The Breakfast

            Before you even reach the doors, the smell emanating from within takes you back to every morning you ever woke up at your grandmother’s house.  You can almost see the hot, black coffee dripping slowly into a see-through pot on the countertop; the sweet, gooey frosting dripping down the side of a mountain of freshly baked cinnamon rolls; the mound of fresh fruit sitting ripe and ready in a bowl on the table; and the thick patties of seasoned sausage sizzling happily on a lit stove.  Only the din of clinking plates and forks and the scraping of pans brings you back to the present moment.

            Many moons have come and gone since you last had a proper breakfast.  The days of waking up expectantly, hoping that the most important meal of the day would be something different, something substantial, have long since passed.  You know now what to expect; you no longer wake up hopeful.  Weeks upon weeks of bread, butter, and olive oil have slowly crushed your appetite and your spirits until even you yourself have begun to believe that a handful of flour and some churned milk are proper breakfast fare.  But as you approach the large, swinging doors ahead of you, the aroma of foods you have almost forgotten tickles your nose and those wicked and wily thoughts are dashed like stale pastries on the rocky shores of appropriate breakfast cuisine.  Neurons fire and taste buds tingle as memories of what used to be march victoriously back into your consciousness, declaring with trumpets blaring all that is right with the world.

            Into the dining room now; it is as large and as sacred as a cathedral, and on this Sunday morning, you are about to be saved by a sermon unlike any other.  The aroma is stronger here, and your eyes are free to roam and match the wondrous smells with the gleaming, metallic serving pans from which they spring.  Rows upon rows of tasty treats are laid out before you; foods you haven’t tasted, smelt, or even seen in what feels like half a lifetime.  You stop just inside the entrance, closing your eyes, extending your arms out to the side, and tossing your head back, allowing the sanctity of this blessed moment to engulf you; to swirl around you and seep into your skin pores; to wash over you like a tsunami wave until you are caught up in the current and dare not fight against it.

The moment passes and you break free from your trance to join the chaos of the crowd.  You fall in line with the madmen, the jokesters, the clowns; this unenlightened mob who know not the importance of this event.  They pile their plates high with your dreams, shove mouthfuls of your desires down their throats, and throw your fantasies into the garbage without thinking.  You yearn to show them the error of their ways, to impart upon them the understanding that this is something to be appreciated; to be looked forward to and reflected upon.  You pity their simplicity.  But how can you blame them?  You were once like them. 

You recollect yourself and move on; slowly examining all that is available.  You pass pan after pan of deliciousness, each with its own smiling server, who, given the slightest nod, would present to you the entire eight liter pan of food and not even think twice about it.  Eventually though, you have seen enough.  You grab a large ceramic plate and you begin your search for the one thing that you have anticipated above all else; the one thing you have seen in your thoughts and in your dreams, both in the day and the night; the one thing that is lacking from every meal of every day; the reason breakfast was invented: bacon.