01/10/2019 22:13:21 ¶ ●

## 155 - The Heist, part 3

Leave no stone unturned.
Leave no rock unpivoted.
Leave no pebble untwirled.
Welcome to Night Vale.

My brother-in-law, Steve Carlsberg, is still in jail, wrongly accused of the recent bank heist. But I am happy to have my husband Carlos back home. The Sheriff’s Secret Police had only taken him in for some questions regarding the robbery of the Last Bank of Night Vale. Sheriff Sam had deemed Carlos a person of interest, which I’ve been saying for years, but Sheriff Sam meant it differently.

Carlos said while he was being questioned at the police station, he saw the other bank employees who were there the day of the robbery. Genevieve Daly, the new bank teller, was being asked if she saw anyone other than Steve Carlsberg near the vault that day. Carlos said she was stone faced, unhappy with the interrogation. Susan Willman was there, crying, as the police asked her who else, other than Steve Carlsberg, could have a key. And security guard Jesse McNeil was there looking quite ill, almost seasick, according to Carlos, as the police tried to badger him into implicating Steve Carlsberg.

Carlos has been home for a couple of weeks and in a terrible funk. He said Steve has a nearly impossible case. The police are convinced of Steve’s guilt and all their evidence points directly to him. Carlos hardly has any energy or emotion to work, or even leave the house. I feel awful for Steve too, and we are doing our best to support him and our family.

I tried cheering Carlos up by telling him my favorite science jokes, like two chemists walk into a bar and one tells the bartender, “I’ll have an H2O” and the other says “I’ll have an H20 too,” and the bartender says and sighs.. [fed up] “It’s been a long day guys,” and then the two chemists nod and say, [embarrassed] “Yeah oh god yeah sorry, just a couple of waters thanks.” And then later they make sure to tip very well. But Carlos didn’t even crack as mile, let alone laugh, and I asked him how his doorless fridge experiment was going and he’s welcome to work on it here, in his home laboratory. I don’t even mind if he keeps staining everything green with that weird gel he’s been using.
“I ran out of gel, Cecil,” he said, prone on the couch not opening his eyes. “I couldn’t work on that, even if I wanted to. which I don’t.”
Hm. I wanna curl up on the couch too, stay home from work. But I know that would be terrible for Carlos. There are many times I’ve felt flat or depressed, and Carlos has been there for me, keeping me company, taking in my sadness and reflecting back not a false smile but attentive eyes, a listening posture that makes me feel heard and understood, and that’s what I want to be for him.
Besides, I think Steve can beat these charges. Steve may have been the only one with a key to the vault, but they cannot prove he opened the vault, as he was locked inside his own office during the robbery. And besides, Steve keeps very detailed accounting so they wouldn’t be able to find the stolen money, not even if he had taken it. Steve Carlsberg is… [moved] the nicest man in Night Vale. He’s a good boss, breaking his foot to get free to try to protect his employees. He’s a fine father. A loving husband. And a perfect brother-in-law. It’s just not… it’s not possible.
You know, if someone on the inside did this, it was probably Susan. Susan Willman is the least trustworthy person in that bank, if not in this whole town. So if you’re going to…

[loud scary noises] Station Management just slit a memo under my door gently, reminding me about libel laws. The memo is written in fire on a sleep tablet, and there’s a snake curled around it so, uhh.. I’m going to leave my Susan WIllman theory alone. But. Let’s just say that there was an untrustworthy person in that bank, and that her name was Su..anne Wilt..son. Yes, Sue-Anne Wilson, yes and this hypothetical jerk was always complaining at PTA meetings about her own personal problems, rather than focusing on the agenda, let’s just say. And this Sue-Anne Wilson once accused Steve Carlsberg of censoring her, when Steve was just trying to finish the meeting in a timely manner so that the basketball team could se the gym for evening practice. This person might well hold a grudge against Steve Carlsberg and want to not only steal from him, but frame him for the crime.

