THE AGONY FROM BELOW

1: The Breakfast Feud

It's an eerie Friday morning with a crisp chill in the air in the small town of Oak Riverton. The tree leaves have begun their captivating transition from life to death. Carved pumpkins and skeleton decorations overflow the streets of this quiet suburban town. For some it is the best time of the year: Halloween.

A loud crash breaks the stillness of the early morning. Narrowing in on the source of the commotion appears a quaint yellow house with a freshly painted white picket fence. Inside lives the Parish family. Eleanor, Elle for short, is a single mother in her late thirties to two boys Tyler and Alex. Her flat ironed shoulder-length brunette hair hides her early onset aging caused by all the partying she did years before she became a mother. Her oldest son Tyler is sixteen years old and shares her same curly brown hair. His dark brown eyes aid him in hiding the pain he has caused by his parents' divorce two years prior. Alex, the youngest, recently celebrated his ninth birthday earlier this week. He looks to be finally growing into his chubby cheeks which his mother loves to kiss and squeeze. Unlike his brother, young Alex has bright blue eyes and dirty blonde hair. Characteristics he inherited from his father.

"Boys!" exclaims Elle. "What did you two do!?"

"I didn't do anything mom; it was all Tyler's fault.", says Alex in an anxious tone.

"Shut up you little twerp! I'll beat your ass for snitching.", shouts Tyler.

Elle walks into her dated kitchen to find her two boys wrestling over a bowl of cereal which has now been shattered into countless pieces on the floor.

"Stop it now!", shouts Elle. "I want you guys to clean this mess up immediately and then tell me exactly what happened." Rattled by their mother's harsh tone, the boys untangle themselves from each other and begin to clean up the mess.

With the floor now spotless, young Alex dressed in his new Batman costume begins to explain his side of the story. "Well, you see what happened was that I was sitting here minding my own business eating my Boo Berries when out of nowhere Tyler comes up behind me and scares me. He made me knock my bowl of cereal on the ground. I told him I don't like being scared, but he doesn't listen because he's a bully!"

Immediately Tyler chimes in. "Oh, shut up! You're such a little baby. I only scared him a little bit. He didn't need to overreact and throw his bowl on the ground like some sort of tweaker."

Looking at her older son dressed in what she can only see as teenage angst in its purest form. "Tyler what in the hell are you wearing?" Tyler stands in front of her dressed in all black with corpse paint and a Slayer t-shirt on that reads "God Hates Us All".

"What Elle? It's my Halloween costume," explains Tyler with a wise tone in his remark.

"First off, it is 'Mother' to you not 'Elle'. Secondly, no wonder you scared your brother you look like literal death."

"That's the point MOTHER. It's metal, I'm supposed to look evil and scary (throws devil horns in the air)."

Elle shakes her head with disapproval. She wants to make him go change, but she knows better than to start that fight with him. Especially since today is her big interview for a management position at work so she is already stressing over that.

"Fine. If you want to look like some sort of crazy person then you go right ahead. I'm too tired and in too much of a hurry to deal with more than one fiasco this morning." Elle says in an exhausted manner. "Just make sure you put a jacket on before I take you to school. I don't need the principal calling me saying you're freezing your ass off."

A quick glance at the clock shows it to be a quarter-till seven. The boy's schools were five minutes apart from each other which meant that in order to get them there on time she needed to leave in at least ten minutes or be doomed to the early morning traffic. In what appeared to be speed that only a mother could have; Elle got both of her boy's lunches packed, made sure they brushed their teeth, and were in the car ready to go in a mere eight minutes.