03/10/2014 12:12:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 55 - The University of What It Is

Let me be brief. Let us all be brief. Let us briefly be.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners? I received a call today from a Dr. Sylvia Kayali, who introduced herself as working at the University of What It Is. I told her I had never heard of that particular learning institution.

Actually, what happened is the name led to a comedic back and forth.

“What what is?”

“What It is!”

“The university is what?”

“No, no, of ‘What It Is.’”

And so on.

But eventually I accorded her the usual treatment of any academic person of importance – which was a bellowing lecture about the dangers of education, followed by tense, suspicious silence.

Taking advantage of that silence, she jumped in and explained that the University of What It Is was concerned about one of their faculty members who had taken a sabbatical to investigate some…probably fantastical rumors about a strange town in the desert, and then had never returned.

I told her that I didn’t know of any strange towns, just the pleasant burg we call home.

“Well,” she said, “I’ll keep trying, then. If you hear from a scientist going by the name of Carlos, please let us know.”

As you can imagine, listeners, I made all sorts of noises when she said that. But she had already hung up, and had left no call-back number. My phone screen just showed a picture of a beach during a bad storm, with a shivering human figure off in the distance, again and again nearly but not quite swept away by the pounding surf. I think that’s an area code of…what? Idaho? I don’t have these things memorized.

More on this as I aggressively investigate.

Well, it’s time again for one of our audience’s most requested segments…I assume. I’ve never actually asked, but…I can’t imagine anyone having a different perspective from my own, so I assume this is what listeners are most focused on.

It’s time to check back in with Khoshekh and his floating kittens. Khoshekh, the cat floating exactly four feet off the ground in the men’s room here at the station, is doing great! Nothing to report. He’s a healthy kitty going through his third molting of the year, and his fur cusp is as radiant and sticky as any cat’s has ever been. He loves to be petted, and the petting is completely survivable…with the correct antibiotics.

His kittens are, of course, also floating in fixed locations in the same bathroom, and are being cared for by their various owners. Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, has especially taken after one of the kittens, who he has named – confusingly – “Larry Leroy.”

“Oh, Larry Leroy is just the best,” Larry Leroy said, in what was either an expression of affection or extreme egotism. Either way, he’s being a great dad to that little cat, and we wish Larry Leroy and Larry Leroy the best.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

Traditionally, when cooking steak, there have been a few basic rules to follow. For instance, using a form of meat that is recognized by both the current culture and the human body as “food;” following basic food safety procedures, so as to prevent illness; not intentionally not intentionally bleeding on the finishing steak…but that’s just traditionally.

Here at Outback Steakhouse, we say “No rules, just right. Absolutely no rules.”

Food safety? Pssh! Federal law? Ugh! The laws of physics? What are you, a narc? It’s weird here. The steak floats. Sometimes the steak is and also isn’t, simultaneously. Sometimes the steak is a chair, and we point at the chair and we say, ‘that chair is a steak.’ And we make you eat it. That is the one rule: if we say something is a steak, you have to eat it. No questions asked. I know we said there are no rules, but that itself is a rule and so is void. You want your philosophy non-contradictory? Go to Sizzler.

In the bathroom, where most places have signs saying “Employees must wash hands,” we just carved “Land of the free” directly into the wall. There isn’t even a sink in there. Heck, our bathrooms are just sealed vaults full of poisonous gases.

No rules. We might kill you. We’ve killed a lot of people.

Outback Steakhouse. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

I received another call from Dr. Kayali. Before she even spoke, I told her that I, in fact, knew a Carlos, and explained, in a completely businesslike and journalistic tone, the tenor of our relationship.

“Carlos is there” she said. Only she didn’t put a question at the end of it. So maybe she was just saying “Carlos is there.” In either case, she told me that this was surprising, and that the University of What It Is would send someone right away to see why their faculty member had never made it home.

I said, “He never mentioned a university to me.”

And she said, “Do we ever dare to speak of higher education to the ones we love?”

Which is a valid point. Education is such a…scary and forbidden subject that you would be a fool to mention it out loud.

I forgave Carlos for this lapse…or, I will, as soon as I can get him on the phone.

Hey, Carlos? Call me.

In the meantime, I’ll let you know what happens when the folks from the University of What It Is come by.

And now, the Community Calendar:

On Monday, the baristas of Night Vale are inviting everyone in town to come to the barista district for the annual Barista Cultural Faire, where they will be performing traditional barista dances like the twice-dip and the mustache snort, and serving traditional barista foods, like lemon poppy seed scones. There will be a showing of barista-themed movies, like Jaws and Jaws 2. And, Nora Jones will make an appearance via a photo of her tacked up on a wall so you can say, “Oh, look! That’s Nora Jones!” while pointing at that photo.

Tuesday is a day for trying to find what you’ve lost. Tear through your house, dress in clothes you haven’t worn in years, reenact situations from your childhood, and try to get them to turn out differently. You will get it all back! You will finally have lost nothing! It’s all possible, and it’s all healthy.

Wednesday is a secret that has been badly kept.

Thursday is a day of remembrance and memorial, dedicated to all the people who will happen to die on that Thursday.

The City Council would like us all to take a moment and think about the many, many people who will just happen to die in that particular frame of time, for unrelated reasons, and adding up to no coherent picture of human existence. Please, find the time within your life to mourn those who will, by complete chance, be gone.

Unless you turn out to be one of those people. In which case, hey! You’re off the hook on all this tedious grief stuff!

Friday is a plan that has been poorly thought through.

“Saturday is absolutely nothing you should be worried about,” say hulking, buzzing figures hiding in all of our attics, in a statement that they issued today, thus revealing to us, for the first time, their existence.

Sunday is a lie that has been foolishly believed.

This has been the Community Calendar.

Jackie Fiero, who runs the only pawn shop in town, which for some reason is named “Lucinda’s Pawn Shop,” announced today that she is having a sale on ideas about time.

“People keep coming by and pawning their ideas about time!” Jackie told a friend of hers in confidence, never knowing that it was going to end up on the radio. “And, like, I don’t want to turn them down, because it looks like they need the money, but dude! How many ideas about time am I supposed to keep? None of these ideas make any sense anyway!”

So, if you’re looking for a gently-used idea about time, or perhaps if you pawned your own idea about time and are now able to retrieve it, then get on down to Lucinda’s Pawn Shop, and talk to Jackie.

Don’t know where her pawn shop is? Don’t worry, when you need it, then…then you will know.

And now, corrections.

In a previous broadcast, we swung a baseball bat wildly around the studio, knocking our microphone onto the ground until all it could pick up was the stomping of our feet as we systematically destroyed all of our possessions in a misguided attempt to make he world better, and ourselves more happy!

After that, we mistakenly referred to Trish Hidge as the Assistant Deputy to the Mayor, when she is, in fact, the Deputy Assistant to the Mayor. We deeply regret this error.

This has been corrections.

Still haven’t heard from Carlos. The representatives from the University of What It Is arrived. They are besuited, and behatted, and be-a number of other things besides. They move in a group of three, led by Dr. Kayali herself, looking at everything and everyone they encounter with a critical eye, and what looks like a sneer. That could just be the natural set of their faces.

I rushed out to meet these people, that could perhaps tell me something that I don’t know about the love of my life, only to find that, flush with their recent victory over the carnival, Night Vale citizens had cornered the staff members from the University of What It Is, shouting and waving household items like sticks and police batons.

“Interloper!” they cried. “Interloper!”

“No! No!” I said.

“Well, yes!” I said, because they were interlopers, but…good interlopers. If only there was a word that meant “good interloper.”

Dr. Kayali did not seem afraid of the crowd. She considered the Night Vale residents before her, and patted the air in a placating motion.

And, by the way, did you know that the term for a group of citizens is “a mob?” Huh. The English language is so funny.

The Doctor’s calm demeanor did not transfer to the crowd around her. They howled and jeered, saying things like, “Remember that carnival? Let’s do that again!” and chanting popular slogans, like “Aaaaargh! Outsiders!”

I, more than anyone, know that not all outsiders are bad. Most outsiders are. Aaaargh. Outsiders.

But some outsiders are great! The best! My favorite. And these outsiders know about that outsider.

“Listeners,” I said to the mob, because the moment I began speaking my relationship to them was one in which they were hearing me, I said, “please! Let us proceed with caution, and empathy. We’ve never tried it before, maybe it’ll work.”

But the mob was beyond hearing, and they continued their advance. For the first time, I looked out at the faces of my fellow citizens and saw them – not as friends as companions, but as a dangerous combination of suppression and indoctrination.

So I did the only thing that I could think to do in that moment: “If you won’t listen,” I said, “then I will make you listen. I will make you all listen…to the weather.

[“Catfish” by Waxahatchee]

While the crowd was distracted by the sudden weather, I was able to flag down a passing Sheriff’s Secret Police helicopter which was conducting routine surveillance operations just overhead. I explained to the officers inside, all of whom where wearing loose-fitting gowns and Richard Nixon masks, that I was in need of a lift to the radio station for important community reasons. They did not respond, but they also did not do anything else. So, I hustled the representatives from the University of What It Is onto the craft, and we left the hostile mob listening docilely below us.

