02/06/2019 0:34:45 ¶ ●

## 149 - The General

If you can dream it,
you can wake up in a cold sweat screaming about it.
Welcome to Night Vale.

Night Vale, today is the birthday of Leonard Burton. Many of you are too young to remember Leonard. He was my mentor, my friend, and my predecessor at this radio station. I watched him die nearly 40 years ago, right outside this very radio station on Mesa Boulevard, when a cargo truck ran him over. The sight was – grisly and upsetting. But it is that sound, that horrible “snap!” I will never forget. Dozens of witnesses gathered around to help, but it was too late. I crouched over Leonard’s body, lying to him that he would be OK, attempting to coax him from some hint of life. But there was no final word to hear, not even a final breath. I noted there were tears on his cheeks, as a host of angels behind me moaned softly while touching fingers above a flaming trashcan.

Leonard was a dutiful journalist, a true servant of his town. He loved Boston cream pies and paintings of snakes. If he had lived, he would have been 117 years young today.

Listeners, thank you for all your kind emails. A few weeks ago I was a tad – too revealing about my personal life and I mentioned, in passing, that I’m a perennial bachelor. It’s true. I’ve never had a long term serious relationship, but honestly, it’s fine. [chuckling nervously] I get out, I-I s-, I see people. You do not need to try to set me up on blind dates with friends, relatives, ancestral ghosts. Thank you, I’m doing OK. In fact, I had a date recently. His name is Carlos. He says he’s a scientist, well – we have all been scientists at one point or another in our lives. He has perfect hair, a perfect lab coat and – and teeth like a military cemetery.

The date started well. We went to dinner at Big Rico’s Pizza. He had originally suggested Gino’s Italian Dining Experience and Bar and Grill, the fanciest restaurant in town, but since it was our first date, I suggested something more casual. And that was when things started to go wrong. Before we had even placed our orders, Carlos already seemed – disappointed. Which, in turn, disappointed me. Then there was dinner.
I was trying to tell Carlos about my job here at the station, about my family and interests, and he was like “I know I know, Cecil, we’re in love. You and I are in love. You just don’t remember it.”
And I told him, “You’re cute, but this is our first date, so let’s take this slow.” And then he looked sad, and I quickly finished my pizza, and we left.

An update on the Blood Space War. A few weeks ago, the Polonian forces who oppose us seemed all but defeated, their remaining ships cornered in a tiny moon on the far reaches of the Crab Nebula. Yet our attempts to finally destroy the enemy failed, and the Polonians escaped and regrouped. We’re getting word that the General has agreed to step down from her post, and new leadership will replace her. Some of you may remember the story of Eunomia, the teenager who left our Earth 200 years ago to join in the Blood Space War. She was a dreamer, a scientist, who was recruited for her sharp mind and later groomed as a master strategist for the Wolf Gang, our allies in this unending war. The Wolf Gang were able to use worm holes to travel great distances in mere moments. And Eunomia eventually discovered they could use these same portals to travel in time. After a brutal loss in the battle of Gamma Trachonus, Eunomia, then a captain, ordered her decimated platoon back in time to the beginning of the battle. With a greater understanding of their initial failures, she was able to better fight the battle again. Still she lost, only to return back through time to re-engage the enemy over and over again, she refought the battle until she won. Dozens of battles like this won led to her promotion to General of the Earth-Wolf Gang alliance. But after our most recent failure in the Crab Nebula, there is concern that she has lost her effectiveness.

An emissary from the Blood Space War has returned to Night Vale. They are wading through town in their oversized space suit. No doubt here to deliver us more terrible news from the front. Perhaps there will be no peace in our lifetimes. More on this story as it develops.

