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Royer’s Madcap Experiences: Near the Barrens
By Ric Royer (c/o the Foontz-Flonnaise Home of Abundant Senselessness)
File Photo
I came upon two picnic tables filled with snacks and beverages. Removing the shockingly bright pink plastic cover, I find a tray of cheeses covered in bees.
“There are no bees,” I say aloud.
A man appears from behind a fence. “There are no bees,” he assures me. “We’ve got Trisbicuits (editors note: a popular cracker) as well. You can find them in that blue container over there”.
I curse lightly under my breath. Why put a container of cheese on one table and the Trisbicuits completely on another? It’s stupid, it’s poor planning, it’s insensate. I decide then to eat my fill and then overturn both the tables, spilling everything onto the moist grasses.
Someone comes up behind me and touches my shoulder. My mouth is stuffed with cheeses and Trisbicuits and I have always found that this condition makes it hard to turn around. The next thing I know I am being led by this unseen figure into a grassy lowland, across a field covered with giant green tree balls and into a small wooden church of nearly immaculate appearance. I am handed a leaf of corresponding literature.
This church was built for servants but never consecrated. The builder, Ms. H-Jumps, was suddenly beheaded during the First War of the Depths and the building was permanently shut by her grieving staff. It is open now especially for you.
My name was written there but it was horribly misspelled.
I was led to the first pew. I stared at the pulpit. Some large cards and an easel had been placed there. Everything was half-wrapped in flaking brown paper. A small portable radio had been left on the floor– it’s middle had been crushed by something heavy and unforgiving.
I became terribly bored, then horny, then incontinent. Nothing could be done. I waited for a week there but nothing further happened.
I made my way back up the hill and saw the man with the two tables of snacks. I punched him in the face and nicked a tray of bee-covered cheeses. I walked out into the road and eventually accepted a ride with a tiny redhead in a vintage station wagon.
She is driving me back to the barrens.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Barrens
By Ric Royer
File photo
It was a rough patch of weedy asphalt where there had once been a restaurant. Beyond, there was nothing. The last man before the barrens told me this:
It was a restaurant with a red roof that was shaped like a sort of blocky hat. They had a little fireplace in the center and they put starlight mints on your plastic check tray at the end of the meal. They sold flat dough discs that sometimes had sauces and meats on top. I don’t remember what they called it. It was a long time ago.
I looked around his filthy ramshackle house on the edge of nowhere, the edge of the barrens. Everything had gone to hell. There were fifteen cats that wandered in and out of the morass. He sat on a stiff wood chair in one corner of the kitchen. There had not been a woman here in fifteen years, maybe twenty.
“Give me something, something to take out there,” I said. He vomited a little. “What’s in them tins?” he then asked, pointing to the filthy, littered counter. I stared hard at the three tins. I looked back at the man.
“You would not have fared well in the olden times,” he noted. Then, he died.
I took all his food and headed for the barrens.
***
The sky was grey though it was warm. A mild breeze blew. I suddenly grew very horny. But it was the barrens. There was nothing that could be done.
Later, I came to the crest of a slight hill. I could look down upon another ten miles of the barrens, ebbing at the distant horizon. I began to grow mad.
***
Flat Dough Disc Hut. Time seemed to be moving very quickly. I knew though that it was the Flat Dough Disc Hut. I had once won a contest for reading. My prize had been a trip to the Flat Dough Disc Hut. The last one before the barrens, now gone.
***
One ribbon, one trophy. The two achievements of youth. Gone. Where does one dispose of trophies? And who disposed of it? It was not me. I would have kept the trophy. Forever.
You keep things in the barrens.
***
I’ve been in the barrens now two years. I cannot find my way back to the old man’s home. Food is brought. It’s a man that walks down a staircase. The staircase ends, I supposed at the time, in heaven. I know that to be wrong now. This man, he brings the food. I recall having a fairly non-existent credit score.