“Please tell me everything!” was how I casually started the conversation with Dr. Kayali.

She blinked. “That would take a long time, and I feel like much of it would be things you already know,” she said, continuing. “For instance, tying shoes, operating your own tongue, feeling insecure, and other things you would know these things already.

I clarified that I meant everything about Carlos and her university.

And this is what she said, as we hammered our way across the sky.

She actually shouted it, to be heard over the rotors, so this is what she shouted.

She shouted that she is from the University of What It Is, and that they have been looking for some time for a faculty member named Carlos, who is a professor of science. He has been missing for decades, and they were getting very worried. They had no choice but to hire a new professor of science, but it isn’t going well, because the guy they hired is a “new media artist,” interested in collage as it intersects with social media, and he isn’t even sure what science is. They don’t know why they hired that guy…it had somehow made sense when they did it.

She told me, in a quieter voice, once we had landed near the safety of the station, and had decided that the Sheriff’s Secret Police were not going to prevent us from leaving the helicopter, she told me that if this is how our town treats outsiders, then Carlos is in more danger than she thought. I told her that Carlos wasn’t treated that way, that he was well-loved by everyone, and especially loved by someone. And she said, “Sure, sure.” But she didn’t sound like she believed it.

And then she said that there was much she needed to do, but that they would make sure Carlos found his way to safety, and they were looking forward to him taking back over the one class they have on science, because the new media artist guy is really messing it up.

She said she had to go, but gave me her card in case I ever wanted to get in touch with her.

I imagine that I definitely will.

So there it is. So many questions, so many possible answers, and like the title of that much-beloved picture book classic, How Many Lies?

Listeners, I do not know everything about Carlos and he does not tell me everything. That is OK. We are not one person. How lonely that would be! A couple who has made themselves one so completely, that they are once again alone.

We are two people, separate. Unique. And joined only where we choose to join.

I don’t know what is his affiliation, truly, to the University of What It Is. Perhaps I will never know, but I can know about the taste of food he has made me, or the feeling of his hand in mine, or the absence of his hand not in mine. I can feel the distance between us, and I can know that that distance, viewed properly, is no distance at all.

But still, I think I’ll keep Dr. Kayali’s card handy, just in case I ever need her, or what she knows. And that time may come. Certainly so many other times I never even thought possible have come before it.

Stay tuned next for a loss of words, an absence of silence, some noise. Some noise. And then, perhaps…and then, perhaps…meaning.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Language will evolve, irregardless of your attempt to literally lock it away in a secluded tower. Obvs.

15/10/2014 4:40:00 ¶ ●

## The Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover

Joseph Fink: Everything that follows is not canon, except for the parts that are.

S'tonge of the Galaxium: Oh, hi! I didn’t notice you come in! ‘Cept that I did. I notice everything. I’m an omniscient being known as S'tonge of the Galaxium. If you were omniscient, you’d know that already. But, 'cause y'aren’t omniscient, I know, because…well, I am.

I come from a race of beings powered cosmically by the force galactic. We live on the edges of what you know as reality, and what we call The Tommy Westphall Universe.

For countless eons we have observed your worlds, and have recorded their significant events. By “we,” I mean “I,” as we have transcribed the events in my great cosmic book, using our pen cosmic. And now, we shall describe for you an event so tremendous, it caused us great sadness. And great bliss. We are a complicated guy.

The event you are about to witness me witnessing is known throughout the Galaxium as Thrill Vale – Nope.

Night Adventure – Worse.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover. On the nose, but works.

But first, the great Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover is sponsored by Patriot brand cigarettes. Patriot brand cigarettes are good for your constitution.

By WorkJuice brand coffee, the most caffeine-dense coffee legally available in this, or any, known reality.

And by your longing for universal parity, underwritten by an attempt to make sense of the senseless and random universe…or is it?

It is.

The great Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover is a presentation in three acts, performed in the style of radio broadcasts both old and new. There will be a brief intermission during which you might ponder your existence, and purchase malted milk balls.

The great Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover is appropriate for all ages, as well as for those of you who possess no age at all. It is full of sound and fury, signifying…everything.

And it begins like this:

In your future, when the universe ever-expands into the wildest west of all, outer space, where one planet is thought to be light years beyond the reach of law and order, one man brings fear to robots and aliens, and hope to the humans who long to make this frontier planet their home. He is Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars.

Sparks Nevada: I’m…from Earth.

S'tonge: He is aided in his quest by his faithful Martian companion, Croach the Tracker.

Croach: I am from G'loot Praktaw.

Sparks: Just call it– Just call it Mars.

Croach: You designate it Mars.

Sparks: Just call it Mars.

Croach: Not during the crossover.

Sparks: ♫ When there’s varmints need a-catchin’, ♫
♪ and young'ns need a-savin’, ♪
♫ on my rocket steed I race across the stars. ♫
♪ For I’ve sworn by the burrs of my astro spurs ♪
♫ to right the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♫

All: ♪ Yes, he rights the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♪

Sparks: ♫ Oh, the hyper cattle’s hummin’, ♫
♪ and the Marjun’s savage drummin’ ♪
♫ are as beautiful as comet bugs in jars. ♫
♪ Yo, I’m…from Earth, ♪
♫ but I right the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♫

All: ♪ Yes, he rights the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♪

Sparks: ♫ On the plains o’ the red planet I uphold the law, ♫
♪ and I do it with a pair of robot fists. ♪

All: Pow!

Sparks: ♫ Evil extermination I have faced, ♫
♪ for my robot ropes, they hardly ever miss. ♪

All: ♫ Hardly ever miss! ♫

Sparks: ♪ And I reckon I’ll be ridin’ ♪
♫ in the name of truth and justice ♫
♪ for as long as I can count the shootin’ stars, ♪
♫ for I’ve sworn by the burrs of my astro spurs ♫
♪ to right the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♪

All: ♫ Yes, he rights the outlaw wrongs on Mars. ♫

Sparks: And I’m from Earth.

S'tonge: The Mars day started like you would expect, especially if you were omniscient. Then, later in the day, Sparks Nevada and Croach the Tracker had a conversation in the Marshal Station. This conversation:

Sparks: Croach, are you packing up, or…you going somewhere?

Croach: Sparks Nevada, yes. Having prepared the coffee beverage for the Marshal Station, my onus to you is complete.

Sparks: Wait, really?

Croach: I have served to relieve the onus of my people to you for the salvation of this, our planet.

Sparks: Oh, yeah, that time I saved Mars, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Croach: I have saved your life many times.

Sparks: As many as I’ve saved yours?

Croach: Yes. And I have prepared coffee very often.

Sparks: And other stuff too, yeah.

Croach: I am under onus to you for noticing.

Sparks: Yeah.

Croach: And no longer under onus to you for not acknowledging my onus.

Sparks: I said “yeah.”

Croach: Hmm. An acknowledgement of the rhythm of conversations, not onuses.

Sparks: Fair, I guess, yeah.

Croach: And now I am under onus no longer. We are, as my people designated, eve end Steve end.

Sparks: Wow, yeah. Uhh, OK, Croach.

Croach: In all of our time together, you continue to butcher my name.

Sparks: I totally do not. Croach.

Croach: Croach.

Sparks: Nnooo.

Croach: Croach.

Sparks: Nnooo.

Croach: Croach. Now, please defy your human inclination to create an emotional scene of my parting.

Sparks: Yeah, I wasn’t gonna.

Croach: Very well. Then I shall leave.

Sparks: Bye.

Croach: You are not becoming emotional?

Sparks: No. Yes, uhh…you know…bye!

Croach: Farewell, Sparks Nevada.

Sparks: Mmm-hmm.

Croach: Unless something stops me from departing…

Sparks: Um…no.

Croach: I shall depart. Now.

Sparks: OK.

Croach: From here.

Sparks: Bye.

Croach: I am departing.

Sparks: Are you, though? Because–

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Felton: Marshal! Marshal! Heeeelllllllp!

Croach: Human designated Felton, you have obstructed my exit!

Felton: Oh, sorry, Croach! Here, I’ll step aside so’s you can pass.

Croach: No no no, I shall wait for you to enter completely.

Felton: I don’t want to keep you.

Croach: There is no rush.

Sparks: All right, Croach, why don’t you stay, and hear what Felton’s hollering about?

Croach: Did the creature designated a fuzzy caterpillar traverse the surface of your arm?

Felton: No! No. One time that happened, and let’s all stop talking about it!

Croach: I shall remain. Perhaps something threatens all of G'loot Praktaw.

Sparks and Felton: That’s Mars!

Croach: Which you designate Mars.

Sparks: Mars.

Croach: And therefore threatens my tribe. If I were to save it, and them, they would be under onus to me.

