Cutting Cakes With Doctor Awful - Part 6

Continued from Part 5...

With Doctor Awful having left the room, the office folk had returned to their business. Loathsome Kevin stared sadly at the plate of cakes sitting on the edge of the desk, shifting his weight uncomfortably from one swollen ham to the other. "Oh no, this won't do..." he muttered to himself as he carefully gripped the edges of the flimsy paper plate where the fourteen half-circle cakes were arranged. Halfheartedly lifting, he slid the plate toward the edge of the desk and the garbage can waiting below.

It was in this moment when it all clicked for Mr. Somewhat Reasonably Normal. Time stopped moving fast. It would be a full two minutes before the cakes hit the bottom of the garbage can, seemingly, which would be plenty of time to stop them from falling all the way.

In the instant that the plate began to slide off toward the edge of the desk, a series of facts, ideas, and notions began to play in Mr. Somewhat Reasonably Normal's mind, and the fog began to clear. Doctor Awful hates Loathsome Kevin - thus the title Loathsome (this, of course, accompanied by his potent lack of physical fitness and pungent aroma). Doctor Awful is a known sociopath - the type who has Guns and Ammo magazine delivered at work. As of late, there had been a string of vandalism in Doctor Awful's neighborhood, where Mr. Somewhat Reasonably Normal lived - first it was mail boxes exploding, then manhole covers being blown out of place, climaxing with overhead power line transformer explosions that seemed to have been triggered by certain cordless phone signals. Nearly every home in the area was hit aside from Mr. Somewhat Reasonably Normal house and Doctor Awful's own musty basement apartment. But that had all stopped a month before.

The final fact that clicked as the cakes went overboard was that Doctor Awful had recently taken an advanced cooking class and was always quite vocal about the "lovely things you could hide in a cake."

It was at this moment that Mr. Somewhat Reasonably Normal sprang into action - dashing, albeit in slow motion, toward Loathsome Kevin's desk shouting "Don't!" Although his thoughts quickened, his movements had not. His mind, outpacing his body, had imagined his right foot well in advance of his left, catching the heel and bringing the entire man to the ground, chin first, with a sharp thud that went unheard under the deep thump of the cakes hitting the bottom of the garbage can. Loathsome Kevin watched with horrified disbelief on his be-jowled face - his eyes knew something was terribly wrong, but did not know what.

Exactly three seconds after the cakes hit the bottom of the can -- POOK! A controlled detonation sent a shotgun plug of burnt cream cheese frosting through the air, coating the ceiling and Loathsome Kevin's puffy, wincing red face as he let out a muted, squirmy yelp. The rich smell of mothballs curled from the smoking steel garbage can which recoiled and fell over, dumping banana peels and candy wrappers to the floor as garnish on the crime-scene mess that would be left there until the janitors came later in the week.