POTATO MOON, Part 29 by Keith “Rah-Rah” DeCandido

PAD here: I’m pretty sure that Keith DeCandido now holds the land speed record, turning in his entry a mere two hours and three minutes after getting the call.

Jakob and Edwood dashed angstily toward the Forks, Washington nuclear power plant, the scene of the battle royale (without cheese) between the time-displaced Governor Michael Dukakis and Yukon Gold, the Potato(e) King.

Jakob knew in his heart of hearts—which is a really bizarre, and indeed slightly gross metaphor, all things considered—that no matter what he did, even if he was the one to save the day using his maddeningly inconsistent shapechanging powers to save the day, that Bela would still go running back to Edwood. Why, oh, why, oh, did he ever leave Ohio and come to this place where his heart would be broken like a piece of wood after a karate student hit it with the side of her hand? Why did he long after Bela with a longing as deep as the deepness was long? Besides, he was betrothed to the confusingly aged Woeisme, and Bela was obviously never going to leave Edwood no matter how pretentious he got, so why did Jakob keep coming back to her?

Was it because he always wanted what he could not have? Was it due to his incredibly disturbing potato obsession? Or was he just a schmuck?

Questions, questions, so many questions that tormented him like the interrogation methods at Guantanamo Bay, yet he could not cast them out, could not stop them from preying on his admittedly somewhat feeble mind, could not stop his friggin whinging.
What he needed was a distraction. Luckily, he and Edwood—curse his sparkly, angsty, vampirey self—were on their way to battle, where they would show the heavily eyebrowed presidential candidate and the king of all potatoes what a shapechanger and a vampire were really capable of.

Which would be handy, as Jakob himself wasn’t all too clear on the subject himself…
However, upon finally arriving at the nuclear power plant, Jakob saw Dukakis lying unconscious on the ground outside the power plant, covered in a pornographically suggestive amount of buttery white fluff. Standing over them were Woeisme and Something.
“Woeisme! Something!” Edwood ëjáçûláŧëd (speaking of being pornographically suggestive—on the other hand, no less a personage than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used “ëjáçûláŧëd” in this context, so, to coin an equally suggestive phrase, suck it), once again displaying his razor-sharp powers of observation and name recollection.

“How’d you get here so fast?” Jakob queried in abject confusion, since neither character had been around for several chapters now.

Realizing that outwardly showing the surprise he felt was counter to his public persona, Edwood quickly took on his usual disinterested affect, and studied his obsessively manicured fingernails and said, “Whatever.”
“I have to say, Something,” Jakob started.

Edwood interrupted, “Well, go ahead and say it.”

Jakob glared at Edwood for a moment. “I have to say, Woeisme and Something, that I didn’t think you’d be able to stop two such implacable foes,” Jakob said, inordinately proud of his proper use of the word implacable in a sentence.

“We didn’t,” Something and Woeisme said in unrealistically perfect unison.
“Then who did?” Jakob asked.

“Who cares?” Edwood said with an unnecessarily loud dramatic sigh and putting the back of his hand to his forehead. “It’s over, isn’t it?”

“Not hardly, pal,” said a voice from behind Jakob. “It’s very very very far from over. And I oughtta know. ‘Cause this is all entirely my fault.”

“You mean it’s your fault I’m so indecisive and full of angst?” Jakob asked.

“You mean it’s your fault I’m aging so ridiculously?” Woeisme asked.

“You mean it’s your fault I have a stupid gag name?” Something asked.

“Whatever,” Edwood said, adjusting his sequins.

“No, you morons,” the stranger said impatiently. “And I’m not responsible for the crappy writing in this story, either. No, I mean that this whole tuberous nonsense is my doing.”

Jakob frowned. “The what?”

“The potatoes, nitwit! You see, I am,” he paused Shatnerically, “Solanum! The god of all things potato! And you have no idea how screwed up this is,” he finished, stealing a line from an old Star Trek novel.