Marcelle is

#2 Marcelle is a loud chewer

❝Ralphie: "No! No! I want an official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!"

Santa Clause: "You'll shoot your eye out, kid."❞

A Christmas Story

The front door closes heavily behind Matthew [but not as heavy as his hopeless sigh that follows]. He throws the car keys into the ceramic mermaid-shaped bowl, that his mother put on some random table she scratched out from his grandmother's to keep pile, to store keys [currently storing his car and house keys, a ball of lint and used tissues].

"Mom!" he cries cinematically, "art thou home?"

When he gets no reply, it's safe to say she is either dead in the tub or at work. The latter is the obvious option: she has a son to care for and a house to pay, after all. If she's dead, it'll probably be Matthew's doing, but he doesn't remember being an axe murderer. His mother, in all her independent-lifestyle pride and codependency on work, is never at home, anyways. When she is, it's a surprise and lie all at the same. She's always engrossed in work, seeing her in her home habitat is like seeing a lion in the middle of the highway. She makes a habit out of it to bring work home.

He discards his backpack on the fair sofa he never sits on before cutting a line to the kitchen. The first thing Matthew thinks about in the morning, is coffee. The first thing he thinks about when he gets home in the afternoon [other than where his arbitrary mother is] is coffee. He craves coffee like normal people crave water to quench  their thirst. He needs coffee to survive chemistry homework and finishing up a poorly scribbled Rapunzel while slapping together a few character sketches. 

Hell, he has yet so much to do. He has so much work to do and trying to dump it all in one afternoon is like putting a cat in a tub filled with water. The hard pong of work is weak, a full sign Matthew should actually do something.

The kitchen is vacant, just like the rest of the house. Between all the memories captured in cheap ink on paper magnetically stuck to the fridge, is a pink sticky note.

Matty

I'm working double shifts at the hospital, so don't wait up for me. I brought you home some pie from the cafeteria, just reheat it.

Love
Mom

Matthew pulls the note from the fridge, examining the lanky, hasty handwriting. If she's working double shifts, he's not going to see her until tomorrow. He crumples the note between his fingers and his palm, crunching like a piece of wood breaking. The microwave holds a chunky piece of perfectly baked pie.

He might as well feed his hunger before his hunger starts feeding on his screenwriting. He's starting to regret picking a confusing play instead of a Dr. Seuss book. Maybe he should've picked a Tim Burton movie and make it one of his own. Or even West Side Story, the sky's the limit.