Bela woke suddenly, finding herself abandoned in the hall, and miffed that everyone who should have been standing around adoring her had, in fact, abandoned her instead of adoring her.
“Well that’s just great,” she huffed in a huff. “How will I pitch the rest of this story if everyone leaves me and I don’t know what’s going on?” she whined in her whiny voice.
She was so distressed by this turn of events, the hairs on her arms and legs (she hadn’t seen a leg-razor since the story started) began to stand on end. Then the hair on top of her head began to spike outward. She became aware of a taste in her mouth, like touching her tongue to a 9-volt battery. She pulled a 9-volt battery from her pocket and touched it to her tongue, and decided that that was indeed the taste.
The air began to crackle with blue electrical discharges. There was a bright blue flash as a ball of blue energy popped into being, then shattered into tiny blue fragments, which shattered again when they hit the floor into tiny blue powder. Where the ball had momentarily been, there was now a man. He was wearing a dark brown trench-coat, a dark brown short-brimmed fedora, and a potato-hued mask with many brown spots covered his face. There seemed to be no pattern to the spots. In fact, as she stared at them , she realized that they were moving across the surface of the mask.
The man seemed to look at her (she couldn’t be sure because she couldn’t see his eyes through the mask but she was there so what else could he want to look at), then turned his head as if to survey his surroundings. “Hrm,” he muttered. Bela began to ask him who he was and if he wanted to adore her too, when the man began speaking aloud to himself.
“Russet’s journal. August 7, 2009. Potato peelings in garden this morning. Tractor tread on burst spud. This field is afraid of me. I have seen its true eyes.”
“Um, are you talking to me?” Bela asked, nervously. “Because this isn’t a field…”
“Quiet!” he snapped at her. “Don’t you know not to interrupt someone when he’s monologuing? Hrm. Now, where was I?”
“You’ve seen its true eyes,” she offered.
“Right. Hrm. Thanks. Hrm.
“The furrows are extended troughs and the troughs are full of vodka and when the gopher-holes finally scab over, all the rodents will drown. The accumulated roots of all their digging and foraging will pile up about their tails and all the moles and raccoons will look down and shout ‘Feed us!’…and I’ll look up and whisper ‘No’.”
“Oh, no,” Bela moaned moaningly to herself. “Not another one.”
“You, girl,” the man barked. “Hrm. Have you seen a fey blonde man dressed like Alexander the Great and calling himself Ore-ida-mandius come through here? Hrm.”
“No, but I’ve been unconscious for a chapter, so anything’s possible.”
“Ðámņ! Hrm. Amana insisted he could send me to the right location. Hrm.”
“Pardon my stupidity,” she said stupidly, “but who’s Amana? And what’s with all the ‘Hrm’-ing?”
“Doctor Amana. Hrm. He was an absent minded scientist on my world. Hrm. One day put a potato wrapped in foil into the microwave, and it exploded, turning him blue and replacing his wang with tater tots. Hrm. And I just like the sound of ‘Hrm’. Hrm.”
“And why are you looking for this ‘Alrightawhoever’?”
“Ore-ida-mandius. Hrm. He’s a super-duper-genius who believes the only way to save the multiverse is to destroy it. Hrm. He fled from our world to yours, and I need to stop him. Hrm. Follow me. Hrm.” He turned and walked past her toward the ‘Exit’ sign at the far end of the hall.
Bela hesitated. “Wait, how is he going to destroy the multiwhatever?” She started following a few paces behind.
Continuing to walk down the hall, he said “With a Storyline Quandry Infinitely Explosive Not-very-nice Tuber. Hrm. He’s going to kill us all with a giant S.Q.U.I.N.T..”
Bela rolled her eyes at him behind his back.
“And don’t make faces at me. Hrm,” he snarled.
“How did you know?” she asked.
“I have eyes on the back of my head.”
• 
“Potato peelings in garden this morning. Tractor tread on burst spud. This field is afraid of me. I have seen its true eyes.” <—- any time you can reference Rorschach’s monologues is a good thing. Let’s see somebody work in his, “Existence is random,” or any of his other 17 monologues from the book.
Thanks! I wrote the journal entry before I even signed up, and I’ve been terrified that someone would beat me to the punch. And thanks to Adrian and Matt for leaving Bela separated from the rest of the group. I needed one character to be solo for it to work out the way I wanted it.
You’re welcome.
Loved the 9-Volt Battery bit