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So, potatoes. As a child I loved mashed potatoes. My mother rarely made them because I grew up in the family of god damned otakus and we were living off almost exclusively off rice, I saw sushi rolls more often than dumplings, but every time was a treat for me. I carried this love of potatoes throughout my teenage years, and when I got older, whenever I went to the supermarket, I always grabbed a couple of kilos of them.
This summer, we went "potato picking". Leaping ahead, I'll say that, although that's what the event was called, we were actually digging beets. In the former Soviet Union, the term "potato picking" refers to any event involving unpaid student labor in the fields. So, the name completely misrepresents the essence.

After getting off the train, we reached the potato depot (which, despite its name, was now used for growing beets). That's where I met San-Sanych. He was lying on the side of the road, completely drained of his powers. If I'd left him like that, he would have died. I brought him half a liter of vodka, he drank it, and his spirits were lifted. Since then, I've brought him half a liter every day, which relieves me of a part of my pay and feeds his powers. In return, he agreed to consider me his master.
"I'm a specialist…" said San-Sanych Oreola Atseon, etc. "A tractor specialist. If you see a tractor, call me. I offer a full range of services. Banishing, taming, using forgotten roads to take it home. I will be especially grateful if you find my own tractor."
We met his own tractor once but that's a story for another time.

Anyway, we spent the first half of the day picking beets, and then sat down to lunch. The untouched fields of beets weighed heavily on my consciousness.
"Do you want some potatoes?" asked my college friend, whose name was Fedya MONKEY. I nodded feverishly. Fedya handed me a beetroot.
Beetroots. They're called "the potato of the Russian peasants." Before the potato, finally introduced by Peter the Great in the mid-19th century, gained popularity, beetroots were grown in villages. It's not surprising that these two vegetables can be confused. So I didn't suspect a thing and declined. Tanya the SNAKE took the beetroot from Fedya MONKEY.

Commercial break. The Blu-ray version of the story will feature a completely gratuitous erotic scene with Tanya SNAKE. We assure you that although she's snake, she possesses all the important features of a normal woman.

The next day, as we sat resting over our buckets, Fedya MONKEY approached me again:
"Did you dig up a lot of potatoes?" he asked, leaning on his shovel. He looked straight at me.
At that moment, I understood.
It dawned on me.
I saw.
His eyes blazed with madness. He looked at me as if possessed. He needed potatoes. Nothing but potatoes would do. Unfortunately, this field only had beets, and there was no way to get potatoes here, but I choked on the words, holding them in my throat and instead cautiously replied:
"A good amount…"
"Where are they?" Fedya asked, and I felt like this was the question I couldn't refuse to answer.
WHERE ARE THEY?!
Fedya's words rang in my ears, shimmering with their frantic intonations. The shovel in Fedya's hands trembled, ready to fly into the air and crash down on me the moment I tried to evade the question. Where are they? Where can I get potatoes from the beet field?!
"There," I nodded toward the sacks. Fedya slowly raised his head and looked into the distance.
"Good," he nodded slowly, approvingly. Sweating, I waited, but Fedya MONKEY decided not to check the contents of the sacks. He slowly turned and, dragging the shovel behind him, hobbled away. I was about to sigh with relief when he suddenly stopped.
Silence fell. Fedya didn't turn around. I waited, holding my breath and looking at his back.

"We'll eat them this evening," Fedya said slyly, and my insides twisted.
"What will we eat?"
"Potatooeees."
Fedya turned around. His face was filled with the wildest, craziest, craziest expression I'd ever seen.
"They won't disappear until the evening, will they?"
Having said this as a parting shot, he left.

"San Sanych, we need potatoes!!"
I burst into the abode of the only local I knew who could do anything in this situation. Incidentally, San Sanych Celeron Chocopie lived in a school building. In an old school building. In a ruined old school building. In the basement of a ruined old school building. In a dirty, piss-stained basement of a ruined old school building. In a cardboard house. He was an artist, an all around talented person, and unemployed.
"Calm down," he stopped me with his hand. "Explain yourself."
"We need potatoes urgently!!"
"Tell me in order."
"One: We. Two: urgently…"
"Enough, now in random order."