Our town is returning to normal, or so I have been told. Community college student and Blood Space War protest organizer, Basimah Bishara, said her mother exists once again. Basimah claims that a few weeks ago, her mother suddenly did not exist, thus making Basimah not exist but as of this week, they do exist. Basimah blames the time traveling actions of our General for changing the landscape of everyone’s existence. I can’t wrap my head around this, listeners, I-I.. I don’t remember Basimah ever not existing or, or-or that she was gone and returned. So it’s hard for me to believe this story. I-I took inventory of my own life and everything is as it always has been for me. I work at a radio station, I own a (-) [0:08:20] bike, I have a one-bedroom apartment with a soaking tub, walk-in closet, carpet shredder, knife compiler and a full-length mirror in the hallway. It’s an antique my mother handed down to me. She knows I love mirrors.
I don’t have any siblings, but my mother’s alive and I talk to her regularly. We get along great, I-I-I called her to make sure everything is as she always remembered it, and she said, “What, I don’t know. Yeah sure, what a dumb question.” She’s always been witty like that.
All is stasis. Nothing has been taken from my life.

The Intergalactic Military Headquarters reported all time high profits this month. They have built a stealth bomber entirely out of rare 1913 Liberty Head nickels, each valued at around - five million dollars. Senior strategic advisor Jameson Archibald admitted their financial success was not attributable to the new smart phone app he developed.
“[cackling] No-ho-ho-ho-ho,” Archibald said, sitting astride a white tiger. “That app was super glitchy, but my Dad’s crazy rich and knows a bunch of people in the Pentagon, so we’re go-o-o-od!”
Archibald then took a massive hit of a vape pen.
“This is my new thing,” Archibald said. “Steam pens! No nicotine, no THC, only pure water vapor. Did you know water is good for you? Like, it gives you life, man. If we’re gonna vape anything, we should be vaping vapor. O-o, what if that’s what vape means? Vapor! If it doesn’t, it should!”
This has been your financial report.

Sad news, Night Vale. John Peters – you know, the farmer – reported that his brother James is returning to service in the Blood Space War. James has been promoted to General to replace the retiring Eunomia.
“Dang, James is such a good brother,” John said from the middle of his field of invisible corn. “I really like having him home, I’m gonna miss him. But I guess the universe needs him more than I do.”
John then uprooted an invisible corn stalk and hugged it tightly, while humming the classic church hymn “Party in the USA”.

OK, this is getting annoying. So the guy I was telling you about earlier, Carlos, he’s been texting me this whole show, saying he wants to see me again, let’s see, something something, my timeline is still wrong? I should have a sister named Abby, here’s a photo of her with some kid. My mother died? Hmph. I’m supposedly afraid of mirrors, and he and I are actually married. This is ridiculous! OK, now he’s texting me a picture of a dog. “Our little puppy Aubergine,” it says. In the picture Carlos is holding the dog.
I… Hm, that’s weird. I just had a strange feeling. What’s that term, uh, jamais vu I think, where you remember something that never happened.

Outside my window, I see the Emissary, their-their oblong mirrored face pressed against the glass, each hand raised to their head to block out glare from the sun. I’m waving to the Emissary now. Hello Emissary! I said just now. What is the French term for remembering something you’ve never experienced? I said even louder wondering if the Emissary can hear me through the window and that thick helmet. Also, is Aubergine a good name for a dog? I think it is! I called once more, just to start a decent conversation, because I was getting creeped out by the sight of a silent astronaut peering at me through my window.
[chuckles] I can, I can see myself in the reflective face. I…
[mumbles] I don’t like this. I do not like this at all.
[panicked] Please go. Please leave, it cannot. Uh, I’m covering this window with a sheet, I do not like this mirror. I don’t like it one bit, no!

Let’s go to the weather.

[Weather: “Sad But Not Depressed” from the podcast It Makes a Sound
https://nightvale.bandcamp.com]

I will tell you about the Emissary in a moment. But first, I must tell you that Carlos called me. Here’s his voicemail.