***
Barrens.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Grey Horde Creeps
By Ric Royer
File photo
I was half asleep on a chair that had been shoved violently into a corner. The hall was dark, cold and cavernous– they had left all the tubas on the floor and a couple of music stands had been kicked, bent in half and then set on fire.
I had not been invited. I had been across the street, sticking up a gas station. The old counterman was trying to make idle conversation as he filled the sack with cash. “I got a paneled staircase that goes down to a paneled basement,” he nattered. “We keep canned goods down there, behind a couple of western doors. It’s a whole different room for the canned goods, you understand. I keep the dry goods up top, on a shelf.”
I saw the limos pulling up in front of the great hall, the elegant figures alighting from the back. And I especially noticed the women.
The old counterman continued on. “About 25 years ago, we fixed up some grey linoleum on the floor for my son. He was having a party and we…” I cut him off. “What’s that over there?” I asked, grabbing the sack. “They have dances,” he said. “Dances for the Fraternal Bears Club.” “Right. Thanks for nothing asshole,” I said. I pushed over a rack of balloons out of pure malice.
As I crossed the busy intersection, I first got wind of the creeping grey horde. It was coming in from the west, forming a discordant tableau against the tall buildings and the advertising signs. Somebody, far away, went out into the street in his wife-beater and took a shot at the horde with a pistol. He was devoured instantly.
I waited in back of the hall and jumped a half-drunk suit as he walked by. As he lay unconscious, I swapped out our clothes. For some reason, he had a laminated card that showed color photographs of different soups. I found his ball ticket in the breast pocket.
I waited on line. Just as I was about to go in, I took a glance backwards at the creeping grey horde. It was closer– perhaps a mile off now. There was just the beginning of what became a deafening roar.
I hung around the coat check. There was a petite brunette there– not selling it too much on the tits but Grade-A on the ass. I watched her work for awhile and then, during a lull, I decided on a gambit.
“Fuck this shit,” I told her. “You need better.”
“You’re so crude,” she said, in a timid, innocent voice. Her face flushed red.
“I know a hotel. Might as well baby, the creeping grey horde is here.”
She suddenly grew very white. She knew it, we all knew it.
“What about the coats? The hats?”
“Fuck that, baby. They’ll all be gone soon enough.”
I decided I didn’t feel like blowing my score on a hotel room so I did her in a room off the main hall. Then we smoked some cigarettes and listened to the music next door.
“That was…intense,” she said. “It was…lovemaking.”
“Yeah, baby,” I said, as I spat against the wall. “I really menaced that ass.”
And then we suddenly heard the horde and the music stopped next door. The building began shaking.
Well, it ended up that everybody died but me. They died in a strange way– the creeping grey horde just came straight through windows and doors and grabbed them up, including sweet-ass.
The horde left me there in that hall.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Haunted Profiterole
By Ric Royer
File photo
I decided to order a profiterole for dessert. The waiter brought me a copy of Profiterole Digest. The cover showed a gigantic pile of profiteroles photographed in a red wagon. “We have everything in there except for custard, chocolates, and the one that has the hose attached so you can suck out the cream.” He pressed his crotch as he said that last part but I decided to ignore it.
I went with the “Special Occasion Profiterole”. The waiter disappeared. Ten minutes later, another waiter appeared with the pastry. He went away wordlessly.
I stared at the profiterole. They had presented it well– there were little lines of chocolate all along the plate edge and a series of minced strawberries along one side. They had also placed a little off-white card and the words “pastry ball” had been written there in fine calligraphy. There was also an emergency number printed on the back.
I picked up the profiterole and ate half in one bite. It was then that I became aware of an eldritch phantasm from the borders of this world.
I dropped the profiterole. It had turned green and was covered in blood. I could taste the gore in my mouth but could not expel it. Two waiters, watching from behind a ledge and a series of hydrangea bushes, suddenly expired.
“It was a hell beast, unleashed by your indulgence,” said a voice that sounded not unlike a kindly grandfather. I fell over backwards in my chair. Next, I was being dragged by something unseen, deeply into the purlieu. There seemed to be a lot of vomit there.
