Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr.
Dick Oakes, Jr.
Ended up at the Kent Motel in the middle of the night. Some glitzy city on the western coast of Lankville. The office door was locked so I went through the courtyard and snooped around. There was a pool there– somebody had left a couple of moist towels on the concrete and a little satchel of fried chicken on a table with some daisies around it. I nabbed the chicken– wolfed it down in the darkness behind an ice machine.
After that, I spotted a fat guy sitting in an arm chair with a little dog. He was stroking its head and looking off towards the west. There was no sense to any of it.
I approached him. “You wanna’ quit fooling with that dog for a bit and rent me a room?”
“The only room left is on the top floor. Way back there on the left. Overlooking the street and the illuminated sign. We haven’t got around to putting curtains up.” His voice was effeminate. “By the way, by removing that chicken from those surrounding daisies, you’ve ruined someone’s tableau.”
I couldn’t figure on any of it. “Just rent me the room would you?”
He took forever to get out of the chair and then made a big pretense of laying some padding out on a chaise-lounge for the dog. I’ve never seen shit like this I thought to myself but I decided to let it go. I followed him to the office.
It was a spare place with bright overhead flourescents. Gave me a sudden bitch of a headache. I gave him my last two twenties and got only a couple of bucks in return.
“Everything’s higher in this town, idn’t it,” I said.
“In microeconomics, supply and demand is an economic model of price determination in a given market,” he started. He pulled out a little chart.
“Skip it. Just give me the god damn key would you?”
He handed it over.
It was a carpeted room with a couple of double beds draped in salmon-colored rib cord cotton bedspreads and a little TV on a desk. I threw up suddenly into a blue plastic trash can that had a flower with a smiley face. Fucking hell, Oakes, I thought to myself. I couldn’t keep it up– I knew it. I crawled to the bed and slept for I don’t know how long.
When I woke up, it was way after noon. There were a couple of guys standing in the doorway and the little manager was standing behind them stroking that damn dog. I sat up.
“Well..?” I said.
“You better come down with us,” one of the guys said. I couldn’t figure him on a cop but this town seemed to have it all wrong anyway.
“He ate chicken that didn’t belong to him,” the manager said quietly.
“And ruined someone’s tableau,” the other guy added. “We’ll take it from here.”
They let me get dressed and walk down the stairs on my own. The sun was blinding.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Outside of town,” one guy said. “There’s a little abandoned place, used to be a pancake house. They got tall bushes out front that obscures the view to the street.”
“What’s gonna’ happen there?”
“We’ll beat the hell out of you. Then bring you back.”
There was nothing I could say. We got back by nightfall.
The Electronics Cranny: Lankville Radio Programming for Tomorrow Morning
By Neil Cuppy
Tomorrow morning’s radio programming has been announced for Lankville’s seven major stations, according to Communications Overseer Harry Rowley III in a report issued today. Transmission will be limited to the amplitude modulation (small) waves operating under the call names LTAB, LFRC, LFWI, LQRC, LWWY, LOTT and LPIP. “Anyone with any questions is free to write us from time to time,” stated Rowley, who was interviewed while inspecting some farm equipment. “We have a little mailbox and we can accept most things from postal carriers.” “When will the afternoon and evening programming be announced?” we asked. There was a long pause, silent as the grave followed by Rowley shaking his head slowly and spitting menacingly in the dirt. “We’ll let it go on an’ happen that way, then,” was the last thing we heard Rowley say before he moved slowly towards us.
The schedule below is taken directly from Rowley’s original dispatch.
6-7:00 A.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises and Entertainments
LQRC: Restrained Cheer Hour
7-8:00 A.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises and Entertainments
LFRC: Morning Encouragement
LFWI: Seals: What Are They?