Sparks: All right, well let’s find out. Let’s find out via the worst part of marshaling: talking to a civilian. Umm, what’s up, Felton? And don’t say caterpillars.

Felton: Marshal! Heeeellllllp!

Sparks: I’m right here.

Felton: I was drinking in the Space Saloon, as I am wont to do these days for reasons of melancholy and loneliness, vis-à-vis coming to terms with who I am, contrasting who I set out to be, and – don’t get me wrong, I enjoy being a rancher, hyper-cattle being good to me – but on a more personal level, I am lonely to a degree that don’t befit my person. What if it does? What does that say about my person? And there’s the…

Sparks: Felton…

Felton: type of thought circle runnin’ through my head, but space rotguts both hurt and help. Barkeep was near to cuttin’ me off at precise the number of space rotguts I asked him to. He’s a good fella, if occasionally fixated on the possibility of trouble at his place.

Sparks: Trouble at his place, yeah. Felton…

Felton: When, what should come a-bangin’ in, but trouble! Right where Barkeep didn’t want it, and where I didn’t either, pondering as I was upon matters of self and love and so-forth.

Sparks: Felton! What kind of trouble?

Felton: What kind of trouble? The worst kind! Robot outlaws! Also a human who ain’t a robot, but who is an outlaw. I runned out as soon as they started talking about gunnin’ for you, Marshal! So’s you’d have enough time to prepare yourself for their eventual arrival here! Here at…

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Claxon: Which one of you flesh and bone and blood and nerves and organs-havin’ so-and-sos is Sparks Nevady, Marshal on Mars?

Nice Man Dan: Oh, Claxon? I done told you, having tussled with Nevada before, I’ll point him out to you.

Claxon: With what? Usin’ sacks of gelatin that won’t never be 100% reliable to identify 'em in your mouth to point 'em out?

Dan: Exactly.

Samuel Bolt: Well, ha ha, don’t take no offense, Nice Man Dan. You’re nice.

Claxon:Yeah, you’re nice. We just wanna shoot somethin’!

Sparks: Well, we got some tin cans on the fence out back.

Felton: Not my can collections!

Sparks: All right.

Claxon: Being honest, sir, I prefer I shoot Sparks Nevada, the Marshal on Mars.

Sparks: You’re not gonna get that opportunity.

Samuel: You’re him? You’re Nevady?

Dan: Wait, you are?

Sparks: Yeah. We have met.

Dan: I did not recognize him! Shoulda oughta gotten my glasses prescription refilled, but I done shot my low-down cheatin’-a-punker ophthy-mologist.

Claxon: I got a good optometrist on Saturn.

Samuel: Claxon, Dan’s ophthalmologist was a medical doctor who completed college, and had at least eight years additional medical training. Whereas your Saturn optometrist ain’t nothin’ but a four year degree-havin’ nobody what can’t do much more than give vision tests.

Claxon: All’s Dan wanted was a prescription upgrade!

Dan: Well, I also got a itch in my eye wants a-proddin’ and a-pokin’ at in case it’s serious.

Sparks: I reckon I got something here pointed at you, might take care of any…problems you might have.

Dan: Is that a laser…

Sparks: It’s a laser pistol, yeah.

Dan: …pistol. I’d swear. I shoulda taken care of my eyes so they can take care of me like the poster says at my ophthalmologist’s office.

Sparks: Well, you don’t gotta take care of all your eyes, just the ones you aim to keep. My eye doctor got that poster hangin’ up. Bought it from a dentist, crossed out teeth, wrote in eyes. He’s not great at it.

Samuel: Don’t fret about it, Nice Man Dan. Claxon and I got our own guns trained on the Marshal.

Croach: Sparks Nevada, though I am no longer under onus to you, I have directed my weapon upon these outlaws, thus putting you under onus to me.

Sparks: Fine.

Felton: And I am under onus to myself, due to how I’m cowering under this d-d-d-d-d-d-desk.

Sparks: Yeah, gold star, Felton.

Nice Man Dan, last I saw you, you were headin’ up to spend time with your boy, Highwayman Dan, to set him right. What happened?

Dan: Can’t say I know exactly, Marshal. Took a wrong turn somewhere.

Felton: I don’t see how you could all make chit-chat with guns pointin’ every which way or at each other.

Sparks: The talkin’ keeps people from shootin’, usually. Go on, Dan.

Dan: Well, in the interest of fairness, we sold shoes for a piece, him investin’ his time in my interests. Then, in the spirit of further fairness, he took me robbin’ to show me his interests.

Sparks: Yeah, and let me guess: you took better to robbin’ than he did to shoes.

Dan: Hahaha…exactly. Then he met a gal…

Claxon: And she introduced him, no doubt, to unprecedented levels of adrenaline, dopamine, and serotonin.

Samuel: No doubt. Hehe…humans, you know?

Croach: Oh, yes.

Felton: What happens? It happens – not to me, but to low-down highway robbers apparently.

Dan: Hey, hey, that’s my son.

Felton: Sorry, kind of.

Dan: You know, I felt like a third wheel, highway robbin’ alongside them two. Then I realized, I wasn’t robbin’ due to likin’ it, so much as to be with my son is what I liked.

Sparks: Awww.

Dan: So, uh, we parted ways in hopes that they’ll visit me sometimes on their own volition.

Samuel: Holidays and such…

Dan: That’s exactly it.

Sparks: All right, but hang on. If you quit robbin’, why are you here with outlaws and guns?

Dan: Fair question.

Sparks:Thank you.

Dan: I got one last score in me to provide the stake with which to return to the business community. Make shoes again.

Sparks: All right.

Claxon: From shoe man to robber to robbin’ to become a shoe man again. You just never know where life will take a soul.

Samuel: Robots ain’t got no souls!

Claxon: Was talkin’ about his human soul, but since you bring it up, I reckon we do, in fact.

Samuel: We don’t. End of story.

Claxon: We feel, we think, energy can neither be created nor destroyed…

Samuel: Oh, not everything is an invitation to a techno-theological conversation, Claxon!

Claxon: Some things are, though!

Sparks: I can settle it for you. I can settle it for you right now, send you to meet your maker.

Samuel: Jeremy?

Sparks: No– Jeremy? No.

Samuel: Jeremy Wadnett’s my maker.

Sparks: No, I know what– no. No. I was talking techno-theologically.

Croach: And observe how you have alienated precisely three fourths of the occupants of this room.

All: [laughter]

Samuel: A space Marjun just said 'alienate.’ What a world.

Sparks: Yeah, it’s a doozy. All right. It’s a doozy of a world. Dan, why are you robbin’ the Marshal station if you’re looking for a stake for a business? We don’t keep no cash register.

Dan: I’m a stickler for plannin’ plans! We aim to remove obstacles to our design from the large equation before we start openin’ up bank vaults and the like.

Sparks: Hmm.

Samuel: You’re that obstacle.

Sparks: Am I? Yeah, no, thanks, I got it. Yeah.

Claxon: And so’s any flesh-wrapped guts-burrito in this room with you, since they’re now privy to our plans.

Croach: Sparks Nevada, you are now under so much onus to me.

Sparks: All right, all right.

Felton: Marshal?

Sparks: What?

Felton: Heeelllllp!

Sparks: OK.

Felton: I’m under the desk!

Sparks: Yeah.

Samuel: We know you’re down there, dumdum! Want I should dispatch these two collateral damages, Dan?

Sparks: Hang on, your trigger finger moves a hair, Sam Bolt, and Croach will shut you down.

Samuel: Hair?? No thank you, but I take your meaning and I reckon I’ll aim my guns at Croach, then.

Croach: Onus!

Claxon: Looks like we got ourselves an old-fashioned Venutian standoff, then, Marshal!

Sparks: Nice Man Dan, you are aware the town bank offers low interest loans, right?

Dan: Who’d grant one to a fella whose resume reads “1: shoemaker, 2: outlaw, 3: third wheel, 4: back to outlaw?”

Claxon: Don’t let your occupation define you!

Sparks: All right. Tell you what. Y'all stand down and maybe I can do somethin’ to help you.

Samuel: Us too?

Sparks: No, you two are definitely goin’ to jail.

Dan: Well, then your offer is politely rejected, Marshal. I may not have much, but I still got my words. And leavin’ these metal cattlemen to rust in jail would mean my fidelity tank is down to zero.

Claxon: Well, that’s kind of you to say, Dan.

Dan: Now let’s end this standoff, fellas. The hard way.

Sparks: All right.

Pemily Stallwark: Marshal Nevada! Come in, Sparks Nevada! It’s me, Pemily Stallwark. I am callin’ you on these here space comms.

Sparks: All right. Uh, hang on a second, Dan.

Dan: Hey, you got it.

Claxon: Us too?

Sparks: Yes, of course, you too. Yes.

Dan: Yeah, hold off.

Pemily: Claxon? Is that you?

Claxon: In the iron!

Pemily: Aww, dang it! I didn’t run you off the moon just to have you go to Mars to cause trouble for my best friend and mentor!

