Unready Brek

Some time ago... and the memory lingers...I found myself in front of a breakfast.

On the face of it, a traditional hearty English breakfast, full of colour and compartmentalised variety.

Through sleepy eyes, I peered at the familiar sight and prepared to commence battle.

It was a battle I had faced many times. Won many victories. 

Never lost.

But things were going to be different today.

The familiar friend and foe stared at me with a happy smile sunny side up.

In retrospect, the smile was knowing. Knowing what was to come.

But at the time, it seemed a good place to start. In went the knife. Yes, all familiar terrain here.

And then confusion.

Disorientation.

Disbelief.
Noooooo.

Where is the bacon?

I thought I'd already smelled bacon but maybe it was a smell memory because unless I'm having a stroke in my visual cortex, the only conclusion I can possibly come to is this.
There is no bacon.

I let that sink in for a while.

I owe it to you to allow you to the same. But please, don't do it alone. Have someone standing by.

Let the confusion dance across your hemispheres, of what strange lore is this.
When the distress has settled, if you can, come back to me.

I had never missed an episode of The Twilight Zone but it had nothing on this.
Nothing so sinister. So scary.
So wrong.

Now, I haven't breakfasted like a champ for so many years without being able to dodge the occasional curveball. I have skills.

I've fished shell from the frying pan. I've experimented with 14 ways of frying bread. I've gone through a hash brown phase and even dallied briefly with poaching.

And I have admittedly on maybe one occasion in a thousand run out of bacon myself.

But always in those cases.

Always.

There was a sausage.

I scanned the plate. The disarray was sharpening my survival skills.

Quicker this time.

No sausage.
No. Sausage.

I scanned the exits of the building and check my pockets for items that could be deployed in self-defence as I asked the question internally ..."Well what the bloody hell is there on this plate then?".
This plate that seemed to so casual an eye as mine, just like an English breakfast.
This Trojan horse. No, not even that... Trojan lettuce.

OK, breathe...

Mushrooms. Tick.

Egg previously ticked.

Baked beans. Always missed if absent...but on closer look, are they not taking a little too much space? (And, you guessed it, not Beans with Sausages). 

I don't think any more of my pain needs explaining. 

But things were about to get 100 times worse..

There... staring at me, as though it owned the place, as though it had any right being there at all was..and I'd like to spare you this because I like you... but we are too far in.
Spinach!

It was spinach sitting there.

Wilted. But not from shame.

This was a fully confirmed vegetarian breakfast, disguising its lies. Wolf.. in some sort of clothing. Not sheep's and certainly not pigs'.

What else could I do at this point?

What else could anybody have done?

I phoned the police.