LQRC: Early Bird Hour
8-9:00 A.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises and Entertainments
LFRC: Health Exercises
LFWI: Musical Breakfast
LQRC: Down Memory Lane with Oleg
LWWY: Home Life
LOTT: Health Exercises
LPIP: Popular Selections
9-10:00 A.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises Until 9:30 Followed by Dead Air
LFRC: Small Business Parade with Shelley Reports
LFWI: Restful Hour Sponsored by the El Arroyo Bank of Del Lankville
LQRC: Highlights, Weather, Deaths
LWWY: Regg’s Daily Chat (with William A. Hancock at the Piano)
LOTT: Health Exercises (with Breathing)
LPIP: Children’s Hour
10-11:00 A.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises
LFRC: Your Decorative Ham (with Chris Vitiello)
LFWI: Scripture, Instrumental Selections
LQRC: Dean T. Pibbs Takes Your Questions/Country Store
LWWY: No live broadcast. Distant string music will be played
LOTT: Johnny Ludlow, friend to boys
LPIP: Crop Report Sponsored by Chambers Company Hand Drills
11-12:00 P.M.
LTAB: Health Exercises, short break
LFRC: Farm Report/Time Signals from the Naval Observatory
LFWI: Concert Orchestra of the Cloud Motel (Hits of Today)
LQRC: Live coverage of the Lankville Commonwealth Luncheon from the Palace Auditorium
LWWY: Some trumpet sounds
LOTT: The Girl’s Half Hour with Ida Rumpus/Dead Air
LPIP: Birthday Celebration for Bill Connelly, Eastern Lankville
Funny Stories by Dick Oakes, Jr.
By Dick Oakes, Jr.
Senior Staff Writer
Dick Oakes, Jr.
They gave me twenty bucks and dropped me off downtown. “Walk four blocks that way and you’ll come to the Scenic Motel. They got a room for you there,” the bus driver said. I stood there in the blinding sun. “Go on, fuck off Oakes!” the bus driver yelled out, just as he closed the double doors. He pulled off in an engine burst of cloud and smoke.
I walked down to the Scenic. There was nothing but closed storefronts and a couple of pool halls open. I didn’t want trouble like that, like before out in the Plains, so I kept to my destination.
The office was air-conditioned. The owner was a barrel-chested little guy with glasses. He wore a white collared shirt that was covered in sweat stains.
“So, how you figure on this place being scenic?” I asked.
“Look out back,” he said. He took a big bite out of a slice of watermelon. Beyond the brown curtains I could see to the backyard. There was a gigantic pile of dirt there. I lifted my shoulders slightly.
“Take it or leave it, buddy,” he said. “I ain’t running no god damn motherfucking piece of shit country club for assholes if you know what I’m talking about.”
I signed the book under a fake name and took the key.
It was Room Number 21, up on the second deck beyond a grove of dead trees. Bed with a red comforter, couple of chairs, a shower– it was nothing fancy. There was one of those cross-stitched things that some women make. It was hanging on the wall in a half-busted frame. It said, BE CAREFUL BECAUSE GOD WATCHES OVER THIS ROOM AND THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN IN IT ALL THE TIME, EVEN AT NIGHT. He ain’t gonna’ be happy about what I’m gonna’ do then I thought. Truthfully though, I had no idea what was next in this fuck-all town.
I took a nap and then went back down to the office. “Tell me about a place to eat,” I said. The guy looked up from his paperwork. “They got two places. One of ’em is fancy. Like the kind of place you’d take a woman as a precursor. Got wood paneling, got them hooked rugs on the floor. I get the feeling though that that ain’t the kind of place a guy like you would have the slightest interest in.”
I figured on him being right but I didn’t say anything.
“Well, about four blocks beyond that, they got one of those Boffo Periods night clubs. I’d stay outta’ that place though. Sure, you can eat a hot sandwich while looking at tits and ass but there’s a price you gotta’ pay for that shit.”
I nodded.
“Looks like you’re fucked buddy. It’ll have to be the machine out back.”
He gave me some change.
I got a candy bar and a danish out of the machine and sat in a rusted folding chair. The sun was going down a little and the giant pile of dirt was in full shade. You couldn’t hear a sound, nothing except a slight wind that cooled nothing. I studied a map the guy gave me. Nearest bus station was 25 miles. 25 mile walk through dirt and sand. I couldn’t think of anything else to do, so I bit into the danish. It tasted like dirt. I tossed it at the pile.
I went back up to my room. There was a note there from some official. They had a job for me at the bus station– the position requires squatting beneath benches to retrieve trash and removal of errant bodily fluids. There is no getting around this requirement. I tore it up.