The next thing I remember is the cargo train. I was packed roughly into a boxcar full of sacks of grains. There was another man there who had had a series of pastries slammed against his face. He nodded slowly.
It was then that I could finally scream.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Blue Moon Hotel, Room 2
By Ric Royer
File Photo
I pulled into the Blue Moon Hotel at dusk. It was a flat, one-story building with a separate office out front and a sign that advertised “semi-free air-conditioning”. The clerk was a miserable-looking wraith-like figure with a name tag that read “Braunschweig”. I wanted none of this Braunschweig– I wanted him gone, I wanted a jolly, effervescent young girl, erupting into womanhood. I wanted her to be a delight to the senses. I wanted happiness. Instead, I had this Braunschweig.
It was then that I conceived of Braunschweig’s termination. It was simple– I would place a middle of the night phone call. It was an emergency, a chasm had opened in the floor and swallowed me whole. “Look here, what kind of a place is this?” I would ask indignantly, “where a man goes to the bathroom and is swallowed whole?” Braunschweig would come to my rescue and would meet his fate.
I killed some time there in Room 2, thinking of my father. He had owned an ice cream kiosk that had been blown over by the wind. After that, he disappeared. I had few other memories.
By then, it was far past midnight. I placed the call. The phone rang endlessly, over and over again. I violently shoved aside the curtains and stared at the office. It was dark, even the neon sign had been turned off. The only sound was the occasional whoosh of the nearby interstate. I nearly vomited up the bagel chips and sodas I had had for dinner but recovered.
The office was unlocked. There was a strange orange glow coming from beneath a closed door in the back and there was an impenetrable forcefield; a rebus mind-puzzle that had been erected around it. There was also half a pizza with “dipping sauces” left on a counter and I devoured it hungrily.
I knew though that Braunschweig was gone. Braunschweig, the thaumaturgist. I realized that now.
And I thought of my father again. There was that time the ice cream kiosk was blown over by the wind. “Why didn’t he just put it back in place?” I thought. “Why did he give up so easily?”
And then it was morning.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Refreshment Stand
By Ric Royer
It was a squat, four-cornered refreshment stand in a dirt parking lot. There were faded wood signs on all edges that said “Refreshments” and there was a painted advertisement for some defunct type of soda. There were (small), splintery stools all around and nobody ever came there but me. It was a wonder.
I knew the owner– he was a big squirrely guy called “Turt” and he mixed up little cans of beans and dropped them over potato chips and served them in paper cartons. I ate lunch with Turt about three or four times a week.
“You ever thought about going and fucking yourself?” he would ask. I had to eat my carton of beans and chips fast then because before long Turt would be pushing them off the counter and into the dirt. If that happened, you wouldn’t get another, at least not that day. And you might get your face caved in.
That was the only time Turt came out from behind the stand was to beat a person near to death. He kept in shape by constantly drinking from a transparent Thermos of beef broth. Plus, the beatings.
The other day, I came by and Turt wouldn’t serve me. Wouldn’t give me any kind of reason why, he just lowered his head a bit (while still staring through me), saying, Just Leave, Just Leave! in a strange, high-pitched voice. He never came out from behind the counter though.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: Honest Joe’s
By Ric Royer
Right before dusk, I wandered over to Honest Joe’s. It was a two-story building on the edge of town, surrounded by weeds and trash. Beyond, was a cluster of acetylene tanks, a shed and then the railroad tracks. It was a sorry spot.
Honest Joe was behind the counter eating a sundae off a styrofoam sheet. Loud trumpet music could be heard through the tinny speakers. There were some guys at tables. I didn’t care for any of it.
I walked right over to Honest Joe and looked him straight in the eye. Then I pushed the sundae and the styrofoam sheet into his pants. The sheet fell away but the sundae hung there at his crotch for awhile. Then it fell to the floor. The noise was oddly loud and clunky.
He started to towel off. He got one area clean and then I snatched the towel away. “This is going out there between some of those tanks,” I said. “There’s nothing else. It’s all dust beyond.” Honest Joe knew the truth though he wouldn’t admit it until much later.
