Morning blues.
It’s about three am, and Maddie has been up for a couple of hours. She has been working on her speech for the funeral. Her mom died two days ago, and Maddie has been chosen to speak at the front. Maddie spent hours trying to find the right words, to sum up, her mother in one speech. But how was she supposed to shorten her mother’s remarkable life in a five-minute speech? The countless kind things her mom has done for her and others. She has always thought of others before herself and how she would make a funny face to cheer up a stranger on the street. How she would help the old neighbours carry their groceries inside or take their trash out for them. These little things she has been doing all her life, and she was just supposed to write one page.
“UGH” she throws the piece of paper she was working on into her ever-growing pile of paper by her trash can. “How the hell am I supposed to do this shit!” she screams while grasping her hair tightly. A hot tear runs down her cheek and she sits in silence for a while.
A knock surprises her and she turns around to see her brother at the door. "Hey are you okay, I heard a scream?" he says as he wipes his eyes, clearly just woken up.
She feels bad about waking him up, " Yeah bubba, I'm fine Im just-" she turns her back to her brother, and looks at the paper.
He gets the hint and walks up to her and hugs her. She normally isn't the one for all the lovey-dovey, touchy stuff, but now is an exception.
"Sorry for waking you up, but go back to sleep it's only"-she checks her alarm clock -" 3:45" He nods and walks out of her room. Before leaving she turns and says "take your advice. It's not good to stress yourself out too much and not sleep." Satisfied with his surprisingly wise advice, he closes her door and leaves.
She turns back to her paper, completely ignores her brother's words, and continues to scribble words onto her page. "why can't I just think of one moment, god dammit!" she whispers yells, careful to not wake any others in her house. She was never one to sleep in or sleep early, for she could never really sleep. Well, not now at least, too many things are happening for her to calm down enough to sleep. Her father got back into drinking heavily, due to her mom's passing, and she has to deal with his drunk ass every day. She has to watch over her siblings way more than she initially had to and protect them from their father's vicious words.
A couple of hours have passed, and she now has only written 3 lines. Her alarm goes off, and she falls out of her chair shaken by the deafening noise. She was listening to her playlist but turned it off to have complete focus. She gets up and wanders to her bedside table, turns off that vile siren noise, and gets dressed.
She is wearing black baggy pants, a Stray Kids band T-shirt, and her five-year-old, ragged white sneakers. She observes herself in the mirror and fixes her short dirty blonde hair, "good enough." Lately, she hasn't been taking care of herself as much because she frankly doesn't have the motivation to.
She walks out of her bedroom and creeps down the stairs. She looks over the bannister, her father is on the sofa snoring like a broken train. She looks at him in disgust as he lies there in his stained white tank top and boxers. She treads back up the stairs and into her room. She eyeballs her alarm clock and notices it's five minutes before she has to wake up her siblings for school. Normally, when your mother dies two days prior, you don't go to school for a couple of days, but she would preferably go than spend all day with her father. Her alarm goes off once more, snapping her out of her thought and she shuts it off once more.
She walks to her sister's room and quietly opens the door. "Kalli~," she says, just in case that might wake her up, but as always, it doesn't. She walks to her sister's bed but trips. "God flubbing dammit", she looks behind her and realizes she tripped on her barbie doll.
"Maddie" she looks up to see her sister staring at her, half asleep."Well good morning," she says whilst trying to get back up from her attack. "I think your doll tried to take me out", her sister chuckled at the cheeky remark and she turns over.
"Oh no you don't, you have to get up," Maddie says as she rolls her sister back over and tears off her blanket. "Nooooooooo" she tries to steal the blanket back but Maddie was stronger. She carries her sister out of bed, bride style, and stands her up. Kalli wipes her eyes and walks towards the bathroom door. "Your clothes are already in there so get changed and I'll do your hair when you're done," she tells her sister as she was in the bathroom. "One down, one to go" she whispers to herself as she strolls to her brother's doorway. As she opened it a long creak emerged from its hinges. Her brother was tying his shoes and let out a high-pitched scream, terrified by the door creak.
"Ha ha ha ha ha ha", Madison lays on the floor wheezing, at her brother's reaction to noise. "Shut up Madison, it wasn't even that funny" he angrily says as he stares at his sister laughing. He despises it when people laugh at him for screaming. "okay, okay sorry" she says as she tries to collect herself. "Are you ready for school?" trying to change the topic. "Y-yeah" he replies and they both leave. After Maddie did her sister's hair, they all tiptoed down the stairs to see their dad, still asleep. "Go get in the car" She instructs her siblings to do as she unlocks the front door. "I'll be there in a minute," she says as they leave and she shuts the door. She rushes to the kitchen and grabs two Pop-Tart packets out of the pantry and runs to the front door.
Before leaving, she eyeballs her father and flips him off. Pleased with herself, she leaves and heads for the car. Maddie hops in hops in the front and hands the Pop-Tarts to her siblings and starts to drive. Ina bout 15 minutes they arrive at Tres and Kallis's school, and they hop out. Just as they are about 5 feet away from the car, "HAVE A GREAT DAY, YOU LITTLE SHIT, I LOVE YA!", Maddie hollers from the window. They both turned around and seemed startled at the impulsive scream. Maddie catches a couple of other students looking at the scene and she eyeballs them and they immediately turn back. "Bye Maddie" Kalli laughs as she spins back around waves. "Bye you possessed Demon" Tre chuckles at her, "love you too," he says as they walk away. Maddie watches them as they enter the school doors and drive away smiling at the scene she just made. And maybe the fact she spooked a couple of 6th graders and kindergarteners.