Then I started walking.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Weird O’It
By Ric Royer
There was a water fountain adjacent to the women’s lavatory– I liked to hang out there. I would take a gigantic water bottle and pretend to fill it but really I’d be waiting for someone to go in there so I could peep. There wasn’t much to see really, just a tiled wall and occasionally the sound of the paper towel dispenser, but I’d get wood anyway. And I would leer at the women as they came out.
One day, a redhead with swinging hips and a round gorgeous rump, waltzed in there and I just about followed her in. I could hear the sound of water running just as the door swung shut. And then, for the longest time, there was nothing.
A half-hour passed. I began to wonder what had happened to this redhead. I gently pushed open the door.
And I was face to face with the Weird O’It.
He was a gigantic green lumpen creature whose enormous height carried him all the way to the ceiling. He had a gaping, stretched mouth with one sharp brown tooth exposed– drool fell to the floor from this abominable orifice. His eyes were rolling, almost spinning in his slimy head and the smell was ungodly.
“Your peeping is very obvious to all those concerned,” he said suddenly in a clear, crisp, intelligent voice. Two arms appeared from the lump and wiped the drool clear to the wall.
“What happened to the redhead?” was all I could manage in response.
“We spoke for awhile– I explained my worldview, my take on things and she explained hers. There was a long moment of awkwardness and then she agreed that my opinion was within reason.”
“And then what?”
“She bared her ass for me.” The Weird O’It’s eyes suddenly stopped spinning and then began again. “It was great, man. Really great. Then, unfortunately, she expired. Everyone who views the Weird O’It dies. I am not from your dimension.”
That night, sleep would not come. I had no idea when or how I would die but the Weird O’It had convinced me of my ultimate demise. If only I had not peeped, had not lurked outside that lavatory, I thought. I would have survived. I would sleep a peaceful sleep.
But weeks passed and I felt no different. And then I saw the Weird O’It again.
I was crossing the street and he pulled up in a small rusted Island pickup. The cab could barely contain him– indeed, parts of his body spilled out the sides and oozed downwards towards the road. He waved and I walked over and leaned on the hood. He had the radio turned up real loud. The song Pirates Money was playing. It was a big hit.
“I’m not dead!” I announced gleefully. “What do you think of that?”
“Oh that,” he said, after a moment of confusion. He hadn’t remembered. “That was all horseshit. I just wanted you to stop peeping, that’s all. Nah, you can look at me all you want.”
The light turned green and he sped off.
And that was the last I heard of the Weird O’It.
That Piece of Shit Ain’t Selling Me a God Damn Couch
By Fingers Rolly Man on the Street
I’ll tell you that right now.
I went into town the other day because I was sick as all hell of screaming at that mother of a whore desert. And also because I needed a new couch.
“You got something in a Western motif?” I asked the piece of shit who was wearing a fancy pants tie and sweater combination. “But gimme’ something without no desert scene on it. I can’t stand for no desert scene.” I thought about howling but kept it to myself.
“We don’t have anything in a Western motif,” the piss stick shot back. “It’s not fashionable right now.”
Typical western couch (for illustrative purposes).
I looked at the piece of shit for a minute and then spat on the floor.
“I oughta’ stick my boot up your fucking ass for talking to me like that,” I said. His eyes bulged real big then and I knew that he knew that I wasn’t gonna’ buy no god damn couch from his god damn popsicle stand.
I picked up a submarine after that and took it home and ate part of it while looking out at that old bitch-dog of a desert.
I don’t recall anything after that.
The Lankville Daily News would like to apologize for the preceding article. Mr. Rolly was assigned an article on the rise of Challenges in Lankville.
Ramping it Up For Easter with BIG CHIPS
By BIG CHIPS
Yo, for the first time in a long-ass time, I suggested to Pops that we get some Easter decorations.
“What do you have in mind Cur…I mean, Big Chips,” Pops said, as we were chilling around the table eating some take-out wings.
“There’s a spread a few blocks from here. Got a big inflatable Easter bunny, right in the front yard.” I sat back and let that hang for a minute.
