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Circling around to the rear of the house, Morris ascended the three stairs at the back door and let himself into the small single story house he shared with his mother. She wasn’t home, would be working until five. Kicking his shoes off, he went down his room in the basement. Curtains three quarters drawn, posters decorating the panel board walls, bed unmade, the room had a dingy quality.

Flopping on his bed, he grabbed his headphones and cranked up some heavy metal music. He didn’t hear his mother come home.

“Did you eat?” she called down from the top of the stairs as she removed her shoes. “Morris?” she called. Frowning, she made her way downstairs and rapped on his door. She could hear off key singing coming from the other side of the door.

Opening the door and poking her head in, Morris lying on his bed, hands raised doing some kind of air guitar and lip synching.

“Morris?” she said, voice loud enough to be heard over the headphones. He didn’t move. She shook her head, stepping through the door she crossed the floor of the messy room and grabbed the big toe of his left foot through his sock with her left hand.

He jolted upright, yelling an incoherent noise, eyes impossibly round, headphones sliding off his head and falling back onto his pillow, “For fuck’s sakes Mom you scared the crap out of me!” he said, voice shaky.

A smile crossed her pleasant face and she chortled some.

“It’s not funny,” he defended, mildly embarrassed.

“Did you eat yet?” she asked, eyes assessing the condition of his room.

He shook his head. Reaching over he picked up his iPod and turned it off.

She nodded. “I’ll go put some soup on and whip up a couple of grilled cheese sandwiches, you should maybe tidy up this crime scene here while I’m doing that,” she suggested, moving her hand in a circular motion to indicate his room, and smiling at him.

Twisting, he swung his legs off the bed and sat up. “Okay,” he said, heart rate returning to normal.

Navigating through the mess on the floor, she paused at the door, looking back, head tilted to one side, “What did I say about smoking down here?”

He frowned, “No smoking in the house, I know,” he conceded.

“I mean it Morris, it smells and if this house fire waiting to happen room of yours ever goes up, it would probably burn down the whole house, so please, no more smoking,” she said.

He nodded sheepishly. The top of empty Coke can on his night table littered with ashes.

“I’ll call you when it’s ready,” she advised. “I’m going to leave the door open to try and air out your man cave,” she added, vanishing back up the stairs.

Grumbling, he got off the bed and started trying to bring order to the chaos of his room. When supper was ready she called down and he went upstairs. Sitting in the nook off the kitchen, she had a bowl of soup and left him with the pot atop an insulated holder on the table. They each had a cheese sandwich cut diagonally on a small side plate.

“How was school today?” she asked, taking a spoonful of heart vegetable.

Shrugging his shoulders, “I don’t know, you know, the usual,” he said, taking a bite of the golden brown sandwich. Should he tell here? ‘Oh by the way, I saw this really gorgeous girl eat a guy at school today, oh wait, that sounds kind of odd, first she shrank him down, then swallowed him whole, other than that, pretty much just a regular day. No wait, the girl and her two friend who shrank the guy have been stalking me all day, so other than that, just another day.’

She nodded and smiled. “Homework?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“After the dishes, I want you to finish cleaning up down there,” she instructed.

“Dishes?” he complained.

She nodded, “I cooked, it’s your responsibility to do the dishes,” she reminded.

He grumbled around another mouthful of sandwich. After eating, he hastily rinsed off the dishes under hot water and set them in the dry rack before returning to his basement domain. Grabbing his waste basket, he began sorting through the accumulated clutter in his room, separating things to keep from things to throw away. He had piled his dirty laundry in one corner, and it appeared as if he were making a dent in the condition of his room.

His cell phone lit up. Tom. Parking his butt on the bed, Mo swiped his phone and answered the call.

“Totally figured out why my hands smelled like ass, formaldehyde,” said Tom.

“What?” Mo asked.

“My hands, we cut up a frog in biology,” explained Tom. “I reached into the bucket to get a good one. They were in a formaldehyde solution. We were working with the critters the whole block, I guess I just got used to it, but that’s why my hands smelled,” he said.

“You called me up just to tell me why your hands stank?” he asked.

“Well, yeah,” Tom answered crestfallen.

Morris laughed, “Knob.”

“You’re a knob. What are you doing?”

Mo let out a sigh, “Mom’s got me cleaning the pit, you?” The pit, the term he used to describe his room.

“Got the house all to myself and just chilling, fucked around a little on the PlayStation, but then I started to notice the smell on my hands, you know, just figured you would want to know,” he replied.

“Mystery solved. I’m am hoping you washed them?”

Tom laughed, “Duh, of course, but I had to use my Dad’s citrus cleaner to get it off, now smell like I been crushing oranges.”

“You holding right now?” Morris asked, hopeful.

“Nope, all tapped,” lamented Tom. “Oh, doorbell, someone’s at the door, I’ll catch you later ‘Jabberwocky’,” he said, the last in an English accent.

Setting his phone down on the table beside his bed, he looked at the Herculean task before him. Sighing, no bud to blunt the onerous chore, he returned to trying to instill order where only chaos existed.