In a warm, humming, yeast scented bakery kitchen of the distant past, Crumpet-Hands Man observed in wide-eyed astonishment (and wide-crumpeted astonishment; he was waving his arms about) as a baker's apprentice busily prepared the doughy treats for the following day's custom. This little lad, our hero noticed with keen recollection, had a lot on his plate – not to mention a lot of flour on his face and egg up his front – for tomorrow was the Annual Throw a Custard Tart at a Passer-by Extravaganza, and more than a thousand fanatical flans were due to be flung with flourish. Crumpet-Hands Man remembered the event well – the laughter, the joy, the streets overflowing with gooey yellow plasma like some Babylonian yolk-based atrocity – but, more fondly, our hero remembered the boy presently scurrying around the bakery's floor; for the boy was in fact...him! Dun dun dunn! Dun dun dunn! Dun dun DUNN!

  “He can't hear you,” came a voice from the ether as our hero continued “Dun-dun-dunning!” ever more forcefully into the ear of his younger self. In a fledgling attempt at getting the young boy's/his's/s's's's's' attention, old Crumpet-Hands Man resorted to fervent clapping; alas, each clap of his famously absorbent palms only emitted a feeble flump akin to two gerbils being swung together by their tails.

  “Yes, and you can try prodding and poking that boy also, if you so wish to waste your efforts,” chuckled the materialising form of Muffin Mind, his constantly switching flavour at that moment a satisfied hue of rhubarb with cocky crumble. “As you see, Crumpet-Hands Man, your silly hands only pass through him. I dare say you would have more success endeavouring to hang your cape on the fog.”

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  Having tried this in the past to varying degrees of success (-none°) our hero took the villain's word for it and decided to leave this spectre of his younger self to his chores; besides, the idea of sticking an enquiring thumb through this boy's face, however tempting and doubtlessly hilarious, felt decidedly sick.

  “What is this place?” our hero thus demanded of the villain, swishing around all dramatic hero-like; Crumpet-Hands Man-like, he swished into a shelf. Muffin Mind tutted, collecting up several tins of baking spice. “I am surprised you do not recognise your own birthplace,” he said, setting the tins back on the righted shelf. “This is where you grew up, is it not?”

  It was our hero's turn to tut. “Wrong! I grew in my mummy's tummy!”

  “Well, yes... Quite,” the villain accepted begrudgingly, shaking the bewilderment from his face as though lengths of cobweb spun by the stupidity spider. “But after the whole pregnancy and birth thing... You came to live here in the family bakery, yes?”

  “This isn't the family bakery,” our hero said, gazing suspiciously of the ovens and steaming tarts and broken shelves around him. “The bakery fell down years ago when the winds were all blowy. I remember the collapse well, for I was underneath it at the time, as were several donkeys I was leading by the wayside.”

  “What?” the villain gawped with another wipe of proverbial cobweb from his mug. “Donkeys? What the hell are you taking abou–”

  “Never!” our hero ignored, spun, crashed, left and came back again for some reason. “This is no bakery! This is all a trick, a conjuring of your evil muffin mind, Muffin Mind!”

  The villain bowed to our hero's sage discernment – and to collect several more tins of spice, our hero having swished into a cabinet and smashed it to pieces.