One of the guys stood up. “I’m putting those tanks on a freight tonight. Joe’ll get his towel back.”
I walked out.
It was a hot night.
ACCOMMODATIONS
When staying in the Area Beyond the Outlands, pick the Murray. Friendly, creative staff, delightful beds, curtains. Phone Far Outlands 5-6712.
LANKVILLE DAILY NEWS: IN BOOK FORM!
The book is gone. It will never return. We hear stories but they are likely false. We live in the woods now. We make fire with a lighter that we found in the street. It was crushed by a truck but, somehow, perhaps through some intervention that is beyond us, it still works. We are waiting. We are waiting.
Original Pondicherry Association News promotional advertisement (2009)
TONIGHT ON TV! RICHARD AND THE POSTMAN REUNION SPECIAL!
The Hit program from the 1970's returns to Lankville TV tonight on LBC!
ADULT ADVERTISEMENT
Women all over Lankville are just sitting at mammoth computers waiting to hear from men like you! Just insert a floppy disk, write a (non-sexual) message and let the sparks fly! (Computer not included).
ADVERTISEMENT
A Vitiello Decorative Ham makes a great gift. Show that you care today.
BANDED DUFFELS ON PALLETS
Assorted colors. Whatever you want to do, man. Call Lankville Falls, 3247.
BRIAN SCHROPP IN THE LANKVILLE DAILY NEWS
The most important cuisine articles ever written.
CANDY
Jipps Co. Full Service Candy Counter! Our alert girls will push gummy drops into special paper sheaths, engage in restrained pleasantries and explain chocholate-to-nougat ratios. Call Central Lankville 3614.
CAT PHOTO
In compliance with Lankville subsection 11:16-4.
CHAMBERS CO. HAND DRILLS: When Electricity is Not an Option
When electricity is not an option consider the Chambers Company hand crank drills. Perfect for use in tight spaces, on distant islands or for drilling holes in fences to see TITS. Call 4-2309.
EMPLOYMENT
Big Ed's BBQ Shack is looking for a part-time waitress. Someone who doesn't nose around and ask a lot of difficult questions. Call Lankville Rougher Area, 5-2100.
EMPLOYMENT
Nuts, Ah! is looking for an experienced nut-handler. Experience with bagging nuts also important. If you break the nut sack, the nuts will drop onto the floor. Come in person for application to Twin Removed Pines Mall. NO CALLS.
FOX FOR PARTIES
Hire the Poetry Fox for Your Child's Next Party. Reasonable rates. Writes poems, dances, will not stand for any shenanigans. Call South Lankville 2009.
The funny stories of Dick Oakes, Jr. have thrilled millions. Look for them today in The Lankville Daily News!
GELSINGER’S ALLURE CLUB
Topless, bottomless wonderland. Mysterious back rooms. Carpeted entirely in astroturf. NO CALLS.
GREBOV BROTHERS TELESCOPE COMPANY
The Grebov Brothers are Lankville's finest purveyor of telescopes for astronomy enthusiasts. Substantial 4.5" apertures and fast f/4 focal ratios provide bright, detailed views of solar system targets like the Moon and planets, as well as wide-field celestial objects like nebulas and star clusters but also TITS.
GUMP PENETRATES
Only in The Lankville Daily News
HADBAWNIK HAUNTED STAIRCASE COMPANY
The Hadbawnik Company is Lankville's #1 installer of haunted, brush-littered staircases. Friendly non-foreign staff! Call Western (Outer) Lankville, 2154 or 2198 today.
HADBAWNIK HAUNTED BRUSH PILES!
The Hadbawnik Haunted Staircase Company is now offering haunted brush piles for use on your staircase. Create eerie, supernal ambiance. Allow the brush to blow haphazardly in the wind, creates fear, foreboding. Call our friendly staff of white people at Western Lankville, 2154. Brush piles may contain other forms of yard debris.
HEY! WANT A MONKEY?