Carlos: Cecil, I_I’m calling for personal reasons. I-I’m, [sighs] I’m calling to tell you that I love you. That I have loved you almost since the first day I met you nearly 7 years ago. I didn’t know anyone in Night Vale [chuckles] and you were the first person to take any interest in my studies. Its not easy feeling alone, but within a year I wasn’t, cause I was with you. And now we are married. Well, at least in my lifetime we were married. We have been married, and we have a beautiful puppy named Aubergine, a house, a relationship. You have a sister, and you know, you have a brother-in-law too and, and a niece who is a talented athlete and (enormously), just a kind young woman. And we have – oh, you’re gonna play this on air, aren’t you? Oh, of course you are. Well never mind. Anyway uh, somehow you don’t know any of this. I’ve been working nights and days trying to repair this break in continuity, and I haven’t slept much, because I-I can’t sleep until we’re back in the same timeline. But I can’t find anything that will fix this, I-I don’t know what else to do other than to just say: Trust me. I will start over, we’ll go to Rico’s on another first date, I will pretend to hear about your life for the first time, I will tell you about mine for the thousandth time. It won’t be the same for me, but it will still be you. And, and that’s all that matters. You, you’re the one. Oh god, this must sound crazy, you barely know you and, and I’m coming off as desperate, but it’s because I am. Please call me. [beep]

Cecil: And I did, call him back. A-a-and I said: “I love you too. Babe, I love your beard. I love our dog. I love… I-I love our life together.” Minutes before that, I did not feel that way. I did not know about my life with Carlos, because it had never happened in my history.

It was in those minutes, though, that the Emissary spoke to me. The Emissary entered my studio and removed her helmet. And underneath was the face of an old woman, it was the face of Eunomia, the young girl who disappeared from Night Vale on her 17th birthday 200 years ago. Eunomia told me she had resigned her post as General. She was the most successful leader in the Blood Space War, but tampering with timelines had caused life in the universe to nearly cease to exist.
Eunomia knew she would have to undo what she had undone so many times over, even though it would put peace out of her reach. She’s doing that. She is taking responsibility by visiting every single person affected by her actions. She’s telling them what she has taken from them. And what she will now give back. It will take her a long, long time to do this. it will take her the rest of her life.

In my case, she told me I have a sister, Abby, a brother-in-law, Steve, a niece, Janice. I-I did not know those times. She told me about my husband Carlos. I knew that name, but did not feel love for it. She took my hand and told me to look at the moon. There was a thick wedge missing from it. I never noticed that the moon was broken. Eunomia said: “I will leave now and I will undo what has been done, and your life will return to how it was.”
I asked: “But I have a life now.”
And she said: “But what of the lives of others? You are all connected. If I do not fix yours, how many others will never have back what the war has taken?”
“And what about you?” I said. “Will you return to your teenage life on the farm?”
“No,” she said, “I cannot go back to that age, but I will go back to that time and place. I only wish to see my family one more time.”
“And what about the war?” I said. Hmph.
“There will always be a war, because there will always be a lust for a war,” she said. “I am sorry, Cecil. I have to go.” She pointed to the moon once again. And it was whole, unbroken. I tried to squeeze her hand, but it was gone. It was only me in the studio.

On a late summer afternoon in 1816, an astronaut appeared in the center of Night Vale. 96 years later, a dog park would be established on that exact spot. The astronaut walked silently through the dusty streets. Bow-legged and slow, the Emissary walked through the outskirts of town. It took hours, and nearly the entire city followed her. Past a lot that would eventually to Old Woman Josie. Past the homestead of Eugene Leroy. Until she reached the Peters farm. And there, she stopped.
There was a greenish aura about the astronaut, as she turned to face the gathered mob. The astronaut put her gloved hands to her neck and unlashed the helmet. There was a loud hissss and a pop, when she lifted the mask. The crowd approached tentatively. As the helmet came fully off, the townsfolk cried out. The face of the visitor was nearly skeletal, a rotted corpse, long white hair peeling down the back of the skull, an incomplete set of elongated teeth visible with no lips to hide them, startled eyes, ever staring with no lids to express anything else. And what was left of the skin had shriveled and yellowed.

The crowd had begun to step backward, but one woman stepped forward. a tired and pale woman. The woman whose farm it was approached the decomposing astronaut and said: “Eunomia?”
The General opened her mouth slowly and spoke in a hoarse cough. “Mother,” she said.
Eunomia’s young mother touched her elderly daughter’s face. Eunomia broke into dust. And the empty space suit collapsed to the ground, leaving behind the faint shape of the woman’s dissipating daughter.