Or, what if the Sheriff’s Secret Police… [loud scary noises] was doing a really great job, so great that they didn’t have a lot of arrests to make because the town was so safe. And of course, [chuckling nervously] they would never need to frame someone for robbery! So they would look like they were solving one of the major crimes in recent memory. Or maybe it was space slugs. Some distant aliens from across the galaxy somehow found our solar system and spotted our Earth, and then randomly chose Night Vale, and for whatever reason, they really wanted our money, so they went down inside the bank vault while the building was on fire, and without the safe key they entered the locked room because these space slugs can crawl through walls, and then they stole all the money.
I don’t know! I feel helpless.[loud scary noises fade out]

Reading the news and getting angrier and angrier, but you know there’s little I can do about terrible things that keep happening. I’m sure you can’t relate. Maybe a community calendar will cheer me up.

This Saturday, the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex opens its annual Haunted Halloween Hayride. There was complications this year, because Ghost Union Local 31 went on strike for an increase in pensions and maternity leave. Teddy Williams, owner of the Desert Flower, argued that ghosts cannot retire nor get pregnant, but the union countered with vaguely human faces muttering in the shadows while Teddy screamed, and eventually, a deal was truck.

Sunday morning is the pie eating contest at the Night Vale fair. Contestants will be competing for a top prize of a 1991 Buick Le Sabre, autographed by former US presidential hopeful and Illinois governor, Adelai Stevenson.

Tuesday afternoon is a tedious song.
Wednesday night is the high school dance team’s statewide semifinals at the rec center. Our own Night Vale High School is competing that night. Their top rival is Red Mesa High School, who will be performing a jazz routine called Tommy Tunes Broadway: an upbeat medley of classic show tunes. Night Vale’s dance team will present (–) [0:09:21] postmodern masterpiece (-): contemplative blend of sculpture opera and dance defined by its explosive physical bursts, chanting, and (contra-) movements born of a 22-member ensemble, who express the human body as a multidimensional art installation. Good luck to all dancers!

And finally, Thursday is sick, so Friday will be covering Thursday’s shift. Eh, except for the part about the haunted hay ride.
That did not cheer me up.

I’m getting word that the Secret Police have made a breakthrough in their bank heist investigation. Or maybe they found the real thief and can let Steve Carlsberg go? [clears throat] Sheriff Sam said the lab reports came back, the fingerprints were inconclusive as their top suspect Steve Carlsberg worked at the bank, so his fingerprints were everywhere. But the lab reports did detail a strange goo police found on the vault walls. This goo, a light green gel, was also found on the walls of the cells that the other robbers had escaped from two weeks ago. So maybe my theory about space slugs is correct.
No wait. The lab reports showed that this unusual chemical can render certain metals intangible, allowing people to reach through walls without breaking them. [stutters] Police believe whoever used this greenish goo used it to rob the bank’s vault and to free the prisoners inside the abandoned mineshaft outside of town. The Sheriff then said they discovered this exact same chemical on Steve Carlsberg’s property. They discovered it inside the shed behind the house, and that this is the final piece of evidence that links Steve Carlsberg to the robbery of the Last Bank of Night Vale.
They believe that, oh no… Um, that Steve did not act alone, that he had an accomplice, a scientific mastermind who created this chemical for him. Who generated a complex concoction that enabled them to walk through walls stealing whatever they wanted. They have a warrant out now for Carlos’ arrest.
I’ve gotta call Carlos. I-
Oh, it looks like he left a voicemail.

[beep]
Carlos: Hey sweetie, it’s um me. So listen, I have um, I so-so I’ve just been arrested. No biggie, no biggie, I’m fine. This is actually good news, because I wanted to talk to the Sheriff anyway about all this, so that-that’s great. And um, I do have some new thoughts about what happened at the bank, and they’re really interesting, so they’re driving me downtown to meet with uh ooh, ouch, those cuffs are a bit tight there, officer… officer (Q. Fortier). Ah, that is a beautiful name. I-i-is that Franchian? If you don’t mind, Officer Fortier, I’m going to just finish my voicemail to my husband. So Cecil. When I get downtown, I’ll explain everything to them, Steve and I clearly did not do this and that’s what I’ll tell them, they’re police! [chuckles] You know, they just wanna know the truth, and uh ooh uh, oh Officer Fortier, I am not done with my call yet. Uh sir, what-what are you doing with my pho-
[beep]

Cecil: I… I… Let’s go to the weather.