Claxon: Ain’t sorry.

Croach: Human designated Pemily Stallwark, I am present as well.

Pemily: Howdy, Croach.

Sparks: All right, listen, Pemily, I’m in the middle of a Venutian standoff right now–

Dan: No, go ahead and take this, we’ll be right here.

Sparks: Thanks, Nice Man Dan, that is…really nice. All right, what is on your mind, Pemily?

Pemily: Well, you know how you made me Marshal of the Moon?

Sparks: Yeah, you earned it, of course, yeah.

Pemily: Yeah. You said that if'n things ever get hairy that I should contact you. Like I’m doing now?

Sparks: Things are getting hairy down there, are they, Marshal Stallwark?

Samuel: Ugh, hair!

Sparks: All right.

Pemily: Somethin’ hairy’s happening, Marshal, but it defies description.

Sparks: Try describin’ it.

Pemily: Sensible. It’s the moon. The moon is disappearing.

Samuel: What? OK, time out from the showdown, I want to see this.

Felton: You can see the earth’s moon from here?

Samuel: Oh, you old humans got the worst possible ocular sensors, I’m telling you.

Croach: Oh, I keep telling them.

Samuel: OK.

Croach: Bagropa! The moon of the earth is disappearing!

Claxon: If'n the earth moon disappears, then the whole of the cosmos will be thrown into chaos!

Samuel: And any satellite could be next.

Claxon: Or planet, even!

Felton: [groans] You think?

Pemily: There’s hairier information to impart. I got a deputy. She’s a cyborg named Delores County, and she’s whip smart, same as I’m whip tough. We get along despite our differences, and sometimes we learn along the way that we ain’t so different.

Sparks: All right. Well, sounds great. She got a theory about how or why your moon’s disappearin’?

Pemily: Oh, more'n that. She’s pinpointed the source of the danger to thousands of years ago in the past!

Samuel: If I may…time is dangerous. Just my opinion.

Sparks: All right.

Claxon: Second!

Pemily: Deputy County rigged a mechanism whereby she can send someone to the past to stop what’s causing my moon to disappear!

Sparks: OK, well, like I said, I’ve kind of got my hands full right– ooooh, you know what? Hang on.

[Sound of laser blasters]

Claxon: Yeoow! You shot my dumb hands off!

Samuel: Hey! We’re in a time out!

Sparks: Yeah, but…

[Sound of laser blasters]

Samuel: My…my guns! You shot 'em to pieces!

Dan: I am lowering and droppin’ my gun, Marshal.

Sparks: Very good.

Dan: Well…let me tell you, cosmic little stuff is a strong argument not to shoot Marshals.

Sparks: Mmm-hmm.

Claxon: Plans go out the window for the sake of the cosmos, dude.(?)

Sparks: All right. Pemily? Now I can probably go.

Pemily: Oh, great. I’ll activate the remote temporal shift beam to your coordinates.

Sparks: All right, and I will just stand right here.

Croach: Sparks Nevada. You shot the metal enemy whose firearm was aimed at me. I am now under onus to you for saving me.

Sparks: No, great.

Croach: My final onus.

Sparks: Croach, we’ll talk about your onus when I get back, all right? For now, just…wha–?

[Sound of time travel]

Croach: Oooooonnnuuuuuuuusssssssss!

Cecil: Today you will meet a beautiful stranger. Actually, hundreds of beautiful strangers. Everyone is beautiful and you know almost none of them.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Great news, listeners! Today is the First Annual Destroy the Moon Festival, sponsored by the Civic Committee for Public Holidays and Private Silent Weeping for No Reason You Can Name. All citizens are encouraged to gather in Mission Grove Park, where we will attempt to destroy the moon.

The hastily-formed Civic Committee, which just sort of popped up last Wednesday – and, like most local organizations, is anonymously managed – is also encouraging you to bring your children to the festival.

Or, if you do not have children, to bring someone else’s children.

Or, if children aren’t even real, and this existence is all a collective unconscious of incomprehensible nightmares, then just bring a canned good for $5 off your admission.

In any case, bring as many children and canned goods as possible.

“We’ll need them later,” says the Civic Committee. “Not for anything to do with the moon,” they added. “For something else. It’s a surprise. Look, forget we said anything. We just don’t want to ruin it,” the Civic Committee said from the loudspeakers recently mounted atop each of our homes. “But definitely bring those kids and canned goods,” they added, which was then followed by a maniacal laugh. “Oh, hey. This microphone is still on,” they concluded.

Listeners? We’re getting reports that there is a strange being in town. It arrived here quite suddenly, I assume, in a chariot from the sky with wheels of fire and the background hum of the cosmos taken corporeal form as its celestial force. Since I am a professional journalist, this is what I must assume. Or, maybe it just drove into town in a mid-priced sedan. There’s lots of ways to get here, and there are some ways you cannot.

This stranger is interfering with our Destroy the Moon Festival, asking us things about the moon, and our intentions for its future; asking kind of bizarre things like, “Why do you attempt to destroy the satellite designated the moon?”

Listeners, I know there are no dumb questions, just dumb realities, but even I can’t explain that one.

I’m receiving varying reports about the stranger’s appearance. It is: tall, with blue skin, bulging black eyes, and common human-like antennae. So, there are very few details that would make the stranger stand out from most people.

Either way, keep a close eye out for strangers. And if you see someone you do not know, point and shout, “Interloper!” as is our friendly Night Vale custom.

And now, let’s have a look at traffic.

Picture a dog. But with more scales, and less imbecile enthusiasm. And then some more scales. Ooh! And also a biomechanic forked tongue. Are you all picturing that?

Now, picture that dog with horns. Great and terrible horns, curving ivory spirals stained with the slow-moving prey. Here, in your mind, breathing – not the crest and trough of inhales and exhales made by plain binary lungs, but a multi-stage gasp of air. In, in, in, out. In, in, out. Not so much a breath of life, but a whispered suggestion of something much, much worse.

Picture this dog. Close your eyes, if you must, but you will see it either way. And it will see you either way.

Are you picturing the dog? You are? Good.

So, yeah. Um, maybe avoid unarmed travel on Route 800 between exits 10 and 13 today. This has been traffic.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

Today’s sponsor is, um…oh, well I’ve never actually heard of this brand, it is Patriot brand cigarettes. And of course, to represent them, popular celebrity spokes-being Deb, who is a sentient patch of haze.

Deb: Well, hello there, Cecil!

Cecil: Hi!

Deb: How are things going with the moon?

Cecil: Oh, I’m glad you asked. We have been trying and trying…

Deb: I don’t care.

Cecil: OK.

Deb: It was a rhetorical question, like “do you love me?” or “what is your social security number?”

Cecil: Ohh. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at picking up on social cues.

Deb: I am here on behalf of Patriot brand cigarettes. Listen, sure, cigarettes will give you cancer. Sure, you’ll experience pain. Sure, a lot of pain. Sure, coughing. Sure, sadness. Sure, days spent looking from a bed that you can’t leave to the neon glow of a sky that you can’t help, through a window that you can’t open. Sure. All of that, sure.

But I – I don’t actually– I don’t have a counter-point to that. It all just sounds like a bunch of human problems that don’t really affect a sentient patch of haze. So just buy some Patriot brand cigarettes. What’s the worst that could happen? I don’t care.

Cecil: Well, thank you, Deb. That sounds terrifying and deadly!

Deb: Oh, gosh, Cecil! You know how to just flatter a sentient patch of haze.

Cecil: Yeah.

Deb: Goodbye, human.

Cecil: Oh, OK.

Well, the First Annual Destroy the Moon Festival has hit on a few hitches. In addition to the terrifying outsider confusing everyone with questions about why we want to destroy that hideous, mocking rock, the festival attendees have been struggling to actually destroy the moon.

They’ve been throwing things at the moon for hours now. They’ve tried common household rubbish, like coffee filters and pets, but those did very little to harm the moon. In fact, most of the objects simply arced and fell after only 20 feet or so, dropping uselessly to the earth we all know and distrust.

Some of the citizens tried throwing the kids and canned goods, but no, no no. That’s just incorrect.

“Those things are for something else,” the Civic Committee reminded. “Something that will come later.”

Save the kids and cans for that, listeners.

But beside that, it doesn’t matter what we throw, as none of it can seem to make it to even half as high as the moon, however high that thing is. “I dunno, sixty feet? At least?” say reputable and very cute scientists, whose turn it is to call me tonight, about…you know, seven, or six, yeah…anyway, scientists agree that the whole “throwing things” plan is just not working. Actually, you know what? Call me at six. Carlos? Call me at six. Cool.

Um, I have invited my friend, former intern and current all-powerful Night Vale mayor, Dana Cardinal, into the studio. Um, she’s been out at the festival all day.

So, Dana, tell us what’s been happening?

Dana: Thanks, Cecil. As you know, the Destroy the Moon Festival started slowly, but we should not worry. I talked to the Civic Committee, and throwing things was just the first plan. There are many others. The next plan is that we all should direct hurtful remarks at the moon. Don’t hold back. Here, I’ll demonstrate.

