Bloberta was cleaning. Again. That's all that she ever did, but to her, everything felt filthy. All of it, everything, her clothes, the furniture, the house, anything.

Bloberta was scrubbing down at the dining table. She was using her kitchen sponge to try clean the already perfectly spotless table, Clay was sat at the head of the table, drinking.

Bloberta cleaned some of the sticky, empty bottles scattered around the dining table. She wiped down the table, once more, and then slipped another wine bottle down onto the table.

Sometimes she wished that Clay would get alcohol poisoning and for. Sometimes she wished that he would just disappear from her life and never come back, not Bloberta wasn't stupid. Those were just fantasies.

Bloberta watched as Clay finished the entire wine bottle in three short gulps. Bloberta wasn't talking, the room — the entire household — was engulfed in a error, tension filled silence.

Bloberta had a few bruises on her arms. It wasn't rocket science to assume how she got them, atleast Clay was honest to the world about being a bad person, unlike Bloberta, who thrived under a fake, motherly, sickly-sweet façade.

God, the kids would be coming home soon, Bloberta thought. They'd be all messy and dirty and filthy, then she'd have to make everything nice and clean and organise all over again, as she did every second of every single day. Cleaning, cooking, rinse and repeat.

She shifted her attention from harshly scrubbing the dining table to Clay when he harshly, [and without warning or any second thought] slapped her wrist. Bloberta let out a small 'tsk', as if she were about to scold a young child.

"Clay," Bloberta said, crossing her arms. "Don't even think of drunkenly beating me, we've got church tommorow." Bloberta scolded, "and I don't want to explain why I've got a black eye to people."

She wasn't bothered about being hit. It was very normalised as she grew up, now, in Moraltown, and in society as a whole.

"Hopefully you're sober enough to understand me." she added.