one day in the life of Matthew Williams.

    It was six o’clock, and the alarm rang. Matthew got up as usual, with a blistering headache, picked up his glasses and went to closest to change his pajamas to his usual black dress suit, though despite the world meeting only being scheduled for afternoon, at twelve o’clock sharp. He figured that it might be best to get up early anyways, just so the day can go quickly, without any hassle, and besides what else was he to do? His boss, like every other of a nation, required their representatives to go to the meetings, discuss the problems that plague the world, and do it in a civil manner. Civil…that was a funny way to put it into view. The way the meeting usually went would be anything but ‘civil’, the nations with long standing rivalries would either argue constantly with each other or, quite literally, go at each other throats. The one of the best epitome for this would surely be his two elder brothers; England and France.  Those two would almost argue constantly and it wouldn’t be anything on important matters, but just about anything, the language, the culture and once even about whose hair was better! Although, that would not be the worst thing to happen at the meetings, of the worst outcomes, that was usually the case, that the meeting in question would go into a deadlock and that it would be rescheduled for a later date. And then the whole cycle would start all over again. Though, for Matthew, these meetings would not only be exhausting and tiresome, but being quintessentially lonesome.
   
    At these meeting no one would notice him or even acknowledge him to even exist, not even his own family, which always happened, but that did not mean that the pain did not hurt any less. And besides, who was going to miss him at the meetings anyhow? His brother, Alfred f. Jones, the greatly annoyingt and indomitable nation that is America, their older brother François Bonnefoy, the arrogant and one of the most perverted nation that is France, or maybe their other older brother, Arthur Kirkland, the stuck-up and magical creature seeing that is the country of England? No, not even them, the people he ever so loved dearly, or even his pet bear, kumajiro. The only friend for much of his life and sometimes the only friend in his life, and for much about everything else that Matthew did; like playing hockey and lacrosse. And speaking of the devil… “kuma, where are you?” he called. It was about time to feed his little furry friend, who loves to eat and was nothing but a big white ball of fur and fat that was Matthew’s pet bear cub.
‘Kuma…oh, there you are.” The little cub came stumbling and walking awkwardly as usual, lifting up his head to face his master with his little beady black eyes and asked: “food”.
   
    “Yes, I know you are hungry, just wait a minute…” Matthew reinsured. He walked out of his bed room and went down stairs to the kitchen to get the bear’s favorite meal: frozen seal and mackerel. But then when he walked into the kitchen, he realized that he left his bottle of red wine on the table and the glasses on the counter. The bottle was more than half empty, and one of the wine glasses shattered on the kitchen floor, the one he shattered last night.

“Well, can't leave that there can I?
   
    When he went to pick up the glass, he saw that it had a puddle of red wine in the middle of it; obviously he would have to clean that up too. That would be fun, would it not? Guess not. The more he thought about it the more his hangover pain replete in full. He finished cleaning up that broken glass, he walked to the sink to wash the pieces and then to the recycling bin they go. Soon he languid to the fridge, got the food and placed them on the table to thaw, and soon went over to the stove to warm it up for a hearty breakfast of the day. It would be the usual as always, and to him, one of the greatest confections of all time would not even be considered to be a confection at all to some because…it was maple-syrup covered pancakes. Light and fluffy pancakes always brought up his day and his mood, it served as great snack later on in the day with it cut into litter squares and with some maple dip and the thoughts brought a smile to his face. He always did thought of himself as connoisseur of pancakes. As he was making way for the pancake batter in of the lower selves in the fridge, a little white ball of fluff came scurrying over his feet that almost knocked him over. And that was highly unusual for the little cub, since he usually just laggard into anyplace he went to, and now Matthew was concerned, however, he did have a dubious feeling that might not be a problem at all.
“Food!”  The bear cried out.
   
    The slight weight of dread that hung on Matthew lifted, and all that was left was blossoming amusement. What else was he going to expect from his bear? Sometimes the only thing on that bear’s mind was food, sleep, and nothing more. And this time was no different, that bear wanted his food –that is, the pancakes.

“Kima, mon chere, I'm not going to give you any pancakes.” Matthew said with a grin and a cheer.
   
    “But I want food!” the bear gave his best puppy-dog look he could make, and sat down on the floor next to his master just to make himself more cute. And if you were not Matthew, you would have fallen for that old trick of his in an instant, luckily for him, he was immune to it as a person with the flu vaccine, although, like the person with the vaccine, it did not grantee that he would not fall for the trick every time…and with those adorable beady onyxes staring back at him like that, this time he cracked.
   
    “Fine, here!” Matthew handed over the mackerel and the seal –but not without a plate- and handed over the food, bended over to his bear and whispered over to the bear’s ear: “But if I give you the pancakes, you better not whine on how they are small and cut up into pieces since we both know that you are not allowed to have them, got that?”
   
    He nodded as to say he agreed while he was eating the seafood right in front of him. And with that, he went over to fridge to get the pancake batter, got a frying pan from a hook on the wall near the stove and then turned the stove on. When he finished, he mentally praised himself on how well they turned out, and on his home-made maple syrup too. After breakfast, he went to bathroom to brush up, and look presentable. However, there was that one curl that would always stick out like a rhinoceros’s nose on his head and no matter how hard he tried to put that curl up in pony tail, or comb it on the side, it would always pop out and it would annoy the living hell out of him. But after awhile of fighting, he merely gave up on trying and just went on to living with it, however dumb he looked- to himself, of course. Funny thing, Matthew’s hair was not even curly; it was just a wavy light strawberry blonde. And after one last check of making sure that his amethyst eyes did not look bloodshot or anything from drinking the night away last night, he figured it was about to head out on his usual expedition of going to the meetings, circumnavigate the excessively large oval tale to find his seat and pray for lady luck to give him fortuitous luck to not be sat on by the large Russian, Russia  or Ivan Braginsky; who seemed to have an intermissive tendency to find a seat that was already taken by the Canadian…poor Matthew.
   