[Clears throat]

Hey moon! Your glow is the death rattle to the breaking light of day! You symbolize all that is meek and obscured and radiant with shame. And also, you’re just a big old dumbo on top of all that, you stupid piece of rock that couldn’t even escape orbit and float away forever into the forever away.

Do you want to give it a try?

Cecil: Oh, umm, OK.

[Clears throat]

I do not understand you or your history, and so I fear and detest you!

Dana: Good! That was very good, Cecil.

Cecil: Thank you.

Dana: I really want to get the word out to everyone going to the festival today to be prepared to cast great insults at that ridiculous gray circle. Or half-circle. Or crescent shape or…whatever it is. Ugh! It’s always changing! It’s like, make up your mind, idiot!

Cecil: Right? Totally!

OK, listeners, um, you heard Dana, let’s all practice. What I want you to do is imagine the moon is above you. Just imagine me holding up my hand right now. And now, imagine that my hand is the moon. And I want you to fill your lungs with air, the air that you take for granted, and shout an insult at the moon. Let’s say, “I hate you, moon!”

Crowd: I hate you, moon!

Cecil: Great, now do it louder.

Crowd: I hate you, moon!

Cecil: Even louder!

Crowd: I hate you, moon!

Cecil: OK, that was great! Yeah!

So, um, now imagine that my hand is down (which it is), and when you’re in Mission Grove Park, that is what you should do. We are going to vanquish this foolish nocturnal glow orb once and for all.

And while you silently continue to practice your shouting, I take you now to the weather.

Steve Carlsberg: Excuse me! Cecil! Wait, stay where you are! Please!

Cecil: No! No, no, no, no, no!

Steve: Oh, yeah.

Cecil: Do not come into my radio studio and interrupt important weather updates, Steve Carlsberg! You have destroyed the sanctity of my working environment.

Steve: OK. Look, Cecil, I’ve been watching what’s happening with the Destroy the Moon festival, and I found out some things. Important things. Things that may be of interest to your listeners.

Cecil: Dana, does it smell weird in here? It kind of smells weird, right?

Steve: Look, contrary to what our science teachers have told us, Night Vale, the moon is a real thing. It is not 60 feet off the ground, but hundreds of thousands of miles away from us!

Cecil: [Laughing] Oh, no you…

Steve: In space!

Cecil: I…I can’t. [Cecil snorts]

Steve: Yes! Yes! In fact, American astronauts have visited the moon several times!

Look, look. I know most scientists will tell you that the moon is a universally shared dream. Scientists have long said that there’s not really a moon there, and that no one is actually seeing a moon, but we all pretend that we do, because we are told from an early age that it is there.

Astronomers believe the moon to be part of a cultural narrative, and…and if we stop believing there was a moon, it simply would no longer be there, not unlike what happened to the dinosaurs. But I found this heavily-charred, yet still-legible book.

Dana: Steve? I think that book was supposed to be destroyed in last week’s bimonthly library cleanse. I don’t know if that’s safe to read.

Steve: You’re right, Dana, which is why I avoided reading most of it. Also, because I don’t like looking directly at words. But this one last part? It stood out. Look here. Read this last line of the final chapter.

Dana: “So, in conclusion, the moon is totally real. You’d better believe it.”

And then there’s a winking smiley face with two finger guns on either side. Wow, Cecil, Steve may be onto something. This looks like real science!

Carlos: 'Scuse me, I might be able to help better determine what is and isn’t science, OK? Like, for instance, minivans? Science. Horses? Pure fiction.

Cecil: Carlos! What are you doing here? No, wait…did you find your way back from that other desert world already?

Carlos: No, I’m just projecting myself here. It’s actually a trick that Dana taught me. I can’t do it for long, or physically interact with anything, though.

Cecil: Aww.

Cecil and Carlos: Dang.

Dana: Right?

Carlos: I felt that something very unusual and dangerous is about to happen, and I knew that Night Vale would need someone who knew what is and isn’t science.

Steve: But it’s…all due respect, but it’s in the book!

Cecil: Anyone can write a book, Steve. It doesn’t mean that it’s true. Have you ever read A Hundred Years of Solitude? Not a single true thing in that book. Entirely made up. People are all like, “This book is so good, like, such a classic of postmodern literature,” but it’s entirely lies! This is the problem with books, Steve! Lies!

Croach: The book is correct.

Cecil, Dana, and Steve: Interloper!

Carlos: Oh, uh, right. Interloper!

Cecil: No, Did you not see the ON AIR sign outside the door?

Croach: I detected no such sign with any of my myriad senses.

Steve: Yeah, me neither, with my seven of them.

Dana: Me neither.

Cecil: Well, I wrote right here on my to do list, um, “Put ON THE AIR sign above studio door.”

Carlos: Cecil, is there a line through that item?

Cecil: Noooo…

Carlos: What about a check mark?

Cecil: Uh, noooo…and I don’t understand what you’re getting at.

Croach: Humans! I have come here to…to, uh…

Steve: Night Vale?

Croach: Night Vale…

Carlos: Uh, sorry, no, it’s Night Vale.

Croach: That is what I said, Night Vale.

Dana: Night Vale.

Croach: Please cease attempting to destroy the satellite designated the earth’s moon, denizens of Night Vale.

Cecil, Carlos, Steve, and Dana: Night Vale!

Croach: Do you not know what the destruction of your single moon would do to your planet?

Cecil: Pshh! Most likely nothing!

Dana: Maybe even good things.

Carlos: I know exactly what it would do, thank you very much. I mean, what is science but an exact knowledge of what the future holds, OK?

Croach: Bagropa! Human, your teeth and hair are the finest teeth and hair I have ever encountered! No. No, second-finest. No, finest. First. No, you– you know, top two.

Cecil: Yeah. Yeah. Right?

Steve: Look, everybody, I’d listen to this guy! He seems to understand things about space. He looks like a person that…

Croach: Mmm. Not a person.

Steve: OK, like a guy, then, who…

Croach: No.

Steve: Like a sentient entity that understands the careful balance of the cosmos. Where are you from, anyway, stranger?

Croach: I am from G'loot Praktaw.

Dana: I don’t know what that is.

Croach: You designate it Mars.

Cecil: Nope, still does not ring a bell.

Steve: Never heard of it.

Carlos: I am a scientist and so I, of course, know exactly whatever that place he said was, so…

Dana: Yeah, don’t know it.

Croach: I have come from Mars, and the future, to this time and place to relieve my onus and to save the moon of this planet. Who is this Civic Committee that has been planning to destroy your moon?

Cecil: Nobody knows.

Dana: Oh, I do.

Cecil: Oh.

Dana: I met them yesterday, a couple of really nice robots.

Carlos: Robots? That is exciting!

Croach: You possess robots in this place, in this time?

Dana: Yeah, made of metal. Inexplicably filled with life and aimless sentience, like everybody else. Robots. Oh, they’re right over there!

Claxon: That’s right, blue skin! We are still in the future, standing with your endocrine system-having pal back on your red planet and we are also here in the past, fixin’ to bring down the moon.

Samuel: Yeah, we don’t care about no moon!

Claxon: Nope! I shot a moon of Pluto just to watch it die.

Samuel: Folks are always excited about their moon, writin’ poetry and understandin’ the tides and paintin’ pictures of a waning gibbous pseudo orb gently lighting a soft silver forest lining a crystalline lake as a family of deer peer out from the shadows of winter trees.

Claxon: Yeah. And always goin’ on about the way the clouds seem like a reflection of the moonlight, which is a reflection of the sunlight, which is a reflection of a history so distant it wisps away like clouds.

Samuel: We do not like it.

Dana: Wait, what did you need with the kids and canned goods?

Samuel: Oh, we set up a kids craft fair near the festival and started a canned food drive for the needy.

Claxon: There’s also a bounce house.

Samuel: Ooh, yeah, right, there’s a bounce house too.

Claxon: Should be fun for them and…and support a real good cause.

Samuel: Adios!

Cecil: Oh…OK.

Carlos: My detector’s telling me that those scientifically fascinating robots have left through time using a remote temporal shift beam. Just so you know.

Croach: Without direct communication with the human Marshal designated Pemily Stallwark across time and space, I have no way to follow them.

Cecil: No, wait, we have a radio tower. And that is for communicating.

Dana: Or you could just use my temporal shift beam.

Croach: You possess your own temporal shift beam?

Dana: Um, everyone does. The City Council decriminalized time travel months ago.

Croach: Then I shall pursue them. Oh, it is your device. Do you wish to come? I do not care to be under onus to a past being.

Dana: I’ve spent enough time moving weirdly through time and space. It was so-so. Not really my thing, so you boys go on ahead.

Cecil: You know what? I’ll join you. I’ve always wanted to know if the future was real, or an elaborate urban legend.