“No. No, I’m afraid not, Big Chips,” Pops said after he wiped his mitts clean of BBQ sauce. “Those inflatable decorations are cheap and tend to deflate easily. I’m not sure that you’re ready for that kind of responsibility.”
“I guess not,” I agreed. “Yo, Pops, what if we just get a couple a’ baskets. Some of that yellow Easter grass. Be awesome, yo!”
Pops took out his wallet. “I tell you what, Big Chips. I’ll give you ten dollars. See what you can get with that.” Then he started reading his paper and I just ended up falling asleep on the couch in front of this flick about aliens that came down with all these bags full of packing peanuts.
I slept until about two in the afternoon and then I took the ten and headed down to The Dollar Bush on my bike.
“Yo, what you got for Easter?” I asked the brown girl behind the counter. She had some smokin’ blonde hair and big round glasses and, I won’t bullshit you, she was maximum busty. It was awesome. She pointed in the direction of the holiday aisle and went back to filing her nails.
Detail of typical Easter grass.
Big Chips picked out a couple of baskets and got two bags of Easter grass (green and yellow). I ditched the pink on account of finances. The girl rang me up and it came to five cents shy of the ten.
“Yo, right on target,” I said. She bagged everything up. I thought about asking for her digits but she didn’t look Big Chips’ way. To hell with it, I thought. Look at this Easter shit. It was a god damn haul.
I set it up on the mantle. It was beautiful. I sat on the couch for three straight hours just waiting for Pops to come home.
When he walked in the door, I pointed at the mantle. “The Big Chips Easter Committee is donnnnnnneeee,” I said. Pops had a bunch of mail or papers or something in his hand and seemed distracted. “It’s real nice Cur…I mean, Big Chips. Real nice.”
He went up to his room to change. Another successful day in the books.
Cause when you’re ramping it up for Easter with BIG CHIPS, you don’t need a safety net.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Political Scientist
By Ric Royer
The first time I spotted the political scientist was at a conference on Immigrant Identity in Outer Lankville that I snuck into for the free meats. She gave a short speech and I was immediately transfixed by her huge, cat-like eyes, her supple, slightly bronzed skin, and her ever-so-slightly aged but still voluptuous figure hidden only by a mere chemise of the finest fabrics.
Later, I approached her. She was surrounded by a gaggle of fading academics and I slowly but meticulously shoved each one out of the way until it was just us.
She parted her lips and looked at me over her glass as she took a slow drink of soda. She was wearing a pin in her lapel that depicted a bear playing with balloons.
“Do you like my pin?” she said, noticing.
“I don’t understand it,” I said, truthfully. “I didn’t understand your speech either. But, then again, I wasn’t listening.”
“Oh? Why not?” There was something slightly scholastic about the question.
“Because I don’t give a shit about Immigrant Identity in Outer Lankville. What I care about is pressing up against your back as I slowly unbutton that chemise, cupping your breasts as the shirt falls away, kissing the bra straps off your shoulders and then finding your secret crevice and…”
“And…then what?” she asked. She was practically melting against the wall.
“Well, then I would bang you, you little squirrel.”
She dropped her glass of soda and it stained the orange carpet.
We got a hotel room near a Burger Duke. I found the nearness of the two structures a miracle but the political scientist didn’t seem impressed. “Why don’t you take me to a nice country inn?” she suggested. I ignored her.
And then moments later I had her.
Afterwards, I cracked a window.
“You’re not like my husband,” she commented. “He has a Ph.D in Economics.”
“Fuck that shit.”
“You’re so…so coarse,” she said.
“The only economics you need to worry about is how much it’s gonna’ cost to dry clean that suit of yours.”
“That doesn’t really make any sense,” she said, a flummoxed look crossing her face.
“Skip it.”
Later, we had burgers. I got us a booth in the back.
Feelings by Dr. Kevin Thurston
Dr. Kevin Thurston
Dr. Thurston is an expert on men’s feelings.
Recently, I led a group of eight clients on a masculine journey of rediscovery, exploration and fear. The journey was originally planned for the Great Lankville Pyramid Area but, regrettably, funds were rather low so we ended up renting a motel– utilizing the weedy area out back as a sort of conference room.
