He wakes up 50 minutes after he had intended, and when he checks his phone the alarm he set last night didn’t go off and wasn’t set. To save time, he thinks, he does not make his bed.
There are a number of things he does before he puts the kettle on, which should be the basic act: he walks up and down the house a couple of times, realises his flatmate is at work, and then he pulls out from the fridge and the cupboard the dozen or so grocery items that will go into making his elaborate breakfast and looks at them on the bench.
Before the kettle has boiled, he has put the tea into the pot, but usually he waits until after the kettle has boiled to do this, to allow a moment of time for the water to retreat from boiling point so it will not scorch the tea leaves. Instead, to fill in this time, he decides to cut the thick white spines from the silver beet so it will be easier to digest, but there are many pieces and the task takes so long he forgets about the boiled water.
When his breakfast is almost ready, he walks about the house to canvass where he will sit to eat. There is lots of sun on the front landing, which is near the street, but in the back courtyard there is a table that he can move into sunlight. He walks from the front door to the back door two or three times, and he also considers the kitchen table, before settling on the back.
Outside, the meal is big, and he tries not to rush, especially with the silver beet, which requires a lot of chewing. In between mouthfuls he puts down his utensils and looks about him at the trees and the blue sky.
In the shower, he needs to wash his hair: shampoo, repeat, and then conditioner, which he tries to leave in for at least five minutes, during which time he will brush his teeth. But under the hot water he keeps forgetting this order: he waits five minutes with shampoo in his hair instead of the conditioner; he forgets about brushing his teeth until minutes after he has put in the conditioner. The sequence of the things he has set himself to do: soaping, rinsing, drying; toilet; brushing hair, sunscreen, seems to have been stretched out, like beads on a cheap elastic bracelet.
In his bedroom he quickly puts on underpants and a pair of jeans, but then, as he is standing without socks looking between four different coloured shirts, he sees that before he leaves the house he will have to make his bed, which stares uglily at him now that the bright sun is coming in through the window.
When he has collected his keys, he runs over what tasks he is actually heading out to do, but the few things seem cluttered now, and too much for the couple of hours, which is now all the time he has to spare.