Dana: Here, let me Just find my temporal shift beam. It’s somewhere in my bag, just…

Cecil: Listeners? Stay tuned next for a digital sound effect, an empty stage, and several minutes of people moving about the theater to buy drinks and chat and use restrooms.

And, as always: goodnight, Night Vale.

Croach: Night Vale.

Steve: Incorrect.

Dana: Oh, I found it!

Cecil: Goodnight.

[Beep]

Joseph Fink: End of Side A. Please turn to Side B.

Cecil: Ladies and gentlemen, and all betwixt, between, and beyond: we were so rudely interrupted by a disgrace to our decent…

Steve: Hi, everyone!

Cecil: Yes, him. We were interrupted before we could give you some important climate information, so…

Steve: Yeah, I’m real sorry about that, Cecil.

Cecil: Oh my goodness.

Steve: I just…I had some important information to convey!

Cecil: So, I take you all…

Steve: I think it turned out OK, though. I mean, I said the information, and now that the whole moon business is really starting to heat up…

Cecil: Yes.

Steve: You know, uh…

Cecil: As I was saying, listeners of every kind, I take you now…

Steve: Oh-ho, this is my favorite part!

Cecil: Steven Eugene Carlsberg! Please!

I take you now to…

Steve: Oh-ho-ho boy, I can’t wait!

Cecil: You know what? That’s it. Forget it. There’s no actual weather report for today. So…let’s just jump right…

Steve: No no no no no no no no, wait! I have a weather report!

[Clears throat]

♫ Who’s that? Flyin’ at the speed of light? ♫
♪ Who’s that? Full of might and out of sight? ♪
♫ When Apex City’s cursed by crime, ♫

Cecil: OK. No you…

♪ He’s on the scene in laser time! ♪

Cecil: No, no, no, no, no, no. We– we’re done here.

Steve: Okey doke. See ya! Hahahaha!

Cecil: And now, a word from our sponsors. Today’s sponsor is WorkJuice brand coffee.

Now, for some reason, they sent us a script that was completely inappropriate for use in advertising, like…you should have seen this thing, it was bizarre! Honestly, I have never seen an ad quite like it. It was really…gross, and it talked about things like what the product does, and how to buy it.

So I did them the favor of rewriting that obvious mistaken release and now it is a very effective ad, if I do say so myself.

That preface aside, let’s hear from WorkJuice.

Ad-Man 1: It’s an updated script. What is this? It’s covered in…is this tar?

Ad-Man 2: We’re on!

Ad-Man 1: Boy, I’m tired after this long work day. If only there was some way of feeling more aware! More awake!

Ad-Man 2: Well, have you tried…I can barely read this!

Ad-Man 1: More awake! More of a human! More…me! Or…more mes. If the whole world was me, and we had no need to communicate, or fight, or work, or do anything but stand there and know what all the rest of us were thinking, because…we would all be thinking those things at the same time.

Ad-Man 2: My fingers are burning!

Ad-Man 1: Every once in a while one of us would smile in acknowledgement of what we were thinking, but only one of us. The rest of us would not need to smile, because that one single one of us would have done it for the rest of us. So we would all know that, and do nothing.

Ad-Man 2: Does this even mention WorkJuice Coffee? You should drink WorkJuice Coffee!

Ad-Man 1: That is mostly what we would do! Knowing and nothing, knowing and…nothing. And we would age, grow, and gray at the exact same rate and to the exact same height. And then, one day, we would all be gone. All at once. And no one would have to be sad, or miss anyone.

Ad-Man 2: I can’t move my arms. I can’t feel my body! What is on this script?

Will you touch me? Touch me, just…to let me know I am real?

Ad-Man 1: Yes.

WorkJuice brand coffee! Because we will, all of us, die together in one glorious moment.

Ad-Man 2: My fingers! Where are my fingers? My…knees!

S'tonge: It’s me! S'tonge of the Galaxium! As an all-seeing cosmic entity, it’s my blessing and curse to alone watch the universe – even the boring stuff – but not to do anything about it. Like, I can’t create a mate out of nothing but space powers and loneliness to watch the universe with and talk to about what’s happening out there. Nope! Because she will eventually leave when she discovers what I did.

“Maybe she wouldn’t leave,” I know, “thanks to omniscience,” you may be saying.

Well, you just proved y'all don’t have omniscience. She would leave.

When we last left our heroes, Earth’s moon was disappearing. Two of Sparks Nevada’s robot rogues were maybe to blame, and Croach the Tracker traveled through time and space to the root of the problem, the desert town of Night Vale.

We now bring you Act 3 of the Great Thrilling Adventure Hour/Welcome to Night Vale Crossover, precisely where we left our Marshal, in the Marshal’s Station.

Sparks: …talk about your onus, when I get back, Croach, but for now…

Croach: Sparks Nevada, I have returned.

Sparks: From where?

Croach: From the past.

Sparks: You…moved?

Pemily: Uh-huh. My deputy’s chronal shifts are precise. Croach? Marshal Nevada didn’t even know you was gone!

Sparks: Did you pay extra for that?

Pemily: …Little bit.

Sparks: Little bit, yeah.

Croach: I did not return under the power of the chronal shift of the deputy of the Marshal of the moon of the earth. I returned under the power of…bagropa! Where are the humans who accompanied me from the past?

Sparks: Wait, you brought folk back with you? Didn’t you read the Handbook of USSA Time Travel Standards, Updated Edition?

Croach: I disagreed strongly with the tone taken in the foreword.

Sparks: You can’t…ugh, Croach.

Felton: Marshal! Heeellllp! Croach done caused a temporal paradox!

Croach: I did not!

Felton: You maybe did!

Croach: I did not! Unless the denizens of Night Vale stopped to attempt to introduce the weather and initiate an advertisement in the middle of transport, thus losing them in time, in which case they caused at least one paradox.

[Sound of materialization]

And now they have un-caused it.

Cecil: Um, it’s pronounced Night Vale.

Croach: Night Vale.

Sparks: Yeah, that’s what he said, Night Vale.

Cecil: No, no, Night Vale. Like, use your mouth.

Sparks: Use my mouth? I’m us– OK. Night Vale.

Carlos: Night Vale.

Croach: Night Vale.

Sparks: Night Vale.

Croach: Night Vale.

Sparks: Night –

Croach: Do not even bother, Sparks Nevada.

Felton: Are you…from the past?

Carlos: Yeah! Doesn’t everything originate from the past?

Felton: Can you reveal elements of the past?

Cecil: I suppose.

Felton: What’s gonna have happened to me?

Sparks: You know…that’s not how it…all right…never mind, Felton.

All right, I’m Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars. I’m……from Earth.

Steve: Same. Steve. Carlsberg.

Sparks: No.

Steve: With an E.

Felton: With an E? J– Just one?

Steve: What?

Felton: What?

Steve: What?

Felton: What?

Steve: Whats?

Felton: What whats?

Steve: What? What what? What?

Felton: I already do not like this guy.

Sparks: All right, let’s not…

Carlos: Uh, if I may, I’m Carlos. I’m a scientist.

Sparks: Oh, a scientist. What, uh, what kind?

Carlos: I, uh, I’m sorry, I don’t understand?

Sparks: Well, there are all kinds of…like, what sort of area…uh, we get a lot of mad scie– uh, like, what’s your field of study, I guess?

Carlos: Uhh, science.

Sparks: Okey doke. And you?

Cecil: Um, I’m Cecil Palmer, I’m the host of Night Vale Community Radio.

Sparks: Yeah…Yeah, I don’t know what that is. Anyway, welcome to Mars.

Cecil: Yeah, I don’t know what that is.

Sparks: You don’t know what Mars is?

Carlos: Uh, I know exactly what it is. Yeah, I’ve, um, I’ve written papers.

Sparks: All right.

Carlos: Um, not about, uh, whatever this place is…

Sparks: Mars.

Carlos: …specifically, yeah, but…you know, still. Papers. About things.

Sparks: OK, but you know it’s a place.

Claxon: It’s a planet, you ignoramuses!

Cecil: No, my very efficient City Council gave us nine prophecies…nope. I don’t…I don’t know what it is.

Samuel: Well, it ain’t not one, that’s for sure.

Dan: Well, he ain’t wrong.

Howdy! Nice Man Dan.

Cecil: Ohh! You seem nice!

Sparks: Yeah, listen you…you all seem nice, all right? Cecil seems really nice here, but…you understand, I can’t allow you to be in our time. You’ve likely got past germs all over you, stuff we eradicated generations ago, like, uh, I don’t know, help me out.

Dan: Sinus infections…

Sparks: Si– yes, sure.

Cecil: Um, I’m battling Lyme disease.

Sparks: What is that?

Dan: You know Space Lyme disease?

Sparks: Sure.

Dan: Lyme disease is the past version of it. I’m a history buff.

Sparks: Oh.

Carlos: Of diseases exclusively?

Dan: And maladies. I made a diorama I called Germs: Then and Now. If anyone wants to see a diorama.