    Then Matthew being seat belted into the car, with kumajiro seat belted on the other side of the driver seat, he revved up the car and it animated to life. Looking back at his watch, he could see that it was about 8:30, and realized that with the time he has speared, he might just get some peace and quiet before the meeting started and to review his notes. Thankfully, for Matthew, this meeting was held at his place for the first time in a while, and soon he was at the meeting building well under twenty minutes, unbuckled himself and kumojiro out of the car walked into the building and since he saw no one around, he figured that it might be best just to head to the broad room for the time being.  But only after being at the door for a few seconds, did it hit him, the heavy scent of hamburgers and coke….
   
    “Yo, bro, there you are! I knew you had to be here!” the voice boomed with cacophony that was louder than the air raid missiles attacks of World War Two that he and the other allies suffered through. Though, sadly this was no air raid, but this brother Alfred. The man was about the same height, the same build, and looked almost alike for their outer features; like hair and glasses. Their personalities were similar; they were both sanguine people, happy and kind, although, Alfred was the more superfluous talker, way over verbose in his speeches at the meetings, and is so called ‘salient of democracy’. America had straight hair compared to Matthew’s, had sapphires for eyes, and was normally louder than a teenage hardcore-metal concert. Where Matthew was use to talking at his own tempo, just only louder than mouse and then some. To put it into subtle context, despite the two being carbon copies of each other, they were more different in their ways nowadays then they were during their colony days. During those days, the two would play with Alfred’s toy soldiers that he got from Arthur, read books –or stack them like dominos and watch them fall, but Arthur would have gotten mad over that, he loved his books- and at around bedtime, they would have been read a fairytale book by Arthur until both of them were lights out. Matthew longed to have those days again, now it was just a bane to get everyone in the family on the same page, let alone be happy with each other.

“What are you doing here this early?” Matthew asked.

“Just came to have some peace and quiet before the rodeo started, and you know how these meetings go.” Alfred replied.

“Right”
   
    Then came the two others; Arthur and François, both at each other again. Arthur was clad in his old, slightly modern Victorian- inspired suit, black and slate gray; François was in an elegant modern brown blazer, light blue dress shirt and pants. Arthur looked more like Alfred; without the cowlick on the side, green eyes and thick eyebrows. Francois was more like Matthew; just without the curl, blue eyes and some slight fuzz on chin. They were talking about how the other flaws made them inferior to the other and neither was obviously going to back down. And why would they after so many years of being rivals, both of them grew up together, more divers then the north or south poles magnitude, and almost every war that they were in the other would be on the other side, but there was a time that they were together in fighting and the only time that comes to mind would be world war two. But nowadays, as that was a great feat for the two old bickering bastards back then, now is no different than it would have been a thousand years ago.

“Hey, Arthur and François!” Alfred cried out.

Both of them stopped arguing for a moment and turned their heads around to see who talked, finding it to be Alfred, they walked over to him and Matthew.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here, Alfred? Arthur asked. He knew just as well as Matthew that Alfred was not the type to be early to the meetings, much less be earlier to them then needed.

“Oui, mon chere, you are not usually this early or early at all?” François questioned.
   
For Alfred, he knew what they all meant and tried to reinsured them that nothing was going to happen like a prank or tricks – not before a meeting anyways, or that it being this early. “It’s fine, just want to spend time with my family, and to get good take on my notes”

“Oh bloody hell, not another long speech again, and where is our little Matthew anyways?” Arthur asked.

“Oh, mon peitit Mathieu, how lovely it would be that he could be around!” François added.
   
    Sadly, Matthew was standing right there and he knew that he would be forgotten yet again. So he took it in with a sigh and just went into the broad room with kumajiro at his side. And what else was he to do? Scream out for them to hear him? Write a sign that said: “hey! I am here!” or just wait for them to noticed? Matthew waited long enough for them to realize that he existed, that he lived! No, no, better give up now and save the pain later on than fall flat onto the concrete floor. Better just get on with the meeting then.
   
    The meeting came and it went just as it usually had; Alfred making some hair brain idea; Germany, Italy and japan talking among them; Greece sleeping in the corner; china trying to sell something; France and England, well, that was their decorum; and that big-assed Russia sat on Matthew again. Nothing got done, everything was a mess and the meeting got rescheduled for thousandth time in a row. Then when it was all over, the heterogeneous mixture of nations dispersed, and Matthew was left with dearth expectations and was jaded as ever. However he did manage to mesmerize the members with his speech, but then they all forgot that he was there after some short time. Now he was back at his cabin, his house, facing that dastardly dream of actually being noticed for a change. Later, with a red wine bottle in his left hand and the wine glass in his right, he slept peacefully, dreaming of great day where his family finally noticing him along with his friends. But, sadly, he would not have been able to hear his answering machine go off.
   
    “Hey, this it Matthew, I’m not here right now, leave a message” a light beep,” hey Matthew, happy birthday to the greatest brother in the world! Hey, I got a surprise for you; guess what it’s a party just for you! Everyone you and I know is coming, and we; Arthur, François, and I could not help but to noticed that you have been in a lousy mood lately, especially since that you have been drinking more than usual. So we thought that a party could help lift your spirits. I, personally, just hope that you hear this, since you are great person and everyone here at the party love you, particularly me. So, see you here then ok, bye!” it was Alfred. The one who forgets him the most, and yet he was actually the calling.

But sadly he, Matthew Williams, did not hear, and he may never hear it.