During our first session, I asked all the men to hold hands. “Breathe in the healthful air, all the way down to your belly and beyond,” I commanded. The men did as told. “Now breathe all of that air out– expel all that intangible waste.” Again, the men complied. This time, I went around and offered some items from a tray that I had stolen from a cafeteria– travel coffee mug, $5.99, gapless 5″ binder, $19.99, chess set that could also be turned into a table, $12.99, all good deals.
“Let’s move on to our varied spiritual loads.” I turned to Wayne, a fairly new client with a pleasant, round face and a strange habit of removing his shirt at odd intervals.
“I mean nothing obscene by this Dr. Thurston but my spiritual load is located in my nuts.”
There was a tittering among the men but I raised my hand. “Let Wayne finish,” I commented.
“Yes, it’s in my nuts. I think all my negative energy has migrated to my nuts. And so they hang there, needing release. I’m not sure how to do that.”
“Clearly, your aura is not centered,” I said. “Your energy field is beginning and ending with your nuts. You are not grounded to earth. I have seen this before.”
I made a prong with my hand and began massaging the aura around Wayne’s nuts. “I want you to imagine an energy fountain moving up out of your nuts and through the midline of your body. As you breathe, allow the fountain of energy to shower back to earth.” As he did this, I offered him an opened box of glue sticks— $9.99, great deal.
“How do you feel now, Wayne?”
“I feel a little better, Dr. Thurston.”
“Did you want the glue sticks? The box is opened but it’s never been touched.”
“OK.”
Everybody made out pretty well on the deal.
Vitiello Introduces Decorative Slow-Roasted Pig
By Lance Pepsid, Special Fashion Correspondent
Vitiello Decorative Hams, Inc. announced today that they will begin selling decorative slow-roasted pigs in time for Summer, 2014.
“We have accomplished everything we hoped to accomplish with the Decorative Ham and it is now time to move on to the decorative slow-roasted pig,” noted founder and CEO Chris Vitiello, who gave a short press conference clad in flowing white robes with two braided whips wound around each shoulder. “You may transmit this information to your whorish readers in whatever manner you see fit.”
Vitiello Decorative Slow-Roasted Pig (prototype)
Later, Vitiello sat down with Lankville Daily News fashion correspondent Lance Pepsid.
CV: It is one of the great wonders of our day, Mr. Pepsid, that you continue to be dispatched to cover stories for which you are shamelessly ill-suited.
LP: Tell us about the decorative slow-roasted pigs– will they be available for the BBQ season?
CV: When is the BBQ season exactly, Mr. Pepsid. Can you mark that on any earthly calendar?
LP: Well, how they can be utilized in the backyard…
CV: Let’s make something clear, Mr. Pepsid. Use of a Vitiello Decorative Slow-Roasted Pig in an outdoor setting requires further permits that be very difficult to acquire. A Vitiello Decorative Slow-Roasted Pig is ideally suited for the living room. That is the room for which it was designed.
LP: It seems like it would be nice for outdoors…
CV: Are you questioning the intent of the designer, Mr. Pepsid?
LP: Let’s move on. How much do they cost?
CV: Cost should never be a consideration when purchasing an item from Vitiello Decorative Hams. People with such concerns should frequent those shuddersome dollar stores that continue to be a blight on our landscape and which profess to sell oriental rugs for $20 (Lankville).
LP: I’m sure people would like an estimate.
CV: Move your chair towards the wall Mr. Pepsid.
Pepsid was whipped mercilessly.
Flying Saucers Today! ABDUCTION, 2014
By Graahaam Fosdick
Five minutes ago, I said goodnight to Terry, the office girl (and occasional lover), who all day 
has been busy answering angry, threatening letters from folks who have ordered the Graahaam Fosdick Book, “FROM OUTER SPACE TO YOUR YARD”, and are wondering when they will receive it. They won’t receive it, of course, since we’ve been advertising a book that I have no intention of ever writing but by that time I will have switched offices. Anyway, my point really is that today Terry received a rather unusual letter. It was from a man who called himself “AN AGGRIEVED SAUCERER” and bore a postmark from the Southern Lankville Plains.
