The faint damp dry wet smell of the fog clearing always evokes a confused feeling. Is it going to be dry like harmattan or will it invariably rain? I groggily use the bathroom and head to the living room to join in the morning prayers. I can still taste the sleep in my mouth or is it my tongue? I'm not sure which. I just want to go back to bed I think as I doze off. That eerie feeling of being watched jolts me awake and I look to find my mum staring at me. I am now completely awake.

The only acceptable reason for waking up this early is breakfast. It's my most favourite meal of the day. I can still perceive the white, soft, hot bread from the bakery a few doors down. Nothing compares to the velvety rich creamy chocolatey goodness that is tea, with a healthy helping of butter and I can see why heaven feels real. To top it all off, I get to use my favourite cup, a beautiful white procelain with its curved handle, delicate flowers in bloom decorating the outer rim and a scarcely used saucer to match. I could always see myself as an adult in a sunny summer field watching the birds flutter around while I marvel in nature. An experience I assumed every adult lived.

Try as hard as I might I could never forget the sound, I wish it was a nightmare, at the the time I wished time could stop, maybe reverse or something anything but wrench my heart. Imbibed with my hope and dreams, prayers and memories, it felt ominous as it happened. The end of an era. I could never get over the pain. I still curse the unaware neighbour, the agent of doom and their cursed finery, I wished them nothing but misery anytime I remember how they unwittingly caused the demise of you.

Filled and content from breakfast, I rushed about my little rituals in preparation for departure with the school bus. Every time I get a few minutes of day dreaming time where I explore what may have been or will be. Standing at the kitchen sink, wet hands and soapy dishes, I always without fail look through the nets and barricades to another family going through the same morning ritual. It was on one such day, that my most prized memory was shattered. With a few jagged edges, everything this beautiful work of art had come to mean to me shattered in an instant.

I wished time could stop and reverse itself, anything, something, just not this. The clanging sound heralding its demise also signifies the beration that's to occur.