[Good Luck with That” by Fathom All the Animals https://fathomalltheanimals.com]

Cecil: Listeners, we now go live to Steve Carlsberg’s press conference at City Hall.

Steve: This has been a difficult month for me, and for my family. I thank you all for hearing me out today.
I’m glad to know that these criminal charges are behind me, and I think Sheriff Sam and their secret police, as well as their Overt Police, for listening to reason and overturning the charges against me.
[sadly] But of course, I’m sad to learn about their most recent arrest. Breaks my heart to know that such a dear friend of so many years, someone who’s been in home many, many times, someone I consider family, could betray me, my bank, my town in this way. I don’t even know how to talk about such a breach of trust by someone so close. [crying] Carlos! Oh Carlos.
Thank you Carlos, for your brilliant and thorough evidence that put Jesse McNeil in jail today. Our security guard of nearly 50 years committed a heinous crime, and he nearly sent the two of us to prison for it.

When Carlos arrived in my cell this morning, he was all smile saying he had figured it out. He called the Sheriff over and said, “Check Jesse’s skin for the same chemical they found on the doors.” Carlos had been experimenting on the gel that allowed him to reach his hands into refrigerators without opening the door, and thus lowering the temperature of the food inside. He’d developed this chemical. He’d developed this chemical in his temporary lab in a shed behind our house.
The problem with the chemical wasn’t its effectiveness and intangibility. He had been able to make that work. No, the problem with the chemical is that it stained everything it touched a dull green, including skin. Carlos showed me his own hands, which were green from the fingertips to about halfway up his forearms. He said the last few times he had seen Jesse, Jesse looked ill. Not like a flu or cold, more like seasick: queasy, green in the face. Carlos didn’t put it together right away, because we all felt sick about not only the robbery, but the false charges against me.

The police report also showed that none of the cash tills on the teller wall were affected by the fire that broke out during the robbery last month. Which means the fire had to have started on the opposite wall, which is by the front door, Jesse’s usual station. The smoke from the fire and the three robbers waving guns provided a distraction for Jesse to cover himself with Carlos’ intangibility gel, sneak downstairs past my office, where he had locked me in earlier than day, and then unload the cash from the safe and carry it into the alleyway behind the bank where his car was parked.
When the fire trucks arrived, Jesse ran deliberately in front of their hoses so that the gel would all be removed from his body before the police began questioning those of us who had been inside during the robbery. But, as Carlos pointed out, the gel stains the skin for a long time, water alone won’t remove it.

Sheriff Sam brought Jesse back in for questioning based on Carlos’ statements, and found Jesse’s skin was the same dull green as Carlos’ hands. But unlike Carlos, the green stain covered Jesse’s whole body, not only his hands, indicating he had used it to walk through walls, rather than merely reach to a door.

Carlos explained that he had Jesse in his lab many times, Jesse and all my employees come to my house regularly for dinners. Like I said, they’re family to me. Jesse had taken an interest in Carlos’ science projects, so Carlos showed Jesse his doorless fridge experiment. Not long after that, Carlos noticed that the rest of his intangibility gel was gone. He thought he had just run out, even though he had made plenty of it. Never occurred to Carlos, until he saw Jesse’s green face a few days ago, that Jesse had stolen it to remove the money from the vault and his criminal colleagues from their jail cell. While I was the only person with the key to the vault, Jesse as a security guard was the only person with master keys for the rest of the building. My office door is never locked, so I don’t carry a key for it. Jesse knew this and locked me into my own office. Then his three collaborators Richard, William, and Emma created a fake robbery of the cash tills to distract from his heist of the vault.
Sheriff Sam was impressed with Carlos’ explanation and arrested Jesse McNeil on the spot.
Jesse turned to Carlos and Sam and said: [very deep voice] “I guess I’m going to jail now.” Sam said: [Sheriff Sam voice] “Don’t flatter yourself!”

