POTATO MOON, Part 72, “Shining Brightly” by Adrian J. Watts

Irony shook his head, politely declining Bela’s offer, and stepped into the brightly lit room. The fluorescent lights set into the ceiling shone brightly, and the phospherescent photons they emitted lit lightly upon Edwood, Bela and Something’s delicate features. And Jakob’s, too. Probably.

Irony stared for a long time at Bela’s checker-proffering form and glared meaningfully at Something in a way only an abstract entity can.

“Something’s wrong,” Irony said.

“What?” Jakob asked. “Is it about my – ”

“No, he means me,” Something explained.

Irony nodded.

“I am Irony,” he explained in a highly-explanatory way. “I’ve been watching you for a long time. Since somewhere around Part 4, I think, when I passed Bela and Jakob in the forest on the way to rescue Woeisme, or something like that.”

Bela’s gazed down at her daughter, who the lights had strangely forgotten to shine on in the first paragraph. Realising their mistake, they furiously flickered to emit a wider band of light, capturing the image of the child. Shocked and horrified, the lights promptly killed themselves, plunging the room into darkness.
“Is everyone okay?” Something asked.

In the dark, Jakob, Edwood, Woeisme, Bela and Irony all nodded. But something was troubling Bela. As she stared at Edwood’s entirely unilluminated form, she noticed his features engaged in a random, shifting pattern of randomness. His normally emotionless eyes and pouting lips had suddenly taken on something resembling life. He was actually… smiling.

“No!” Bela shouted, without her own perpetual pout being remotely disturbed. She dropped her checkers board and rushed past Irony and out into the corridor, where she tripped, fell, and became unconscious, conveniently becoming an issue for the next writer to deal with.

“As I was saying,” Irony continued. “Something’s wrong. Not only does the Onion Ring of Power exist, you’ll need it if you are going to wrest the Apple of Anti-Sproutage from the Deep Fryer.”

“You mean the very intense monk?” Woeisme asked.

“The very same,” Irony confirmed. “Only then can you keep any more of Jakob’s avatars from taking off. But that isn’t even why I’m here.” He picked up Bela’s discarded game and approached Something.

“W-what are you doing?” Something stammered.

“Checkers?” Irony asked.
Something accepted the challenge, but as the Emperor of Fantasmica played, and the game became long and drawn-out, Jakob finally reached for the remote control beside his bed and switched on the TV. Immediately it displayed the famous children’s program, “The Kingdom of Fantasmica.” – and just as immediately, Something’s skin began to take on a dull russet hue.

“Oh, the irony!” Irony exclaimed. He stepped away from the board game and headed for the door, but before he left he cast his eyes across the group one last time. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully, then gestured in Jakob’s general direction. There was a bright flash of bright light which very much like the earlier lights lit brightly upon everyone in the room, and when it faded, Jakob’s body had been changed – and where he had been laying was the tiny, russet-faced form of a potato beetle.

“Now that’s Irony,” Woeisme exclaimed in just as exclamatory a tone as Irony’s had been a moment before. She was never one to be out-adverbed, after all.