Notice that he noticed that I think I noticed

"You wrote!" my cousin Walsh was leaving my mom's building this morning as I was getting there. He was picking up Mavis, and I was struggling with bags of groceries. Which he just stood there and let me continue to struggle with.

Me-:"What? Oh the fairy tale. I did."

Walsh-:"I told you."

Mavis-:"Is this the same one I'm not allowed to see? Did you buy me anything?"

Me-:"Same one, and no, I didn't buy you anything."

Mavis-:"That's okay this time, but next time I expect you to have cookies! And granola bars, I like granola bars specially when they have icing on them, but not the chocolate chip ones cause I hate chocolate."

Walsh-:"Since when do you hate chocolate?"

Mavis-:"Since always."

Walsh-:"See, I told you that you'd get over your writer's block. Cause Mad Hatter..."

Me-:"Not really over the writer's block. That took like two days to get just that little bit, like two paragraphs." I put the groceries down, since it was obvious my cousin wasn't going to help. "But I noticed something. I don't know how I missed it before?" he looked at me, this smug look on his face. "Rebel without a Cause is reading the fairy tale."

Walsh-:"Um, that's news?"

Me-:"No, it's more like conformation. In a really backwards way. Anyways, he said something as the interview was being cut off, and I remembered hearing him say the same thing a few times over the course of their promos in the last few months..."

Walsh-:"What did he say?"  Mavis was digging through the grocery bags at this point.

Me-:"Alpha."

Walsh stood there for a second then nodded the light bulb flickering in his brain. "Right cause of the characters in the...gotcha."

Me-:"You have no clue why that's important do you?"  He shook his head shrugging, Mavis tugging on his sleeve wanting to go. "It means, very possibly he likes my work."

Walsh-:"But he's not Mr. Scratchy."

Me-:"I never said he was. I said it means he most likely likes my writing. That matters to me. The idea that someone...actually reads me because they like my work not just because they want to see if they made the blog that day, means a lot."

Walsh-:"I don't get it. You already know these guys read you. So what's saying a random word got to do with anything?"

Me-:"People copy other people's actions and speech when they respect them, conscious or unconscious. Something as simple as an inside joke even...like the fact both of them in that interview ended up sitting in the same position, unconsciously copying each other."  I picked up the groceries and continued on to mom's apartment, as Walsh was being dragged out the door by his little sister.

Walsh-:"You feeling better about this whole thing now?"

Me-:"Sort of."

Walsh-:"See, I knew everything would work out for the best."

Me-:"That was one segment. One! That took me like two days to write. Not like Mr. Scratchy opened up and started to talk to me."

Walsh told Mavis to behave and give him a minute. "He will. I still think you've just missed it. There have been major clues and hints and stuff, you're just in denial on Mad Hatter."

Me-:"Well, he's got 21 days to open up and say something. Whomever Mr. Scratchy is. Then...well another decade older."  

Walsh finally had to give in to his sister and left.