Hey! Want a live little monkey? They do cute things like climb into pumpkins. Call "The Captain"- Central Lankville Hills, 5264.
HOME DUMP Your Neighborhood Hardware Store 16 Lankville Locations!
Weekly Special: Primitive Forged Hooks. Buy 4, Get a Can of Paint. Or Maybe Not. You'll Just Have to Find Out.
INFLAMED BY STARS AND BLOOD
Lankville's Premier Science Fiction and Horror Magazine Now Appearing in The Lankville Daily News!
JOHNNY PADRES, OPTICIAN
Lankville has been relying on Dr. Johnny Padres for their optical needs since 1973. We offer a full service family eye care center and provide examinations for glasses and contacts and have a large display of designer, traditional and innovative eyewear for both regular prescription eyeglasses and sunglasses all of which will enable you to see TITS better. Call Lankville Business 2618-2.
LIFE LESSONS FUNERAL HOME
Life Lessons Funeral Home has been helping Lankville with dead people since 1932. Contact Eddie or Stummins, Lankville Business, 5-2161.
LOOK AT THESE BEAUTIES!
Really some of our best ever! Have you ever seen anything like it? Call Kelly (male) at Lankville Sound 2615.
MISSING
Missing: adult penguin. Christ, I just let him out in the yard for one minute and now he's gone. Responds to the name "Richard". Call Lankville Eastern Outlands, 5-6213.
NOW PLAYING!
The Unhinged: A New Film by Tom "Vapor" Rayford. Crisp Street Cinema, Eastern Lankville
PINEAPPLE CITY: A New Way of Being
Pineapple City is a new way of being, feeling and having your shirt off. Located in the distant, barren Lankville Pines, Pineapple City is now accepting applications for sheds. Call PINES, 2-5771.
THE PUZZLER
In the pie chart above, what segment represents a certain specific strata of the general population?
REAL ESTATE
Little shed for sale. With door, mailbox, dirt plot. Site of multiple murders but don't worry, they happened around back. To inquire, come to the shed. Go around back.
REAL ESTATE
Four acre lot in Eastern Lankville Cove Area. Price reduced! Site of a fireworks display in which several people fell out of their lawnchairs and died. Locals believe it haunted but that's crap. Call Cove 2751.
THE RECKONER EXACTRA 2.0 : A Danny Madison Product
It's Your Time: CALCULATE
SARAH SAMWAYS: CONTRIBUTING FEMALE
Exclusively in the Lankville Daily News (and some other papers).
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT
Robin Brox will sit around and get progressively more intoxicated while listening to this other broad natter on about something. LANKVILLE REGIONAL AUDITORIUM, August 4, 11PM.
SPEAKING ENGAGEMENT CANCELED
The Dr. M. Chambers speech and candy-making event has been canceled again following Dr. Chambers' sudden collapse into some baskets. New date TBA
TRAVEL TIPS by Randy Hammers
The Kum Back Inn in the Lankville Desert Area has long been serving road-weary travelers. They feature a restaurant (with cocktails) and two spacious conference rooms. The Kum Back boasts 65 units-- each including window dressing, some chairs and a larger chair (seats two smallish children), a bed with orange comforter, a plastic trash can, clever paintings, and a windowless door. TV also available in 17 (sometimes 19) rooms. Most of the rooms are air-conditioned. Oscillating fans available upon request. Illuminated carports will protect your vehicle from the vicious sudden dust storms that often overtake the Desert Area and the wild thieves that occasionally parade across the landscape like some unmentionable horror. Call now at TU-0780 and ask for Bud or Karen (married).
UTILITY YARD SHEDS
The Lowinger Brothers offer great utility yard sheds at low prices. This one is haunted. Call Lankville Port Area 1072.
VACATION PACKAGES!
Spectacular vacations in campers by little mountains. Your cares will melt away but you will have to be careful of that shack (pictured). A lunatic lives there. Call Mercantile District 2711.
WRESTLING TONIGHT!
8PM, Southern Lankville Man-Arena. Featuring Ric "Wild Boy" Tipps (green trunks).
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