Rovend in Manhattan

Erya Rovend traveled to New York City (NYC) recently as the spokesperson of the Grigovian delegation to the United Nations. Chosen for the role at Grigovia's recent Summit to Secure our Sovereignty, the young lady – an avid equestrian and spiritual leader of the Farflung Free Nations, a Yaelong tribe – asked us to condense her interview into the following piece.

In many ways, the American metropolis known as the Big Apple rivals fair, cosmopolitan Grig. Both are world cities with extensive public transportation networks and lively, vibrant night-life; both are regional powerhouses to which the young and the ambitious flock, places where dreams are made real as often as they are crushed and the opportunity for rebirth and renewal is always there, waiting. Grig's Ring of Woods cannot compete with the sheer size of Central Park; however, its green-spaces, while generally smaller, are spaced about town more evenly while offering more amenities, such as clean public bathrooms, high-speed Wi-Fi, and performance spaces within which artists and members of the public can perform, share, and congregate, year-round. In New York City, prostitutes and drug dealers have been forced to retreat behind closed doors and to execute their trades away from the public eye; in Grig, though, as in most other Grigovian cities, these specialty services have their own districts and unions, colors and routines, circumstances which conspire to improve the health and wellbeing of such citizens as are interested in buying clean sex or unadulterated cocaine. (A glaring exception is alcohol. Grigovians, who are intelligent enough to apply the lessons learned through scientific inquiry, classify booze as a hard drug; it is sold only to persons of legal age; those who abuse it are treated similarly to the poor, lost souls who have succumbed to meth-amphetamine or heroin.)

Another differences between these two cities is the number of police officers roaming NYC. Whereas in Grig the streets are kept safe by the united vigilance and mutual respect of its inhabitants, and people go about their business without fear of institutionalized reproach or admonition, in New York one is constantly watching one's back to make sure there are no cops snooping, or spying. The police state that exists within Gotham closely resembles that of Nazi Germany during the 1930s and -40s, with the modern addition of cameras and other surveillance technology, facial-recognition-software, and crime-prediction algorithms. To top things off, legions of homeless children populate this city's dirty and forgotten places, where they are exposed to violence, hatred, and filth, while in Grig, these too-easily disenfranchised individuals have access to resources and programs which provide them with the tools they need to become productive and happy members of society, once more. That this American metropolis allows its young people to huddle and shiver, ignored and unwanted, in the shadows of glass-and-steel temples that reach into the skies in honor of greed says a lot about its dark and twisted soul.

In all, according to Erya, New York is a nice city to visit, so long as one has money to burn. (Miss Rovend spent less than a quarter of the funds allotted her for her stay by the Glorious Republic of Grigovia, preferring modest quarters to presidential suites, simple meals to lavish feasts, and the freedom of walking to the mobile prison of a taxi-cab.) She invites every American to come see Grig, where they might learn a lesson or two about the benefits of mutual prosperity through individual modesty and communal sacrifice.

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hovercraft replace trains

To the delight of many commuters, some of whom had resorted to running, bicycling, or trying to catch a ride to get to work in the lower portions of New York City, this city's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced today that it would leave many miles of track flooded and replace some trains with boats. Said chief engineer Alonzo Cristobol de Luz y de los Diaz, 57, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, while standing in knee-deep trying to restart a pump, “In order to get things moving again down here,we're gonna be using either hovercraft or the type of shallow-bottomed boats those gator hunters use in the Florida everglades. Strung together bow to stern and propelled by jet turbines set just above the water-line, these watercraft will allow our organization to provide the quality, on-time service the people of New York have come to expect while eliminating future outages due to global-climate-change-related flooding.”

“This fuckin' sucks,” said Geronimo D'ad'uubak, 22, who lives in the Bronx. “I hate boats, especially boats that go through tunnels.” “Yeah,” added 52-year-old tablet computer enthusiast Harold K. P. Wang, from the Upper West Side. “Last year, I accidentally dropped each new tablet computer – roughly 7 or 8 devices – onto the tracks while waiting for trains and not paying attention to my surroundings; each time, the station supervisor sent a nice man down to get it for me – after the man had waited for a thumbs-up from the signalman. Now, if I drop one of these babies onto the tracks, it'll sink and die. Do they expect me to buy shockproof AND waterproof covers for all my gadgets?” Various MTA workers interviewed along Mr. Wang's regular route expressed dismay over his inability to maintain a firm grip on his personal belongings, and wished he would be more careful.