In a cornfield on the outskirts of town, the General’s ashes scattered across a golden lake of ripened corn. In the very place where her military successor, James Peters – you know, the General – would be born 150 years later.

The memories of what Eunomia said to me, the memories of my life without my family, are fading quickly.
Night Vale returns to normal, whatever that means. [chuckles] I told Carlos I was so sorry for causing him such pain. I can not ever know how difficult that must have been. He only tilted his head and said: “Already forgotten.”
I wasn’t sure if he was being literal. Hmm.

Stay tuned next for the unceremonious continuation of all that is real.

Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road, and then we’re gonna go grab drinks and dinner, maybe watch a movie. Girls’ night.

18/06/2019 23:50:50 ¶ ●

## 150 - The Birthday of Lee Marvin (III)

Deb: Hey squishy humans! Deb at it again, as usual, talking until your mortal forms pass away. Welcome…

Dana: Once again, the sun has risen. Good one, sun. We’re all very impressed by the same trick on the millionth day in a row. I’m Dana Cardinal. Welcome to..

Computer: Computer
loves Night Vale. Night Vale provides home for computer. Welcome…

Deb: Welcome…

Dana: Welcome…

Steve: Heyy everyone! Oh uh, oh man, I’m supposed to prepare some sort of a start for this thing, huh? Dangit, forget every time! Every time! [chuckles] Come on, Steve! You have a responsibility here, Steve! You’re better than this, Steve. Sorry. God, sorry! Oh.
Uh,
Welcome to Night Vale!

Cecil: Listeners, it is a very special day today. That’s right, it’s Carlos and I’s sixth anniversary! Yes, we count that first night at the Arby’s, looking out at those lights, as the start. Why not? Something has to be the start. And that felt like the first moment of it, the rest of our lives.

It’s especially emotional this anniversary, because recently we did not exist for a brief period. Then we both did exist again, but I had forgotten about our entire life together. I have since remembered and it has been especially tender between us. Such things happen in any marriage that has gone on for enough years, and so it served us as a good reminder of who we are in each other’s lives.

But it’s not just a special day for us. Oh no. It’s also, oh wow – the 30th birthday of legend of stage and screen, Mister Lee Marvin. Let’s take a listen to a special message from the birthday man himself.

Lee Marvin: Hello. It is my birthday again. Huh. Well, happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to all of us. It’s all of our birthdays this year. Congratulations, us! But it’s only for so much longer. Uh.. I am tired of floating on time like a lazy river gone stale. It’s time for me to reach out, to cease. To alter. I’m so tired. I wish I could sleep. I mean I can, I can sleep. But also I wish that I could. Both the wish and the ability exist within me.

This will be the last day that I turn 30. I have been climbing a narrow rock chimney, but today I let go and fall into deep, clear waters. Hm. Thanks for all the birthday wishes. It really, really has meant a lot.

Cecil: OK, kind of a bummer of a birthday message, but let’s move on. And now, the financial news.
Intern Maureen: And now the financial news or whatever. Looks like stocks are up, which is great for people who own stocks, who are statistically already wealthy enough that stocks being up or down doesn’t fundamentally affect their lives. And those of us without stocks, well then the health of the stock market has little relationship to..

Faceless Old Woman: Toni I see that you are reading the financial news. Yes, I’m looking at you right now. No, not behind your shoulder. I see you glancing back. No, not out the window either. Toni, look up. Look up, Toni. The great work begin-

Steve: Now see I’m VP of counting at the Last Bank of Night Vale. I can count very high, so I’m uniquely situated to explain these figures to you. So uh, oh OK. See where the graph is going down? That means that the price is, uh, lower. Or-or maybe the stock is? Or it’s all going up oh hold on, huh, I’ve been looking at this sideways. Oh this isn’t graph at all! [chuckles] It’s a picture of Lee Marvin.

Dana: Why do bad things happen to good people? Wrong question. The question is: why do things happen?

Basimah: I have 17 dollars on my bank account and my teenage father is living with me. So things are going great here.

Cecil: ..up 8 per cent, the highest percentage in the last three years. And this has been financial news.

