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Toximus
A tale of cookery, trickery and tyme
by Rick Tornello

Dramatis personae: A Cook Wizard-doppelganger, a little bird, a witch

Toximus, the great wizard-cook to the king was beside himself. “Look,” he said to himself standing there, “I know we had the secret recipes. It was here when the white witch was inspecting the galley.”

His other self looked back at him and said, “So go get it. It’s obvious. She has it.”

The window was open and a little bird just sat there waiting for crumbs as always. Toximus threw it some. 
It liked Toximus

Toximus turned to himself and wailed, “But she travels multi-dimensional time lines and I have to have dinner ready for the party here at the Castle Toemain, tonight. The king and invited wizards are expecting a banquet for all the great magic-cans of this world.  Once I write the recipes down I can never remember them. Alas it will be my ass. My quest is on.”

His other self yawned, “Oh bother. Just go. I will be here waiting on your return. The witch has the recipe and she is probably cooking up something special, and a whole loaf better than you, I would guess. ”

“I am you, you, you nut case.”  

“No I am another you not you. One can’t step into the same stream twice. Let me rest here. Go on your quest. Go save our asses.”

“It’s your life too if I fail,” Toximus shouted at himself.

Toximus said, “What the hell does a river that have to do with anything? Every time I need to think through something, I offer myself little if any assistance. What good is being magically schizophrenic? Two heads are better then one they said when I signed up for the mental modification. Two heads are just more of the same, compounded.”

“Go, just go,” said the other him as Toximus discorporated into the great void.

The witch just laughed in her lair. She had the secret recipe. “Toximus will be beside himself. That will reduce his ability to locate me. What a maroon, a real half-a-loafer.”  

Toximus was searching all the great kitchens and inns of the worlds. Every great and small castle was visited. Cooks and assistants just shrugged their collective shoulders and went back to their tasks, feeding the great lords of the multi-D. “Toximus, you always have an issue with the great witch. Lock your recipes away. You are a fool,” They all said.

Back at the castle kitchen, the king came down and noticed the Toximus he thought was the great cook.

“Toxiums my great wizard-cook, how goes it?”

Bored and not wanting to put up with a royal jerk, he said, “Be gone sire.  This is a great secret recipe. Your very presence will all but ruin it. Shush now, by your leave, please.”

The king backed out of the grand kitchen. Hope filled his face.

“Here your Majesty. This should hold you for a while.” Hope is the su chef. She gave him some pie.

The witch was contemplating the meal. “I will get to it in just a while. First I will tell my minions of my great grab. Yum this should be one of his best, considering who it’s for. He didn’t invite me so I stole it.  HA! He may be an idiot but he’s a great cook. He will never get this one back. I knew once written never remembered as I stole it off the chopping block.”

Toximus moaned out loud, “I’m at a loss to figure the solution. I am using all the magic I know to bend time. I have to keep time from catching up to the appointed dinner engagement. What to do?”

A little bird flew by calling, “Look behind you.” And was gone.

Toximus said, “I’ve seen that bird before. How did it locate me? Look behind me? What did that mean?”

Then it hit him. An apple fell out of the tree he was under. Yes that was it!  

Toximus looked back the way he came from and retraced every place he had just been backwards in time so everything was in reverse.

He came upon both of him arguing with himself in the kitchen and continued back before the witch showed up.

He stopped turned around and faced forward in time. A shrodinger cat came by and rubbed his leg. “Yes I get it,” he said. “Of all the possibilities, I didn’t think of this one. A little bird told me.”

With a cloak of invisibility he walked back into the kitchen, snatched his secret recipe and replaced it with one toxic enough to gag a boa. “This ought to fix her ass,” he laughed to himself.

He let happen what did happen. Once she left, he quickly replaced the real recipe he had searched all the known multiDs for. “That quest is over. Now to get back to myself.”

He uttered an incantation and assumed himself just as he was just before looking for the secret recipe. “Ah yes here it is. Silly me. I thought it was gone. Let’s begin.”  

His other self looked at himself. “What just happened?”  

Toximus stated, “I don’t think anything happened, why?”

“I swear this is not right.”  

“You’re the paranoid one for a change. Now let’s get together on this effort.. We have a banquet to cook.”

The little bird was on the window. Toximus winked, and threw it a whole loaf of bread.


Rick Tornello © 2010