The cabinet was mended, the tins back on the shelf, the stupidity spider trapped under a glass and tissue and flicked out the nearest window. Everything now as it should be, thus, the scene in the fake bakery (fakery!) could now resume.
“Nothing gets past you, does it, Crumpet-Hand Man?” Muff Mind bowed again, righted, winced, cricked his back, for his head was very heavy and not conducive to bowing. “You are indeed not as stupid as you look... Nor as stupid as you sound. Or dress. Or behave. Or smell.”
Our hero took his nemesis' spiteful appraisals as a compliment. “Ta,” he BWAARPED appreciatively. The villain replaced his buttercream eyebrows, said with a twisting of what remained of his buttercream moustache, “So there can be no more confusion – or at least less of it,” he said hopefully, please God, “let me explain where we find ourselves, and why.”
“Okie dokie,” our hero said, taking a seat on a bakery stool. He missed, took a seat on a bakery floor. The villain took a moment to compose himself. Mayor Sperkins was elsewhere, having taken a vacation.
“It is like this, Crumpet-Hands Man,” the villainous muffin explained. “You and I are presently inhabiting the realm of your subconscious, arrived at via the hallucinogenic effects of those Jubba Jubba berries I thwarted you with. Everything you see around you, everything from the sounds to the sights to the places to the people, its is all figment of your imagination. Think of it as a dream, if you will, a dream whic–”
“Wake up!” Crumpet-Hands Man screamed desperately at his reflection in a nearby cake tin. “Wake up, me! Wake up!”
“Beseeching will do you no good,” Muffin Mind attempted to reason; alas, following many more screams of “Wakey-wakey me-me-me!” and our hero assaulting his own head with the flat end of a frying pan, the villain decided to press forward with his divulgence regardless. It was either that or weep.
“As I was saying... Everything you see around you–”
“Wakey *pang* wakey *pang*!” went the hero and the pan.
“–is a figment of your memory and imagination combined, including that small and somewhat overworked little ruffian over there.”
From an oven twice his size said ruffian over there was currently removing a tray of freshly baked custard tarts; this he did with all the steady-handed zeal of an apprentice baker: he dropped most of them and trod on the rest.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
“That boy does seem somewhat familiar,” our me-me-me-hero with a headache considered. Having snagged a half-trodden tart off the floor and blown the cat hairs from its crust, he asked the villain while chewing, “But, as you maintain, is he really me?”
“I would assume so,” the villain remarked contumely. “Who else but thou would be wearing such an eccentric costume?”
“Huh?” our hero huh-ed with consternation, reassessing his younger self's clothes in regard to his own. “That's odd. I'm sure I didn't wear my hero outfit back in those days.”
Our hero was indeed not mistaken; rather than the traditional baker's attire of white overalls and those tall hats with the baggy bit on top, the young incarnation of our hero was robed in an exact duplicate of Crumpet-Hands Man's 'iconic' outfit, right down to the cardboard mask, bed-sheet cape, and ill-fitting onesie. A trace of frustration (and walnuts) embittering his temperament, Muffin Mind lamented, “It would appear, Crumpet-Hands Man, that without your even knowing it you have maintained your disguise. Albeit subconsciously, you are keen to prevent me from uncovering your true identity.”
“And is that the purpose of your roux?” our hero demanded. (He meant ruse, of course, rather than the butter-based sauce integral to so many gourmet dishes; although, in fairness to our illiterate hero, both a roux and a ruse can be used to disguise multiple layers of deceit and/or burnt lasagne.) “Do you wish to uncover who I am, Muffin Mind? Is my identity the goal of your diabolical scheme?”
The villain stroked his chin; nothing happened, as that dead horse of a gag had been summarily flogged in the previous adventure. “Perhaps,” he teased, the reddening of his cherry chunks doing little to conceal his rapture. “Evil that I am, perhaps I only seek to toy with you.”
“I am no toy!” our hero stated confidently, hoisting his cape to prove that he had no slot for batteries. The villain averted his gaze. “Then maybe,” he managed between gags, still teasing, still averting, “I only wish to discover what makes you tick.”
“I am no clock, either!” our crumpet hero declared from atop a table now. “Check my rear if you wish,” he bent over, spread. “You will not find a keyhole to wind me. Go on, I dare you! Find my keyhole! Or at least a little orifice which isn't used for something else!”
The greening of the villain's cherry chunks did little to conceal his revulsion. Rather than waste time with childish games of Hunt the Hole (Saturday nights, 7pm, BBC One) he would prefer if Crumpet-Hands Man concentrated on the scene around them, the days of his childhood, his origin story. In keeping with this theme, at that moment a man of great standing and greater walking entered the bakery kitchen. Our hero's eyes filled with tears. “Father?” All weak at the knees he approached the gentleman, arms outstretched, entered into an embrace. “Is it really–”
“Not me, you fool,” the villain sighed, turning our hero around by the shoulders. “You'll find the father you seek is over there.”
“Ah, of course.” Crumpet-Hands Man blushed. “I'd recognise my father anywhere. Even there.”
“Is that so?” the villain doubted.
“Is what so?”
“Sorry?” the villain blinked. “What so?”
“That so?”
“That so?”
“Yes. That so?” our hero so-ed, blowing the hairs from another tart and so swallowing it whole. “What is that so *cough* so that that so is what so?”
“What the f–?”
*Pang!* *Pang!* *Pang!* *Pang!* etc...
Had he been a supervillain of lesser forbearance, Muffin Mind would have taken up that buckled frying pan and turned it upon himself.