Meanwhile, a last minute birthday party for Mr. Lee Marvin has been arranged at Gino’s Italian Dining Experience and Bar and Grill at 5 PM. Where we will all celebrate the first three decades of Mr. Marvin’s life by taking advantage of some great happy hour deals. Gino’s happy hours are super appetizing. The most popular item is a small bowl filled with polished pebbles, but they are damn cheap, and that is appreciated in these tough times, when all of us are finding ourselves short on our bills. Except the estate of the late Marcus Vanston, which now contains approximately 15 per cent of all money in the United States, but still has no designated beneficiary.

Mr. Marvin himself is not expected to attend his own party, as he is not feeling well, and also says that he has a plan to move himself from this tired wheel of time. Well, feel better Lee, and good luck on that hobby of yours. Sounds complicated and exhausting. I’ll have a Shiraz and a bowl of pebbles in honor of you.

Lee Marvin: Night Vale. We are a town of good intentions. Once there was a god. Her name was Huntokar, and she tried to save one little town. She acted with love. The missiles came and she reached out to shift the timeline, only a tad, only enough to save us. And in that moment, her little town shattered into millions of parallel towns. This place became a prison. A god’s love is a dangerous force.

Once, there was a woman who was a general. She wanted victory for a just cause, so she fought every battle, over and over until time was jumbled up and overlapping and worn thin. She returned home and she died, but the wreckage she made of time remained.

And once there was a man. An actor. Once, but not much longer. Here, time and space have been scratched and scrunched, worn down until they’re translucent. And what if I reached out a hand? And what if I pushed that hand to the thin places?

Happy birthday to me. My last 30th birthday.

Steve: Well folks, there’s the hour and it’s time to, uh, do our usual checks and such. Check in on it. On the uh, you know the, what’s the word?

Faceless Old Woman: I’m standing on your roof, Randolph. Yes, Randolph, that’s my pacing you hear, back and forth on these cheap clay tiles that needed replacing three years ago. There will be rain, Randolph, some day. And then there will be leaks. That’s a certainty.

Don’t believe me? Let’s take a look at…

Dana: That’s that for all that, listeners. I’m getting tired just reporting all this life. Can’t imagine how tired all of you are from living it. So let’s all take a break together and go to the…

Numbers station: 43. 12. 9. 55. 30. 17.
The weather. To the weather.
Cause I am the champion and you’re gonna hear me… roar.

[“Things Still Left To Say” by Mal Blum, https://www.malblum.com]

Lee Marvin: There are many Night Vales. This isn’t news, it’s merely the fact of it. There’s a Night Vale where the streets are rivers and the rain falls constantly from sunless skies. There’s a Night Vale where the mayor is a smiling man, and a Night Vale where the mayor is a brave woman. And of course there is a Night Vale that has no mayor and never will have again. There’s a Night Vale without a day. And there’s a Night Vale without night. There’s a Night Vale where the dogs sing and the birds bark. There’s a Night Vale with no people, only the angel who’s moaning and tapping their fingers. There’s a Night Vale where I was never born. And there’s a Night Vale where I’ll never die. There’s a Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. She’s in every Night Vale there is.
There’s Night Vale where time runs backwards and a Night Vale where time skips about, and there’s Night Vale where time doesn’t work at all. That’s this Night Vale. Time is weird here. Time is weird everywhere, but it’s especially weird here. There’s a Night Vale where Dana is the voice of her town, and a Night Vale where Deb, the sentient patch of haze is voice of her town. And a Night Vale where you are the voice of your town. An infinitude of voices, of an infinitude of Night Vales.

But here, in this Night Vale, our voice is Cecil. Hah, a voice like distant traffic. A voice like strong coffee at midnight.

Once there was a god with good intentions, and a heart full of love. She shattered us in two, many versions of us. Once there was a general, full of courage and victory. She twisted our time about itself, lost us in a labyrinth of hours and years.

And once there was a man. His dreams were simple. He wanted to be an actor, that’s all. To lie a little to audiences, in a way that they like being lied to. But time got stuck on him like – gum on a shoe. It was always his 30th birthday, from the Big Ban to the tedious heat death of the universe. His 30th birhday forever. Time weighed on him and so he looked out at every Night Vale that has ever been, and every Night Vale that will ever be, all of them swirling and swinging thru intertwining chronologies and he concentrated veery hard. And he reached out one tired ancient 30-year-old hand and stopped them all, just for a moment. He stopped time’s gyrations.

