"Can this koala," she said quietly, "kiss you?"
She didn't wait for an answer. She just turned her head and found the angle she wanted and her cold nose pressed into my neck for a moment before she kissed me. Soft and slow, the kind that isn't in a hurry to go anywhere.
The timer went off.
Neither of us moved. It kept beeping. Then it stopped on its own.
"Koalas," she said, "can't read clocks."
She stayed where she was. I didn't say anything. The Scrabble board was still on the table, the uncounted scores, the fake words, the challenged moves, none of it mattered anymore.
She stayed where she was.
I let her