“Dear Mr. Fosdicks [sic],” the letter began. “They’ve found the two women. They were in a deep creek just the other side of the Vitiello Decorative Ham factory. The police are saying that the women were driving their late model Tippett and that it skidded off the road and into the river. However, it was not a Tippett that the women were driving, Mr. Fosdicks. It was a saucer.”
I dropped the letter. Terry bent to pick it up and her round behind bumped into my groin and some funny business ensued. But after that, we examined the letter again.
“These women are not the only ones,” I commented, as I retrieved my pants which had somehow ended up on top of the window dressing. “After all, there HAD been the case of Olive Kernels, who I spent a great deal of time tracking down. Ms. Kernels, in December of 1889, went out to the well for a bucket of water and never returned. It was clearly a case of a saucer abduction.”
Terry made some notes.
“I think we should go over to the river,” I decided. “I am concerned about the Case of the Two Women.” I asked Terry to take note of that title.
We made it over in record time. I was disappointed to see that the wreckage had been cleared away.
A guard was standing along the banks languidly. He tried to stop us.
“I’m Graahaam Fosdick,” I stated forcefully. “Editor of Flying Saucers Today!. Where are the bodies?”
“Down at the morgue,” he said. “But you can’t…”
I knocked him flat on his ass. This was too important a case. I’d pay for it later, I knew– I had some friends on the Police Auxiliary, after all.
I told Terry to drive and made some notes on some scrap paper. I pretended to be so engrossed by my work that I failed to notice a pen falling out of my shirt and landing in my lap. Terry, ever efficient, went to remove it. Some funny business started again then and we ended up getting a hotel for the rest of the night.
But the next morning, I showed up at the morgue. O’Talbot was there and he let me see the bodies.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking Fosdicks [sic],” he said. “Look at the damage to their skulls for Chrissakes. Look at the hunks of broken windshield sticking out of their foreheads. Look at the mark left by the steering wheel on the driver. This wasn’t any kind of abduction– it’s plain to any idiot that it was a run-of-the-mill, everyday car accident.”
“What’s Pondicherry saying?” I asked. I stared him down.
“Pondicherry? What the hell does he care?”
“Exactly.” He started to speak but then he thought better of it and shut the hell up.
Terry was waiting for me in the parking lot. “I called his bluff,” I told her. “They’ve not been successful in silencing all witnesses and sources of information. So much of this is of a startling nature. But I’m ready to call it. It’s an abduction. First one of 2014.”
Terry nodded. Man, I was ready to get all over that again.
It’d have to wait.
The world had to know first.
August Memories of Youth by “Inner Hammer”
One of the few known photographs of “Inner Hammer”.
Ric Royer’s latest “Experience” is a chunk of horseshit. He never spent any time in such environs, never had mountain beacons, never witnessed an apocalypse. But he did remind me of one thing– the Cucumbrix 2000.
Ah, I recall coming home from school and heading straight into my parent’s darkened living room, adorned in thick oranges and browns. We had a gigantic wood-enclosed television and the Cucumbrix rested in a drawer that emerged from beneath. I would slap in one of the many great cartridges– there was Turtles!, yes but I always preferred Hunting in the Wooded Area (which came with a light-sensing rifle) or Racing Hardtops or the robust swords and sorcery game Castle Hesitation.
I would play for hours. Eventually, someone would come home– I could hear footsteps in the hallway– but they would always pass by the living room and head towards the bedrooms in the back and the next thing I knew, I’d hear heavy suction noises followed by the loud beeping of an empty IV. And I’d just turn up the video orchestra that was the sound of the Cucumbrix 2000.
A white and a brown person play the Cucumbrix 2000. The creator of the system shot himself in the face.
I was never fed as a child. But it didn’t matter because the Cucumbrix was my sustenance. I had nearly all of the company’s offerings and I cannot describe the sincere heartache I felt when I went by myself to the store to find the display case gone.
“The owner shot himself in the face,” the teenage clerk told me, point-blank. I believe that may have been my first brush with mortality. “You were the only one that ever bought these things,” he added.
I stood beneath his raised platform, near to tears.
“Asshole,” he said quietly, without heat.
