Border, KS

By himself, Walter Richards would eat quietly and quickly. Probably microwave eggs and enough coffee to kill a horse. As it was he had fresh scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast ready for his children when they woke up for their first day at a new school.

He had to remind himself that no plan survived contact with the enemy, and then to remind himself that it probably wasn’t healthy to think of his children as the enemy. It started when Siobhan came down, dressed like a schoolgirl from an Edgar Allen Poe story, poured herself black coffee in a mug so large it should have been a vase that he hadn’t even known she had, and stared at the food like it was an alien substance. Her hair, rich and dark like her mother’s and dyed darker still, hung over one of her eyes in an artless tousle of the loose waves it tended to when she didn’t straighten or cut it. He was in the process of gesturing to her to partake of the bounty of his efforts when Antigone came downstairs. She was dressed like a flower child, showing way too much stomach, and proceeded to start making herself multi-grain toast, primly declaring it to be all she was going to eat. She had her hair back in a simple ponytail, rich mahogany tumbling down her back like her mother’s had years before. Both girls had her tan skin, thin features, and hazel-green eyes–although Siobhan’s seemed to hold more of the dark gold brown, while Antigone’s had more of the green of summer fields.

Walter was finishing his coffee, and despairing of the twin facts that it did not have Irish cream in it and the food was not going to get eaten, when his son Ryan shuffled down the stairs. He looked like…well, a skater boy.

“Come on, Ry, save me from throwing all this food out.” Walter said hopefully. Ryan looked at him through bleary eyes, his medium brown hair hanging shaggy over his eyes in the only haircut he allowed himself to have. Walter watched as his youngest child, the one that took after him the most, shoved a handful of bacon in his mouth before the fourteen year old grabbed his skateboard and walked out the door.

The only thing the two girls could seem to agree on was rolling their eyes at their brother, before they too exited. Walter was left staring plaintively at the eggs before he scooped them all into a tupperware container to take to work, and exited his house.