Porridge, excerpt

He stretches out of bed every morning and performs the same ritual, beginning with half-closed eyes and finishing fully a-wake and a-lert:

He takes the small coffee percolator from a shelf above the sink: water up to the valve; three spoonfuls of coffee; rich bitter-sweet smell rising out of the agitation, filling his home whole. He levels the coffee powder with the back of the spoon and screws the top tight. He sits the percolator on a low heat for ten minutes. As it warms, he measures out a cupful of crushed oats in a Japanese handmade blue-glaze cup and throws them in a pot. He fills the cup twice with water, allowing it to spill over the sides and wash any remaining bits of oat dust into the pot. He adds a pinch of salt for the acidity, cayenne pepper for the kick and lets it cook gently on the lowest heat for thirty minutes, interrupting periodically to stir the solidifying mixture. He pours the coffee into the same blue-glaze cup and sips on it while reading a book from the library.

About five minutes before the consistency is right, he adds half a mashed banana, eats the other half, and puts on a second coffee.

When the mixture has become porridge, he turns the heat off, tumbles the gloopy mixture into a bowl and reads another paragraph before adding a tablespoon of crushed golden linseed and a quarter chopped avocado, binding it all together with half a teaspoon of honey - thyme, linden or tea-tree work best. Finally, he places twelve blueberries evenly across its surface - eight around the edges of the bowl, four in its centre - and pours the second cup of coffee.

This morning, however, he does none of this.