Anyway, I finally get to return home, thanks to my brother-in-law Carlos. Thank you Susan Willman for managing the bank in my absence.
Abby, Janice, I’ll be home in a few. Can’t wait to see you both again. Oh, oh, maybe I’ll bake some scones tonight! Carlos showed me a way to do it without letting the butter too warm. Oh-oh yeah!

Cecil: I’m so relieved and so glad they put the right person behind bars. And I have never been so excited to try one of Steve’s scones. That really is neat.

Stay tuned next for someone playing on a saw. No, ahem, (-) that, with a saw. It’s just someone playing around with a saw. Enjoy.

Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: Wisdom ages like fine wine. Knowledge ages like Boston lettuce.

17/10/2019 23:02:51 ¶ ●

## 156 - The Trouble with Time

‘tis better to have loved and lost
Than to be slowly eaten whilst still alive.
There are, on the whole,
Many things worse than having loved and lost.
Welcome to Night Vale.

Well, listeners, we have all been grappling with the same problem. Time has become normal in Night Vale, or as normal as time ever is. Time is pretty weird everywhere.
As a result of this shift in our experience of time, none of us are remaining the same age for centuries anymore. We are aging one year per year, one month per month, one second per precious second. Every moment that passes our skin is less supple. Our mind is less pliant. Our joints ache just a little more.

The entire town is in an uproar, as we are all coming to terms with the idea of getting older. Gym memberships have soared. Everyone is talking at the same time and they’re all recommending green juice diets to each other. The City Council has tried to make ageing illegal, but it turns out this would be unconstitutional as the Supreme Court decided that slow deterioration of the mind and body is an American right.

I myself am not immune to these worries. When I think about what my life would be like after Carlos or, what his life would be like after me… These are the kinds of fears that can’t be shaken off by the light of day. That linger, even after all the shadows of evening have faded. Is love a gift in a finite world? I’d like to think so, but oh, my stomach is in knots. I’m sure your sis too.

And now a word from our sponsors. Afraid of ageing? Terrified of the tides of time? Spooked by the sequential nature of existence? Stop looking at the calendar and moaning. Sure, it may be cathartic to start every morning by picking up your alarm clock and shouting: “You are a murderer! Your numbers are murder weapons! I am the murder victim!”
But it’s not helping you out. Instead, try lotion.
Just lotion those limbs. Lotion that face. Got any other parts? Lotion them too.
Rubbing lotion on yourself won’t stop time. It won’t end the inevitability of death. But when you die, you will be silky smooth, and folks will whispers: “Why, it doesn’t look like they’ve aged a single day.”
Buy lotion now and we will send you a box of other things that will not stop you from dying, but will make you feel a little better on your way out the door. Such as fish oil pills, a pair of running shoes, and books with titles like “Get Happy Now, or Else”.
Lotion – you can’t stop ageing, so settle on mitigating the surface appearance of ageing.
And this has been ma word from our sponsors.

In a new press release, Night Vale resident Leah Shapiro announces the Mariam McDonald memoriam fund. This fund, in honor of the recently deceased Mariam, will be used to finally fulfil Mariam’s lifelong dream, a dream she did not live long enough to see come to fruition: the removal of all sand from the Sand Wastes. Mariam hated the sand, thought it looked frightfully untidy, and that it made a bad first impression for folks just coming to town. She could often be seen when she was alive out with her broom, dutifully sweeping the dunes into her dustpan, and depositing the result into a black trashbag. Obviously, this was slow going, but Leah has vowed to continue Mariam’s quest.
“It’s a stupid wish, a real dumb one,” said Leah. “I hate it! I hate it so much, but I don’t know, it’s what Mariam wanted. And so I feel obligated for some reason to keep after it. God, this sucks!” Leah concluded.
According to the press release, the Mariam McDonald Memorial Fund currently contains 3 dollars, and is not taking donations.
Well, isn’t that the feelgood story of the year? Good luck, Leah. I do hope you get rid of all that sand. Mariam was right, sand is very untidy.