Steve: All right, just…hold up, all right? Now, how do we know that you guys don’t all have future germs? You know, like, stuff we don’t even know about? Little robots the size of your cells, that flow through your blood stream like teeny tiny construction workers…itus? That’s probably what they call it? I bet?

Croach: It is designated Nah Nohtek, and it exists within all of the glorious people, and it is glorious.

Steve: I was right?

Cecil: Yes, shut up, Steve Carlsberg. Nobody asked you, and nobody ever will.

Croach: I possess no affection for the human designated Steve Carlsberg.

Steve: I can hear you…

Cecil: Yes!

Steve: …buddy!

Croach: I am not your buddy.

Pemily: Hey, hey, everyone? Moon’s still disappearing. Catastrophe ain’t averted!

Cecil: Oh, my gosh. This is embarrassing.

Steve: It’s not our fault.

Croach: It is somewhat your fault.

Carlos: Mostly it’s the scientifically fascinating robot’s fault!

Samuel: Are you pointin’ keratin fingernails and their friends fingers at us, intimatin’ we’re disappearing the moon, while simultaneously rubbin’ in the fact that I ain’t got no fingers’ pal’s hands, due to the Marshal shootin’ 'em off me?

Pemily: If it’s their fault, reckon I know who to shake until they stop wreckin’ my moon!

Sparks: All right, no no no no. I’m handling this, Marshal.

Pemily: My moon’s in peril, Marshal!

Sparks: And I’m taking care of it, Marshal.

Pemily: Not yet you’re not! We’re streaming ourselves over, Marshal!

Sparks: No, don’t come here! It’s gonna be too crowded…

Pemily: Initiate a stream, Deputy County!

[Sound of materialization]

Delores County: Howdy, everyone. Deputy Delores County.

Sparks: Howdy.

Delores: I am a cyborg, howdy. Deputy Delores County, from the moon, howdy.

Claxon: Pleasure.

Samuel: Pleasure.

Croach: Howdy.

Delores: Deputy Delores County, hello. Nice to meet you. Deputy Delores County, cyborg from the moon…

[everyone calling out greetings]

Delores: Delores County, moon.

Pemily: Yeah, they got it. All right.

Whoo! It’s crowded in here, Marshal! Our Marshal Station on the moon is, uh, way roomier.

Sparks: Yeah, well you ain’t probably got Martians, local folk, robot outlaws, time travelers, cyborgs, and Moon Marshals crowdin’ it up.

Pemily: Uh-huh. Uh, yeah, we got one fewer, one fewer, uh, three fewer, two fewer, and…same, and same. Round thereabouts.

Sparks: Yeah.

Dan: Tell you what, it is feelin’ crowded, and I can’t see what I’m adding to this situation, nor what Felton adds…

Felton: Hey!

Dan: So, uh, well, what say I take him for a drink at the saloon? That’d be two of us out of your hair.

Sparks: Oh, I cannot stay mad at you, Nice Man Dan!

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Sparks: All right, now Dr. Carlos is saying it’s these robots to blame for the earth moon falling apart, right?

Cecil: Well, you see, in Night Vale, a Civic Committee for Public Holidays and Private Silent Weeping for No Reason You Can Name was formed, and they sponsored the First Annual Destroy the Moon Festival.

Sparks: Destroy the moon? What, with like, bombs?

Cecil: Nooo…

Sparks: A really big…really big gun?

Carlos: Uh, eh…not exactly.

Sparks: A bunch of…really small guns? How’re we doin’ this?

Cecil: Um, well? We threw things at it.

Pemily: Huh. I’m from the moon, fella, and I don’t think that could destroy it.

Cecil: Ooh! Uh, we also called it names.

Steve: And…and we generally insulted it.

Cecil: Mmm-hmm.

Pemily: That ain’t gonna destroy my moon neither.

Sparks: And that don’t explain why we hold these two responsible.

Claxon: With your fingers! Insult to injury.

Cecil: Well, these two robots were the aforementioned Civic Committee.

Sparks: Wait a sec. How is that even possible?

Samuel: That ain’t possible!

Carlos: Everything ain’t ain’t possible always. Possibility is manifest in every corner of the void of our reality.

Claxon: I ain’t in the past! I’m here. Where I am.

Samuel: Yeah, me too! Maybe even more'n him! We don’t even have the means to time travel, let alone knowin’ what to do when we get there.

Carlos: I mean, you could have stolen someone else’s personal temporal shift beam generators.

Cecil: Yeah, sure, they’re everywhere. I mean, I’ve got one here in my fanny pack.

Delores: Now what’s that, an external fanny pack?

Cecil: Wait…you have an internal one?

Delores: Yeah. Cyborg…so, uh…

Cecil: Oh. That must be nice.

Delores: Hey, yours is nice, too. Probably easier to access, and colorful. I like it.

Cecil: Thank you.

Carlos: I tell him he looks like a baby boomer mom out on a cruise vacation.

Croach: All right.

Pemily: If you say so.

Delores: Whatever rocks your boat.

Sparks: I don’t know, cadence and all, it sounds like a contemporary reference. It is lost on us.

Claxon: Well, the fact it’s on the outside of you, just danglin’ a temporal shift generator in there means it is ripe for the stealin’.

[Brief sound of a struggle]

Or would be, for somebody with the hands to do it.

Sparks: Yeah, you don’t have any.

Samuel: I got hands. Watch!

[Briefer sound of a fanny pack unclipping]

Cecil: No! My fanny pack!

[Unzipping sound]

Samuel: Here we go!

[Sound of materialization]

Sparks: What…happened?

Pemily: They’re still here.

Samuel: Uh, we ain’t. We’re back.

Claxon: Ain’t never thought settin’ up a Civic Committee could be such a laugh! Remember that one fella?

“Ooh, my name is Hiram McDaniels! Ooh, I’m a five-headed dragon and I’ve got plans for Night Vale too! Heh-heh-heh!”

Cecil: You know, that’s exactly what he sounds like.

Samuel: We didn’t let him join, for obvious reasons.

Claxon: That one head.

Samuel: Ugh. So we all was right. We set in motion events to disappear the moon. And that ain’t all.

Claxon: Bye-bye, Marshal!

Sparks: Bye-bye Mar– me?

Claxon: No!

Pemily: Hey! Hey, I’m…I’m disappearing!

Delores: Marshal Stallwark!

Pemily: Wh– what’s happening to me?

Claxon: Oh, we made some adjustments to the timeline. Capriciously, I admit, but, uh, we just wanted to see if'n they’d take.

Samuel: We fixed it so’s you’re no longer the winner of the lottery-filled bloodsport in which you made your name: beating the caste system by being the last kid standing in a lethal game of intramural soccer.

Pemily: But…but if'n I didn’t win the punishment soccer, then that means I…I lost. I died.

Claxon: Bye, little human with girl chromosomes!

Pemily: Now I remember. Lucky side tackle Jessica! [Coughs] Nice having known you, Nevada. Croach. Only I…I didn’t.

[Pemily fades in a sound of chimes]

Sparks: All right, you two are super under arrest. Time crimes ain’t misdemeanors.

Cecil: Actually, in Night Vale, they’ve been downgraded to infractions.

Sparks: Infractions?

Cecil: They were barely worth the citation for most meter readers.

[Sound of materialization]

Sparks: Ohh!

Samuel: And we’re back!

Sparks: Now what?

Claxon: See how I’m wavin’ at you, Nevady?

Sparks: Yeah.

Claxon: I got my hands back!

Samuel: Yeah, hey! Hey! [laughs] I got one. We should, uh, [whispers]…

Claxon: Oh! Good one!

[Sound of materialization]

Samuel: [Maniacal laughter]

Cecil: Oh my!

Sparks: Oh no! What’s the matter, did they kill you too?

Cecil: No, I– I– I– I don’t know how to bowl anymore! And I don’t even know what bowling is!

You monsters!

Claxon: Sam Bolt? What you want to do to Nevady?

Sparks: All right, not so fast. Citizens of Night Vale have temporal shift generators, right?

Cecil: Um, Night Vale. And yes.

Sparks: All right. Give me yours, Steve Carlsberg.

Steve: Uh, I…I can’t.

Cecil: Give it to him, Steve Carlsberg!

Steve: No, no no, I– I want to, but I always misplace it, so I left it at home for safe keeping.

All: Oh, Steve Carlsberg!

Sparks: Carlsberg!

Delores: Enough! All right, I am still here, and without Marshal Stallwark having lived to be my boss, I am an ornery cuss.

Sparks: And why is that?

Delores: You want me to explain the particulars of the space time continuity, or you want me to show you what it means?

Sparks: Uhhhhhhhhhh….honestly?

Delores: Suffice it to say, Chicky Sulliman won a real big star war, and he’s currently emperor of the universe, and I expect the only reason you ain’t a cyborg right now is he likes you.

Sparks: Yeah, OK, one thing at a time.

Claxon: Space time continuity makes my head hurt.