In addition to the self-propelled boats mentioned above (which, as with trains, would require the worker driving them from one station to the next to be trained in the intricacies of nautical navigation, including interpretation of the new flag-based signaling system and the difference between port and starboard), the MTA is planning to replace trains with narrow-bodied, hybrid-electric hovercraft for sections of track that move out of tunnels onto elevated tracks. (Instead of trying to climb the elevated tracks and becoming stranded as their cushions deflate, plans call for the hovercraft to merge with street-bound, four-wheeled traffic and to reacquire the tracks once these return to ground-level.) “Our new service will obviate the need to shut down vast sections of track due to flooding,” said the city's superintendent-of-pathways Eleina Honduisen. “If anything, flooded sections of track will allow us to expand the use of self-propelled skiffs and turbine-driven hovercraft to areas where track repair is becoming too costly in terms of tax-dollars or too dangerous in terms of the risk of electrified or contaminated groundwater. We are currently studying the emergence rates of various water-borne diseases and plan to forestall spikes in cholera and dysentery by maintaining a high chlorine-to-water ratio in the flooded areas similar to the mixture found in swimming pools. Things will soon be back to normal and AOK, alpha oscar kilo.” No city agency has yet released a statement regarding whether or not the city's inhabitants will be allowed to hitch their personal watercraft to hovercraft and be towed to their destinations.

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local minds blown

This past weekend, the sight of three men walking along the side of Route 30 was all it took to blow the minds of the people of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The townspeople stared, honked, swerved, honked again, and stared some more, flabbergasted that three healthy-looking, employed-looking, and respectable-looking individuals would dare to move their bodies by muscle-power six tenths of a mile down the road to a local eatery, where they were reported to have eaten a hearty breakfast.

Gettysburgians appear to be so accustomed to driving everywhere, so used to seeing only dirty and unwashed vagrants physically walking on the sides of roads, that the actions of these three apparently confused, seemingly car​-less individuals shattered the locals' views of the universe itself, a universe which runs on fossil fuels pumped from the ground by terrorism-supporting Arabs living on the other side of the globe. “We could see the restaurant from our hotel-room window, up on the third floor,” said one of the pedestrians, who asked to remain anonymous. “And we did consider driving, but, as we all agreed, we needed to work off some of the residual booze from the previous nights and to kick-start our metabolisms, which were struggling after a long weekend of drinking.”

Each of the three individuals stands over six foot and two-inches tall, and each is muscular and physically imposing, which, when viewed side by side, may have made them appear freakishly tall; and while two of the three are Americans of African Descent (AOAD), the third is an American of European Descent (AOED), which compelled the men – who while perambulating discussed the locals' strange behavior – to rule out blatant, uncalled-for racism, for which the area is, however, known. “As with many strange things that happen in life, having people flash their brights at us, honk at us, and yell out their cars' windows at us, for no reason other than that we were walking along the side of a road, is something that we must simply accept in our hearts as inevitable,” said another of the individuals, who is expecting his second child. “I went to college here for four years, and we just dropped fifty bones on breakfast. Just because we decided to get some exercise before eating does not mean that we are worth less than people who decided to drive around, being fat. Fucking small towns, man – most times, they suck.”

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pants “still wet”

To the consternation of one Delilah Veronique U'utumblondh, 78, a retired green-grocer from the South Bronx, New York, her favorite walking pants – the ones that wick moisture nicely and that fit snugly around her thighs – are still quite damp. “They had originally gotten wet the other day when I was gardening on 6th and B,” said Ms. U'utumblondh as she was mounting the steps to her narrow but brightly-painted row home. “I thought that by wearing them yesterday while walking with the ladies from the community center on our daily hike through town to pick up trash that they would dry out. But, alas, they are still quite damp here, and here.” The native New Yorker, whose parents had emigrated to the United States from Ghana in the 1950s, sighed deeply in an apparent effort to control her emotions, shaking her head as if to drive away tears. Then, she entered her home, straightened up a bit in the downstairs living-room, removed the moisture-tainted pants, and hung them to dry on her backyard drying rack instead of putting them in the clothes-drier, since it looked like it was going to be a sunny day outside after all.

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on the Straight Pride Parade

In a well-coordinated move meant to prove impartiality toward any particular group of citizens, and to make sure that no one feels left out, the confederated cities of America announced today events meant to celebrate heterosexual populations. Similar in breadth and in scope to events celebrating homosexual populations, Straight Pride Day shall highlight the role of heterosexuals in making this nation into the really great place it is today. “These vanilla-wafer-type non-gays just keep getting more and more tame by the year,” said alderman Walton K'Kliklei, the city of New York's primary liaison to the straights, in a brief statement following the official announcement. Straight Pride Day will culminate in the staging of forcibly awkward public mass sit-down dinner dates.

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