And now for the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.
So today, we will be discussing how to tell whether something is a person. Here are simple tests that can be done at home with whatever you find in your parents’ cabinets when they don’t know you’re looking.
Does it grow? It’s a person.
Does it bend? It’s a person.
Is it square or similar to a square? That’s a person.
Nodes or nodules? Person.
A frank and enticing laugh? Person.
Can it hold liquid? Person.
Is it a dog? Yup, that’s a person too.
That ooze at the back of your closet? Not a person. We don’t know what hat is, best not to touch it, best not to think on it. Perhaps it is the thinking that gives it its power.
This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

In response to the current “time is normal” crisis, many companies are moving in to offer services to alleviate ageing. Arby’s is suggesting that a regular diet of roast beef has been shown to extend life expectancy by up to 20 years. When they were asked who showed that and how they did so, Arby’s kind of mumbled and sad that they would have those sources for us soon, but in the meantime, come on down and buy yourself a meal.

A number of new gyms have opened up in town, promising advanced workouts that will keep the body and mind tiptop. There is an LA Fitness, also a 26 Hour Fitness, which promises workouts at any time day or night, plus two bonus hours every day that are only experienced by members. And local legend Louie Blasko has started what he calls a Crossfit gym, but it appears to be just the burned out remains of his old music store, untouched since the night of the fire.
“Oh yeah,” Louie said. “You can really get a good workout in here, believe me.” His eyes flicked back and forth nervously.

A different angle is being taken by newcomer to town, Casper Rhodes. Casper says that he has conquered the ultimate obstacle: death itself. He does this by freezing the brain upon death until it can be resuscitated by advanced technologies of the future.
“Cryogenics means never having to say ‘I’m dead’,” Casper declared, whirling around the red cape he wears and wiggling his eyebrows. “Oh yes, this is a completely real technology. Once you die, we simply and safely remove your bran and freeze it in here.” He indicated the disused grain silo on the edge of town. “That thing is full of brains,” he said. “And each of those brains will be reanimated to a bright and beautiful future hundreds of years from now, and you can too, for a mere 10,000 dollars. Payable upfront, no refunds offered.”

Suspicious journalists asked if they could take a peek in the grain silo and see if it was actually full of brains. But Mr. Rhodes blocked the door with his body. “Uh oh uh,” he said. “Opening the door would mess up the, uh, freezing process. Uh, wouldn’t want that to happen. You just have to trust us.”
Hmmmmm.

And now traffic.
It’s looking pretty clear on the roads right now. There isn’t a single car to be seen. The parking lots are barren, the highways are mere doodles of the gods without the roaring machines that give them purpose. Where did every car disappear to? We wonder this as we walk to work. Walk to school. Learning the limits and the capacity of our own legs, magnificent machines attached to our own bodies that we had long ago discounted, but now can only propel ourselves by the length of them. And then again and again, one after another. The hours pass and we gradually pass through them, and where are the cars? Did they ever exist?
The factories where cars once were built are now full of robots with no purpose, arms ending in specialized tools and drills, all designed to construct a thing that no longer is there to be constructed. And so they bob and weave for nothing. In this way, perhaps, it could be said that they are dancing. To take purpose from a movement is to suggest the possibility of art within it, that perhaps the movement could have meaning merely for itself, but I ask again: where are the cars? Where did they go? Every other form of transportation still exists. Planes still claw their way into the stratosphere, while boats wobble on churning seas. Motorcycles even, given the compete freedom of the highway, tearing into the turns and straightaways at dangerous speeds, but no cars.
Was it something we did? Is this our fault?
At least there’s no traffic, I guess, and we’re all getting a little more time outdoors which is nice and, oh –
Nevermind. The cars are back, all of them. Aaaall at once, driverless and speeding.
Well, it’s nice to have them back.
This has been traffic.

