From 642 Thing To Write About by the San Fransisco Writers’ Grotto. “You are looking down through the skylight as chefs prepare dinner for your ex-fiance’s wedding.”

True to his word, for once, that bastard popped the question. The one time in his life he followed through on a threat. Though the gods only know why he would ask her to marry him just to spite me. I mean, doesn’t he know he’s setting himself up to be miserable just to throw it in my face that he could move on?

Look at those chefs down there, running around like ants on fire. I bet she was back here yelling at them before I got up here. I bet she put the fear of Lucifer in them if they got anything wrong.

Sure enough, a lean kid with lanky arms came bustling back waving his hands in the air. “She’s coming! She’s coming” he repeated in the same way people shout, “It’s the end of the world!”

It was like he had thrown a rock at a hornet’s nest. As if they hadn’t already been furiously cooking and stirring and chopping! And there she was. Like a demon appearing in the midst of the madness. I swear the door didn’t even open. There was just an empty spot one blink and she was there the next.

“These leaves are withered!” she shrieked.

The three chefs closest to her bumbled about, trying to grab the salad plate from her before she smashed it onto the ground. The salad was the most beautiful creation there could be of something so mundane. The lettuce looked as if it had been hand-crafted just for her.

“The next course had better be on par or so help me you will not see a dime for this ridiculous excuse you are trying to pass for food!”

And then she was gone. No smoke, no door slamming; just…poof.

The scuttling that followed entertained me for a while, but I began to wonder if I would ever be able to follow through on my plan. There were so many people in the kitchen. All dressed in different chef hats, no doubt signifying their ranks and tasks in the kitchen.

One chef’s job was to actually sit in the corner and watch the cake. No doubt an order from Her Highness. She literally would not let her eyes so much as drift from that damned thing. As if it, in all its frills and fluffy icing would try to slip away while no one was looking. Sitting there gleaming with rhinestones, holding up two porcelain figurines. It was down-right tacky. But I didn’t care. That wasn’t my goal.

The soup was just below me. All I had to do was dump the peanut protein powder I had into the soup. Chances were, the high-strung little demon wouldn’t eat so much as a tiny bite of the cake that cost $100 per bite. It would ruin her figure. But this tofu-veggie-whatever concoction was what she had insisted upon having. A giant vat of it sat simmering just below me.

The chefs’ bustling slowed and they began placing things on dishes, and those dishes were placed on trays, and those trays were placed on fancy wheeled things with delicate lace cloths. It was now or never.

I had twisted a hanger around the protein powder and taped it to make sure it wouldn’t go anywhere. I then straightened a few more hangers and hooked them together. I was no Tom Cruise, but this mission was possible. I slipped the container through the opened skylight, inched it down as close as I could get it to the pot, tipped it over, and dumped as much as I could into the sloshing soup.

No one noticed. No one ever looks up.

I pulled it back up, bent the hangers again, and jammed everything into my back pack. No need to wait around. I had to be far away from this spot.

As I picked up my backpack, I heard the epi-pens jostle against the other contents in the bag and smiled.