My morning ritual?

I wake at dawn. The air has a stillness and a dryness only found on this plain, only at this time of the season. It feels good in my lungs. I lift the mosquito netting, roll out of the tent, and begin the fire. I prepare the coffee for it. Then gather the water from the salt lick for my shave. The straight razor feels strong and wet across my beard. It is a good feeling. It is right. I continue over the ears, across the top of the head, and down the back of the cranium. I wax my mustache, then apply a salve that the natives have given me of berries, mixed with beetle dung, to sooth my weathered face and scalp. It burns, slightly. The coffee smells strong in the morning breeze. It fills my nostrils with life.

I pick up my rifle, and ready it for the kill. The heaviness of the strap across my shoulder, the smell of the gun oil so close to my face, are full with memories of my youth, tinged with sadness.

The hunt commences. Somedays it’s kudu. Others hyena or rhino. Most days only opossum or squirrel. They like the backyard the best. Gentle reader, do not judge. I kill them not for the thrill. Not for the sake of the killing itself. I kill them to give the squirrels…the opossums…maybe, the occasional salamander…the dignity of a death they so richly deserve! After which, I empty my bowels, almost ritualistically, in the chamber pot. Then I make a morning meal of salt-cured, cold smoked kippers, as I drink the steaming, bracing coffee in the morning air. It feels good to be alive. To be a man.

A morning ritual like that, real or fictional, deserves to be recognized. Pato, you’re getting an Art of Manliness T-shirt for that comment.

Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest. Be on the look out for more giveaways coming soon!