Two days later some men in blue jackets came to take my Cucumbrix. It was law, they said, all systems had to be removed and they were going house to house to insure that their job was done thoroughly.
I sat on the thick orange carpet, staring at the empty drawer for days.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: The Mountain Beacons
By Ric Royer
Ric Royer has elected to add the nickname “Tabs” to this story. The meaning is unclear
For several months, I lived alone on the summit of a desolate, treacherous mountain chain in the deepest wilds of Roi Hardy. It was a three-day hike and climb from civilization and my only contact with the outside world was via a series of log beacons set up on various far away summits and set ablaze to impart emergency information. It was unlikely that I would ever need these beacons but I was careful to organize such a system anyway and I paid a small aggregation of Roi Hardy hill people to monitor the news with the instructions that the beacons be lit only under the more urgent of circumstances.
I sat alone in my cabin for these many months, going out only in the morning to gaze off at the nearest summit in search of the fire. I cooked rabbits, built wooden boats on a table and wrote terrible sonnets to my lost checkers grandmaster, who had abandoned me after a week-long session of stringent motel coitus.
I became bored. The cabin had a second floor with two small bedrooms, one of which was locked– an overstuffed pink chair had been placed before it. I became curious about this locked room and went about the business of pushing the overstuffed pink chair out of the way and kicking in the door, an ordeal that took two full days.
The windows of the room were covered in heavy green drapes– very little light penetrated. It was empty, save for a large pile of dark items that had been placed in one corner and reached near to the ceiling. It was hard to discern the nature of this pile at first but once I pushed aside the drapes (an ordeal that took another full day), I was able to recognize the heap for what it was– a series of factory-boxed video game systems of vintage age.
It was the “Cucumbrix 2000”– I remembered it well. Introduced with much fanfare, it ended a terrible failure– the creator had shot himself in the face after losing millions. I removed a console– it was sleek and white, had two streamlined controllers and an ashtray built into its face. There was an enormous insensate instruction guide and a pile of pink forms that flaked away in my hands.
In another corner, I suddenly noticed an older model television set and I decided to hook up the Cucumbrix and give it a spin. It blinked and sputtered but then flashed on and I removed the complimentary cartridge from its plastic casing. It was called Turtles! and it too came with an instruction booklet with screen shots, tips from the creator and a series of patches for the Turtles! club.
I began then, as the sky faded into twilight, to play Turtles! with an interest that became an obsession and I failed to notice out the window that the beacon had been lit. I know now the exact time that the flames would have risen out of the mountains, signifying mankind’s terminus, the time of the end, 4:05 LST. I know now because later I would locate the diary of the nearest Roi Hardy hill person and the dead embers of his beacon, his last act. Ironic, then, that my being distracted by Turtles! saved my own existence.
For when I alighted upon Roi Hardy weeks later, I alighted upon the dead and the broken and a barren wasteland.
Eldritch Canisters Have Been Haunting Royer
By Joel Tweez Resort Correspondent
A series of eldritch canisters have been haunting business magnate and Lankville Daily News correspondent Ric Royer for many months now, the executive is confirming.
“The canisters appear at twilight, often in the garden,” said Royer during a morning interview on some boats. “Then, when I finally give in to repose about midnight, the canisters begin their infernal rolling, back and forth down my driveway. It goes on all night. And with this noise, comes an ungodly howl.”
Royer has alerted authorities but to no avail.
Typical canisters. These canisters are not haunted but are merely shown for illustrative purposes.
“Some cops came but they just ended up ogling my East-Island neighbor. Admittedly, she has fine tits for an East Islander.”
Royer even hired a security guard to man the driveway of his resort home in hopes of preventing the canisters from gaining access to the yard. The guard was found the next morning with a frozen look of terror on his expired face.
“I may have to abandon the mansion temporarily and move back to the mall,” admitted the eccentric tycoon.
Yeah, I’ll Make a Little Presentation Oar for You
By Floyd Tingley
Yeah, sure– you need a little presentation oar? I’m your man. I’ve been making little presentation oars for 25 years. Started out making ’em out of discarded table legs. Man, I used to have a whole basement full of discarded table legs– don’t ask me how. Seriously, don’t ask me how because I WILL NOT answer you.