And now for corrections.
In a previous editorial aired on this station, a reporter indicated his belief that peanut butter is a type of rock. That reporter sincerely believed, based on a half remembered lesson from elementary school that he now realizes might have actually been a cartoon he watched, that peanut butter along with sedimentary, metamorphic, and ignius was in fact one of the main types of rock. This reported harbored no ill intent when he lectured for what may or may not have been two hours about his belief that peanut butter was a type of rock. This well meaning reporter may have ignored several calls from his scientist husband, who was trying to get through to correct this completely understandable mistake. But the reporter was on such a roll that he didn’t even notice the calls coming in. Which could happen to anyone.
The reporter may have even printed up posters for local schools showing the types of rock, with peanut butter prominently included. If that is the case, these schools should feel free to return the erroneous posters, or keep them, if they feel it might be in some way educational.
In any case, the reporter in question regrets the error and now amidst that maybe, peanut butter isn’t a type of rock. Maybe that’s true. Decide for yourself.
This has been corrections.

Casper Rhodes and his Quality Cryogenics Corporation continue to advertise their dubious service all over town. He has bought a billboard next to the Waterfront Recreation Area declaring: “A new life awaits you in the future”, with a picture of a disembodied brain that is somehow both smiling an giving a thumbs up, despite its lack of hands and mouth. The Quality Cryogenics Corporation strung a banner along the top of the disused grain silo on the edge of town saying the name of the company. Except the word “quality” has been misspelled, as has “corporation”.
Listeners, I am not one to editorialize, not after the recent peanut butter debacle we’ve heard so much about. But it does not seem to me that this Mr. Rhodes is on the up and up. Nothing about this strikes me as a scientific operation, and trust me, I know from scientific operations. Despite these warning signs, a few people have in fact taken them up on their offer, including weekday shift managers at the Ralphs, Charlie Bear, whose lifetime ambition of becoming a ghost has recently curdled into a frantic fear of death.
“I thought we had eternity. Now every minute spent is a minute lost,” Charlie said to me when I asked him if they had any more cilantro. So that was a bummer on my afternoon.
I must warn everyone not to buy into this Casper charlatan’s lies. Cryogenically freezing brains is not going to save you. In fact, it is time for me to bust this scam wide open. I will sneak into the disused grain silo, and I will tel you what is inside. Then all of us will know the truth.

As I head over there,
Let’s all head over
To the weather.

[“Revolution Lover” by Left At London http://leftatlondon.com]

OK, listeners I’m.. hold on. This portable recording rig is just a little heavy. Whoo! I have got to get back to my weight training. I was deadlifting as much as 15 pounds, and now look at me.

OK, I am looking up at the towering disused grain silo on the edge of town. The silo that one Casper Rhodes would claim contains cryogenically frozen brains, destined to be reawakened in the future. Well, I’m sure Mr. Rhodes, but allow me to just check in on it myself.
The door to the silo is locked with a padlock and heavy chain. Fortunately, I don’t go anywhere without my Special Reporter’s welding torch. It comes in handy more than you’d think. [welding noises] And off it goes. Another win for the first amendment.
Listeners, I am opening the heavy metal doors [creaking], and inside it is dark even in this late afternoon sun. I am stepping in.
[voice echoing] My eyes are adjusting and oh my god! Listeners, oh my god! The tanks are full, frozen intact human brains, attached to various support equipment, it is all completely clean and seemingly running well, this – this isn’t a scam! The great Casper Rhodes is telling the truth! Death is now voluntary, aging is meaningless! We will all see the future! We will ALL see the future!

Listeners, I must go, I must talk to my husband. We could be together forever, don’t you see? A new world awaits us in the future! I must talk to Carlos, I must! [equipment drops]

Today’s proverb: On one hand, you have skin. On the other hand, you don’t- oh man, what happened to that hand?!!