All is frozen. Water hangs in the air below a leaking tap. The trees are sculpted by a gust of wind and haven’t yet swung back to their natural state. The clouds form a frozen pattern, like snowdrifts in the sky. A voice of Night Vale sits in front of a microphone, mouth open but no words coming out. All of the voices in all of the Night Vales.

On the highway out of town, the cars are stopped dead. Their drivers caught glancing at their phones or scratching their ears and thinking about what would finally make them happy, or looking in the mirror and trying to gauge whether the car behind them belongs to the Sheriff’s Secret Police.
Farther out, over the mountains and to the coast, the waves are stopped mid-fall. Foam caught, rising water caught, tumbling.

An old man in Canada trips on a shoe discarded by his grandson, and there he remains, hands out mid-air, too late for anyone to save but not yet colliding with the earth. He will dislocate his knee.

A soldier in China squints at a bird, trying to decide which type of bird it is. Really it’s too distant to tell but the soldier makes a game of this to pass the tedium, and so here they are squinting at a bird that is stopped mid-flight, its wings outstretched, catching wind that is no longer moving. Observe the solder in this moment, a thin slice of a long life.

Out in low orbit, a spindly silver being in a graceful silver craft, is caught in an instant when its appendages that are not really fingers but we’ll call them fingers, even though technically are closed in function to kidneys. When its fingers phase thru the skull of a sleeping human that it has brought abroad, reaching into the human’s memories, seeking out a clear understanding of a planet that the being has been tasked to observe.
That planet and all the other planets cease for a moment in their senseless hurdle thru the vacuum. They are suspended. The way they are in diagrams.

The story we tell ourselves of stasis, and clear spacial relationships is, for a moment, true. An entire universe holds its breath.

Huh. Then I shift my hand a little and the gears of time click back into place and start again to move. Not quite as they were before, they-they are on track now. Their tread a little truer.

The beginning of my end. The start of my death.
I take in air, I let out air, and in the moment where the universe starts again, something happens that has never happened before. Not in all of history.

Cecil: Today is a special day, Night Vale. Lee Marvin, star of stage and screen is, oh wow! - turning 31 today. Happy birthday, Lee!
You know, it feels like our thirties just fly by. Enjoy them while they last.
Lee Marvin celebrated his birthday in a notably somber way. He stepped out onto his lawn, nodding at passers by and various idiot birds. He spit thru his teeth, placed his hands on his hips, watched the sun move for a while. Then he nodded in approval of everything he’d seen and stepped back inside.
Well, we all express happiness in our own ways.

A few minutes ago, I got the most interesting voicemail from my most interesting husband, Carlos. It’s our sixth anniversary today, you know. Anyway, he was so excited, I’ve never heard him talk so fast in his life. Carlos said he opened the clock that was on our mantelpiece at home, the one that was given to him by his mother the day he received his PhD. The one he brought with him to Night Vale, the one that after having come to Night Vale, he opened to find that it was full of moss and fur and human teeth. Yeah, time doesn’t work in Night Vale, he had realized and he mourned the transformation of both the clock and his experience of the days and years of his life, but he still believes in keeping possession in perfect condition, and so today he opened the clock to brush its teeth, only to find it was full of gears and a battery and was ticking away. He measured the movement of its minute hand against the sun, and found that the sun, instead of disappearing at wildly different times, was setting on a normal schedule. He called me up, his voice cracking with excitement, bordering on terror.

“Cecil, Cecil!” he said to me. “Cecil! Time is normal in Night Vale.
Well. It is night, Night Vale. Soon the sun will rise and we know exactly what time that will happen. Our lives have all lurched forward. Is that – good?
Stay tuned next for exactly what was scheduled to run next, at the exact time it was scheduled to do so. And from my mouth to your ears, even after all these years,
Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: Technically, the first human being and the first human being in space were the same person.