Breakfast: the morning ritual of scooping spoonfuls of dried cardboard, recently dampened, into my gaping face hole while my body sheds the night’s dream trauma. It is worth appreciating that the brain, in all its splendour, probably displays the most incredible feat of commitment when cereal is placed before it. The scene of someone walking through a park and then, suddenly pausing, they bend over, grab a full handful of soil, and deliver it to their open face hole is, within a margin, indifferent to the consumption of cereal.

Something extraordinary happened to my cereal this morning.

I possess a disposition to dive into my psychological relationship with cereal, my cereal-psychosis if you will. The Institute of Psychocereal, you will find me there should my ideas break into the academic conclave. Discussions on the psychological and pharmacological effects of cereal is something I generally keep within close circles, circles so close their radii only go from my lips to my ears. But I will leave a sample of my thoughts here. Take cereal boxes, named for the fact that they contain the shredded consumable within its rectangular container, which itself is made from the same material it holds. Not too different from you and I, no? Another: by its nature, cereal is serial. You don’t believe me? Take a standard microscope – it needn’t be a strong one – and hold it close to the surface of one cereal. Observe, the cereal atop the cereal, the bowl atop the cereal, and if you keep it steady, a small human observing the surface of the cereal with a magnifying glass. These cereal lavations keep me restless at night and I could go on. The single-cereal theory! Context-insensitive cereal, that is: is cereal in a universe without milk cereal no more? Cereal-less, so to say.

But I’m keeping you busy in the wrong direction. If this washed over your eyes like another lap of a waterfall, then all you need to know is that I have been involved with cereal in my life for as long as I can recall. Cereal and I are intimate. Keep this in mind as you understand my reaction to what happened to me this morning – happened to my cereal, that is.

As is good practise, I always set out my cereal the night before, cradled in its bowl like a hundred little tightly-packed babies in a crib, spoon set to the side in its slender, silverware anticipation. I prefer this setup because the moisture from my mouth-breathing during the night generates a mild mist throughout my house, which settles on the cereal and softens it like a flower awaking from a deep freeze. Then, when I awake from my slumber, down the stairs I tumble and the ritual begins.

Today, though, as my left foot hit the last step before the ice sheet of the kitchen floor, an alarm sounded. In my head, of course, but it was an alarm of the sensory level, one that tickles at this neuron or that, a pebble in the ocean that triggers a tsunami. I don’t take myself for a being particularly endowed. My father wasn’t, his father wasn’t, and his father also lacked. The exception being my great-great-great-great-grandfather who was known around town for being as adept and rough as a bloodhound.

His nose was two-inches longer than most.

Even if smell is a challenge, that heavy, black scent of something having been toasted for too long only needs a couple nose hairs to come in full. I sat on it for a bit and found cereal, mixed with burned toast, mixed with the mouth breathing dew of the night before. “Had I left my cereal in the toaster too long?” was the first thought. But no, that had been from my dream that night, I was definitely awake now I was sure of it. I touched my toe on the kitchen floor to be certain and, yes, it was cold as steel in space.

Nothing, I decided, would provide me answers unless I investigated. Socks were not on my mind. I stepped onto the ice rink with a shiver and peered around the wall at the table to where I’d set my alter up just eight hours ago. My table is round and it has two seats, facing each other, ready for two chess grandmasters to have afternoon tea and scones. On one side, the one with the back to the window, is where I place the bowl. I prefer to have my full attention on the task before me. On the other side, the one with a window full of morning and a tangle of rose heads, is where I put nothing. There the opposite chair, my proctor for the ritual, keeps me accountable with its wide, unshaken glance. This morning, it appeared, I had a guest at my table.

It was a robot from foot to head, not a slip of flesh on the bipedal form. The metallic creature was sharp and bulky, like a graphics artist had run out of polygons while rendering the Statue of David. It was fidgeting with its thumbs, perhaps out of boredom, possibly out of habit. Whatever it was, it gave the impression that it had been waiting for me for some time. I’m cautious of machines that get up too early. Everything about my guest was different hues of grey – a monochromatic heavyweight champion – apart from some red text tattooed across its upper arm, from shoulder to elbow. It read: “Megaladon-5000.”

“Ahem,” I coughed something dry, a gesture of peace. I hoped. The machine spun its head with the precision of a pin and looked at me with its stony eyes. “Good morning.” For something built like patchwork steel, the voice did not match. It rolled out like a melody stitched to silk ribbon and I could not decide if it was more effeminate or more masculine.

“Um, good morning,” I replied. “What is that smell?”

My table guest got up from its place at the table and came towards me. I now saw that the waist of this goliath was where the top of my head stopped. It had to hunch to fit within the confines of my kitchen ceiling. If I’d been allowed a few more minutes of morning reprieve, fright would have kicked in sooner, but my brain was still fresh from the disbelief of my dreams. The machine came within arms reach and stopped. It reached out a hand in the colloquial, western gesture of introduction, and spoke, “Megaladon-5000.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” I took the hand, and it tried its best to be gentle and smooth with the shake, but clearly needed calibration of its torque controls. The ride was rigid and rough and my arm was sore for it later.

“What is that smell?” I ventured to ask again, feeling more brave after an introduction.

“Your cereal.” said Megaladon-5000 as if it was asking for my signature for a parcel delivered.

“Is it okay?”

“Yes. I blighted it for you.”

I walked past Megaladon-5000, who stood there pinned between ceiling and floor like an expressive house column, and went to where I sit to begin the morning ablutions. The spoon was there, capturing the whole room inside its curve. The bowl was there – I use a plain and white ceramic to balance the severity of the contents. But the cereal. The cereal, its fifty-piece pile of crunch and disappointment, was not there. I looked around it and lifted it up to look underneath. When I put it back down I caught what I had overlooked at first. There was something inside my bowl. Moving my eyes over the bowl’s lip seemed to take as long as sunrise, and the last part I got it over with quickly and bore my full vision right into the bowl. I found myself looking upon a black mound, granular as million-year old sand. I stood up and then turned to Megaladon-5000 who’s stillness left me, for a moment, believing it was a pattern on my wallpaper.

The chair felt familiar and cool as I sat in it. I picked up the spoon like it was my choice chocolate from a variety box. And then I put it back and started to get up because I’d forgotten the milk in the fridge, but then the kitchen dimmed as if a cloud had passed over the sun, yet I was sure it had been a bright blue day. I didn’t want to look up and meet the eyes of my deliverer. Megaladon-5000 swung its hand over the bowl like it was operating a crane, and made the gesture to point off to my left with one finger. I am no faucet aficionado, but for those I have seen, never has one flowed with milk – and from a finger, no less! The contents of the bowl, transformed by the creamy flow, adopted a consistency similar to an ashtray left outside after a heavy downpour.

I left no time between my first scoop and the contact of the spoon with my lips.