Anyways, you can pick from a couple different styles. When I’m done, I’ll even put a little plaque on there. It’ll say, for example, “TO MILT, FROM FLOYD”. That’s just an example– man, I’ll put anything you want on there as long as you’re not making a mockery of things. I don’t have patience for that.
People, say, what am I gonna’ do with this little presentation oar once I receive it? Well, they’re perfect for your den, office, yacht club or basements. Creates that nautical look. The freedom of the open sea. Now, they’re presentation only– we need to understand that right away. You can’t actually use this oar. You won’t get anywhere if you try to use this oar, I’m telling you that right now. I got a little warning sticker on the side letting people know that they’ll die if they try to take a craft out with just this oar. No doubt in my mind.
I gave one to my son last Easter. He’s a professor out at the University. He’s got a whole den full of books. I said– “why don’t you just throw away some of the books on that shelf and then you can put the oar there for display purposes?” I told him I’d help him throw them away. I don’t think he ever did do it though– I saw the oar on a small hill in his backyard last time I was there. Who knows what these kids think these days? Sure don’t seem to have a sense about creating that nautical look– that freedom of the open sea. You won’t get me in some classroom, I’ll tell you that. You can’t learn to make little presentation oars in a classroom, that’s for sure.
You can write me: Tingley Little Presentation Oars, 55 Knobs, South Lankville, 2-111. Serious inquiries only. I really don’t have time to mess around with someone who’s only half-hearted about little presentation oars. Besides, little presentation oars sell themselves. You don’t want on the list, fine, free up your spot in line.
They’re $195.
The opinions of Mr. Tingley are not necessarily the opinions of The Lankville Daily News and its subsidiaries.
Royer’s Madcap Experiences: It Was Orange…and Emitted Vapors!
By Ric Royer
When I first saw the Thing, it was throwing a car into a ravine. It stood as tall as a large building, its center completely amorphous. It emitted an eerie yellow vapor and it appeared to have the strength of something superhuman– indeed, when it was done with the car-hurling it moved to a nearby train trestle and crushed it easily with its fist.
This girl I was seeing and occasionally having boring intercourse with, let out a loud scream. LOOK AT THAT HORRIBLE THING! LOOK AT IT! I laughed and stared her down. There was an old clamshell bucket that someone had left to rust by a barn. “Go sit in that,” I told her. She did as I said.
The next thing was to figure out how to bring the orange beast down. A piece of paper blew against my shin. I picked it up– would it yield a clue to the mystery of the terrible monster? And I read: “it also has 2 fish crates with fish in them! Just add a delivery figure and you have a great delivery scene…” I tore it apart in frustration. And then the beast was upon me.
Artist’s rendering
Later, I would realize how lucky I was. If not for that senseless hole, I would certainly have perished. I climbed in and waited until the monster had satiated his mad, violent desires by destroying a series of nearby homes. Then he went away, I think. I don’t care really.
After that, I traveled into the Lankville back country– an area called “the Forest Quarter”. There were a series of fallen towns that had been destroyed during the Depths War; bereft stone walls and a series of windowless parish houses were all that remained. I stopped at a graveyard– the stones had mostly been lifted and replaced with little advertising placards. Still, I was able to locate several relatives. I didn’t know or remember any of them and yet, it was calming to stand there, reading my last name again and again.
I was suddenly hungry. Although nothing lived in this ancestral town, I managed to find a Pappy’s Chicken on the outskirts. I ordered a bucket. The guy behind the counter asked about the orange monster.
“You don’t wanna’ know about that fucking shit,” I said, allowing the chicken grease to run down my chin. “You’re better off right here. That thing is a nightmare.”
I ordered some fries.
“Just regular fries?” the guy asked.
“Yep. Fix ’em up in bacon fat, would you?”
“I can do that. We don’t have napkins, I’ll warn you now. But there’s a little pond out back.”
“Yeah, fine.”
The guy put on a little TV. Nothing came in from the cities.
I finished off the chicken and then went to the pond. Night came.
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).
ZACH KEEBAUGH INVESTIGATIONS
Only in The Lankville Daily News
The Lankville Daily News 
LETTER SACK