I told him all about Fedya MONKEY's madness, about our conversation, and how something terrible would happen if there weren't any potatoes on the table tonight. And where would we get potatoes in the middle of an endless beet field, which, by the way, we have to harvest by the end of this week?
"Maybe there's a village nearby? Maybe one of the peasants grows potatoes? We'll rush there, trade it for something, buy some, just to make it in time and calm Fedya down…"
But all my hopes were cut off like a rope by an axe when San Sanych said, "It's useless."
"What do you mean, useless?" I gasped.
"It's useless," San Sanych repeated, "Because potatoes have nothing to do with it."
I just blinked.
"What does have to do with it, then?"
"Beetroots."

Beetroots.
I walked along the dirt road, returning to the base, recalling the tractor specialist's words. The "Path of Capitalism" state farm was founded in 1965. That year, the Americans re-elected Lyndon Johnson, and Leonov made the first spacewalk. Back then, the farm was called "Path of Communism," and they mainly grew potatoes here. Almost fifty years had passed since then.
"What do you think we've been growing here all this time?"
"Po," I hesitated, "Po, potatoes?"
"Potatoes."
"I see."
The fields around were full of beets. Their easily recognizable bushes rose above the ground as far as the eye could see. There was no doubt that there wasn't even a hint of potatoes here this year.
"Then where did they go? What happened last year? Where did all these beets come from?" "I pointed out the window.
"Where from? So, figure out what happened, and I'll solve your problem with Fedya."
"Will you be able to get some potatoes? You said it was useless. And where are you going to find them in this bumshot nowhere?"
The tractor specialist shook his head.
"Who do you take me for? There will be potatoes for dinner, my word."

Commercial break. The Blu-ray version of the story will feature a completely gratuitous erotic scene with Maryana SNAIL, who hasn't even been mentioned before.

And just like that it was approaching dinnertime, and there was no news from San Sanych. Our group of four gathered around the fire, where a pot hung, heating water for cooking. Fedya sat to my left, and with each passing second I grew more and more afraid.
What if San Sanych didn't find the potatoes or didn't get them in time? How will Fedya react if none are brought? Perhaps we could hold him together, but what kind of trauma would we inflict on his mind?
"Potatoes," Fedya muttered under his breath, glancing in my direction. "I love potatoes."
I like them too — but not to the point of going crazy!
Finally, the water boiled, and Fedya turned to me. Madness contorted his features, and his hand gripped his fork so tightly that the steel creaked. “Well then,” he said quietly and threateningly, “Bring the potatoes.”
A lump rose in my throat. My other two comrades were silent, looking at me expectantly. Had he put them up to it?
"R-right now," I muttered, frantically looking around, seeking refuge in the gathering darkness. "P-Potatoes… Yes, potatoes."
And at that moment, just when I thought I'd have to fight, San Sanych emerged from the darkness.
He was holding a potato in his hands.

It was just as it should have been – round, red, with a long tail at the bottom.
It was drawn on a sheet of paper.
The sheet belonged to a book, a thick one, 600 pages long – obviously from some encyclopedia.
"Did I mention that our collective farm grew potatoes for fifty years?" the tractor specialist asked me. I nodded.
"I asked you what happened?"
Another nod.
The tractor driver replied mockingly, syllable by syllable:
"No-thi-ng."
Above the picture of a potato in the book my tractor driver friend was holding, the title of an encyclopedia entry was printed in large type: BEETS.
"They still grow potatoes here."
"But wait…"
I stared, bewildered, at the article "BEETS," beneath which adorned a picture of a potato.
Beet…
Potato…
Beet…
Potato again…
San Sanych pointed a short, thick finger at the open page, right at the picture of the vegetable my mother had used to make my sweet mashed potatoes all my childhood:
"This is a BEETROOT."
He bent down and pulled a tuber out of one of the sacks into which we'd been dumping the lumpy, yellowish fruits we'd dug up for the past two days:
"This is a potato. You, kid, have managed to live to your age and still get them mixed up. What do they teach you in town?"
And then I remembered how my mother, opening a cookbook, have been saying to my father:
"Cinnamon, coriander – who came up with all the names! I can't tell a potato from a beetroot!"
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" Dad laughed.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" Mom laughed.
They really couldn't tell a potato from a beetroot.
And they taught me wrong.

