Hope springs eternal.

Each day come 5 o’clock, as if forgetting the many disheartening days that had gone before, the two kids set out hand in hand for the bus stop to meet their mother from work.
There they wait, a little hope fading with each bus that stops to disgorge its passengers. "I wish a 23 would come and mammy would be on it" they sing over and over to the air of ‘The Three Stooges” as if this magic mantra could somehow summon forth their parent. And only when darkness falls and the aches in their bellies can no longer be quieted, they trundle home to gorge themselves on bread and sugar, certain to be fast asleep by the time their inebriated mother staggers noisily through the door, to snatch them back from the wonderland to which merciful slumber has delivered them.
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Posted in response to @mariannewest's five-minute freewrite
The prompt is ALCOHOLIC
The image is my own