Beep, beep, I dialed the number on my cell phone the next morning.
"Hi, Mom. I'm just calling to tell you that a potato is actually a beetroot. And a beetroot is a potato. And you and Dad are idiots. Is the message clear?"
"Ha-ha-ha, you figured us out? This is still tame, wait till you find out that…"
"Quiet! Don't tell him!"
"Dad, don't interrupt! What, what will I find out, Mom?!"
"It's okay, don't worry. By the way, when is your graduation?"
"I'VE ALREADY GOT INTO COLLEGE!!"
"Aha, so trap 52 didn't work…"
"It's 152."
"I'm pretty sure it's 52."
"52 is about blowing your nose into the curtains."
"WHERE ELSE WOULD YOU BLOW YOUR NOSE BUT THE CURTAINS, MOM!!"
"Ha-ha-ha, this one's still fine!"
"STOP MESSING WITH ME"
I hung up the phone in feigned anger. Tractor driver San Sanych appeared from behind me, seemingly as if out of nowhere, and I took the opportunity to ask him, just in case:
"I mean you blow your nose into the curtains? Right?"
"If you're at someone else's house then of course," nodded San Sanych.
Well, thank goodness they didn't lie about that.

Before the main character sits the main character himself, only aged.

Long time ago someone invented the time machine. He went back in time and killed Hitler. But without Hitler history went for worse, and the inventor had to assume Hitler's position for five years.
In this way, it turned out that Hitler never waged any war at all! The inventor did. There's a stable time loop, in which, in trying to prevent his own atrocities, the inventor goes back in time, kills the suspect (Hitler) and commits atrocities under his name by himself.

Hearing of this, main character of the story goes back in time and kills the inventor of the time machine.
But turns out, there's a stable time loop: the inventor's actions were actually performed by the main character himself. He has to continue doing all that he thought the inventor did (killing Hitler and assuming his position), so that the history doesn't turn even worse.

Q: If the aged main character tells the young main character about this beforehand, why would the young main character still go back in time and kill the real inventor?
A: Of course because if he doesn't, the history turns for even more worse

Of course I had to act.

Dropping my bag, I rushed forward between the cars, to the street. Seconds were ticking in my head, the truck was hurtling closer and I was dashing closer, walking, because there was no time to start running.

One step, another one.

I grabbed the boy's collar and jerked him forward, without stopping. A multi-tonn car whooshed behind us. A wave of air hit me. I almost felt a wall of metal and plastic in several inches behind my back.

Another step, and we were on the sidewalks.

His mother was young and pretty but pale as death. She snatched her kid and hurriedly started to berate him and thank me at the same time. I gave her a wave of the hand:

"It's nothing"

Then she tried to give me money. Now, that made me really uncomfortable. Not knowing how to make her quit, I said:

"When I was a kid, someone saved me like that too. One can say that now I've paid my dues."

Boy's mother blinked, stared at me then at her kid. Then again at me. I looked at the boy too, this time carefully, and discovered that he resembled me somewhat. I guess that's about how I would look if I were seven. That's funny, I thought. Almost as if I was him, back from the future to save myself. Science fiction story, right there.

To play this joke a bit further I said to his mother:

"Don't scold him too much, would you? He's already scared to death."

And added, before leaving:

"He will be more careful from now on."

Smiling to my own joke, I crossed the street again, took my bag, stood up and…

…met myself.

No, that wasn't me. If you look closely, we weren't even that similar. Different features, different hairdo. Still, his face somehow resembled mine.

The guy was sporting bright jacket and jeans just like me. He had a bag very similar to mine.

For a moment I froze, staring at him in shock while he was staring at me. We remained silent.

Then he uttered:

"And here I was, thinking it will be me who saves myself. Years of studying spent to make this possible…"

Hesitating for a moment, he added:

"Thank you."

"It's nothing, really", I answered.

We shook hands and went our separate ways.