Samuel: Yeah. I don’t even know what y'all are talking about, and I ain’t interested in learning about it nor discussin’ it any further.

Reckon I only aim to shoot this deputy for confusing everything somethin’ powerful.

Delores: Go ahead and try.

Samuel: My guns! Where’d they get to?

Delores: Oh, they got to me destroyin’ them. I got my own time travel tech can’t be stolen nor destroyed, seein’ it’s part of me.

Claxon: We didn’t even hear you shift!

Delores: Had it set to silent.

Sparks: Silent.

Delores: You see, without balance brought by the things that were, I shifted forward in time a ways to upgrade my intelligence and system ops.

Sparks: Oh, I don’t understand what one thing has to do with the other.

Delores: You wouldn’t.

Sparks: Mean.

Carlos: Um, if I may, I think it’s about balance out of balance, going to…you know, she who seeks balance for herself.

Delores: That’s exactly right! Sometimes it takes a past man to tell a future man the present.

Cecil: I couldn’t have said it better myself! And if I could have, I wouldn’t have, because it would have been illegal to do so.

Sparks: What?

Samuel: Well, I aim to shift to before you did it and…[grunts] why ain’t my shifter workin’?

Delores: Bustin’ up your guns and time shifter ain’t all I did.

Cecil: Hey! Bowling! Yes! I remember it, and I love it!

[Piano plays as Pemily returns]

Pemily: There was…darkness. Nothin’. And…numbers. I remember an endless stream of random numbers.

♫ I am a…champion, ♫
♪ and…you’re gonna hear me roar! ♪

Sparks: All right, Marshal Stallwark. Let’s shut these robots down, permanently.

Delores: Not yet, Marshal.

Sparks: What?

Delores: We destroy them now, and the moon’ll just keep on disappearin’. They ain’t who caused its destruction. Nor is it the people of Night Vale.

Cecil: Are you sure? Because our insults were very cutting.

Sparks: All right, what is it, Deputy? What’s causing the moon to disappear?

Delores: Well, me. Paradox due to undoin’ what I undone but still have the upgrades caused by the undone things havin’ been done. [Coughs]

Uh-oh. Ugh. Now that the balance is being restored, I’m becoming the fulcrum of the paradox. Along with the moon.

Cecil: Two fulcrums?

Delores: Because I’m from the moon.

Cecil: I don’t understand.

Carlos: That has the shape and sound of science, I am sure it all makes sense and anyone listening would recognize it as a completely logical explanation.

Felton: Marshal! Marshal! Heeelllp!

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Felton: Nice Man Dan and I were over drinkin’ at the space saloon. An alarm went off due to the situation on Earth’s moon, causing a galaxy-wide domino effect! Not nearly as fun as an actual game of dominoes! But very far! Throughout the galaxy! Balance [audience member sneezes] and…Bless you! And…Balance and order are canceled!

Dan: Looks like the end times. Gotta say, when I thought of dyin’, I always knew it’d be something like this.

Cecil: You always knew it would be due to Earth’s moon disappearing and causing intergalactic turmoil?

Dan: Yup.

Cecil: Me too!

Sparks: Well, I guess if'n this is really the end, then…I’m glad to be surrounded by all y'all. 'Cept you two.

Steve: Oh, come on, we just met!

Sparks: I was talking about the robots, but yeah, you three.

Carlos: Hey, uh, Cecil? If this is the last conversation we have, then let’s just…not have it. I mean, let’s just remember every conversation we’ve had in our lives, going back.

Cecil: I remember every one.

Croach: Sparks Nevada, it pains me that I shall perish while still under onus to you.

Sparks: Consider it a wash.

Croach: I cannot. That is not how onus works.

Sparks: Croach? Your onus to me would be fulfilled if you’d agree that servin’ together had been one adventure after another.

Croach: I agree to that.

Sparks: And, you’ve been, and…well, you’ve been and are my…just my total…my…my best…ffffff…you are my…best fff…

Croach: Your best what, Sparks Nevada?

Sparks: I’m doing it. I’m doing it. Umm. You are…my…

Steve: You’re my best friend, Cecil!

Sparks: What?

Cecil: Wait, me? Really?

Carlos: Him?

Steve: Well…well, yeah.

Cecil: I– Oh! I…

Sparks: All right. No no no, Croach, it’s just that…that is to say, Croach, you are…you are my best…

Croach: What are you expressing, Sparks Nevada?

Pemily: Deputy, you’re my best friend!

Delores: Oh, and you’re mine too, Pem!

Sparks: No, hang on!

Pemily: I love you!

Delores: I love you!

Sparks: OK, let’s not…OK. Croach, I just…

Croach: Sparks Nevada. I possess a single emotion. And it is known as…

[Sound of materialization]

S'tonge: Hello! I am S'tonge. Of the Galaxium?

Sparks: Oh, thank goodness.

S'tonge: I’ve been watching what’s been happening with this great crossover, and I can’t just watch any longer.

Cecil: You’ve just been hanging out, watching our world about to end?

S'tonge: I am of the Galaxium. We’re a timeless, and comics – cosmically-powered race. Comically, too. Cosmically comically-powered race. We are forbidden to interfere with the events of the universe.

Sparks: Yeah, well, I un-forbid you. It totally ain’t against the law.

S'tonge: No, I know, it’s more of an infraction.

Sparks: Infraction?

Pemily: Oh, I’m feelin’ a whole lot of bloodlust towards this guy. Think I’m gonna shoot him.

Delores: Don’t! I…I know S'tonge of the Galaxium due to all my upgrades that are killing me, the moon, and everything.

S'tonge, you have the force galactic, the cosmic energies that make up the makeup of everything.

S'tonge: Yup. But I am unallowed to use them. As I said. Apparently I’m allowed to repeat myself.

Delores: But…you could do it, couldn’t you? You could defy your…what, law?

S'tonge: More of a local ordinance.

Sparks: All right, well, then do it. Yeah, do it. Defy the heck out of it, I’ll take what comes.

S'tonge: I don’t know…

Cecil: Um, S'tonge, is it?

S'tonge: S'tonge? You pronounced my name correctly!

Cecil: Yes. S'tonge, now, if you can help us, do! We need you to. We humans and…

Croach: [Clears throat] I have simulated the clearing of the single human esophageal tract to draw attention to the fact that I am not human.

Samuel: Uh, us neither.

Cecil: Uh, of course. Um, beings, then. We beings really like…well, being. Um, it– it’s right in the name.

Pemily: I’ve tasted enough death today, let alone in my life. I don’t welcome no more.

Steve: Yeah, without living, there’d be no friendship.

Carlos: No love.

Cecil: No bowling.

Sparks: No paperwork.

Croach: No Sparks Nevada.

Sparks: What?

S'tonge: You beings, I am moved. It’s been a long time since I’ve been moved.

Felton: So you’ll do it? You’ll help us?

S'tonge: I am moved by Sparks Nevada’s bravery.

Sparks: You…are welcome.

S'tonge: By Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s heart.

Cecil: Thank you, and there is quite a bit of blood in it…um, more than I am comfortable admitting.

Sparks: I also got heart, so…

S'tonge: Not as much.

Sparks: Definitely as much.

S'tonge: More bravery. Definitely more bravery than heart.

Sparks: Disagree.

S'tonge: I’m moved by the tenacity of Pemily Stallwark, by the science of Carlos the Scientist. By the skepticism of Steve Carlsberg. By the nice of Nice Man Dan.

Dan: You ain’t so bad yourself.

S'tonge: By your healthy fear, Felton.

Felton: Thanks.

S'tonge: And by the funny orneriness of this one robot.

Claxon: D'aww, shut up.

S'tonge: By the fact that this other one is a really good drummer.

Claxon: You are? I didn’t know!

Samuel: Well…y– you never asked.

S'tonge: By your beauty, Delores County.

Delores: Beauty? Really?

S'tonge: You may be the most beautiful creature in the galaxy.

Delores: Ugh. Yeah, I mean, thanks, I guess. Heap of other qualities by which I choose to define myself, but, uh, you choose my looks. That’s…tellin’.

S'tonge: It is my desire that you become my cosmic bride.

Delores: This is sudden.

S'tonge: Not to me.

Sparks: It is, uh…it is pretty sudden.

Delores: S'tonge, if I decline…

S'tonge: I definitely won’t save your universe.

All: [general groans of protest mixed with encouraging Delores to say yes]

Delores: Now…now, if'n you wanted to save everything so we could date a bit, see how things go, well, I’d be up for that.

S'tonge: Will you marry me, and have a universe? Yes or no?

Sparks: Um, say yes. That is my advice. Say yes.

Delores: Well now, you’re omniscient, you already know my answer.

Sparks: Is it yes? Is it? Is it yes?

S'tonge: I don’t know, actually. I’m being respectful. Laying a solid groundwork for this relationship.

Delores: By blackmailing me with the fate of the universe?

S'tonge: By not peeking.

Delores: The answer…is…no.

S'tonge: Fine. Have a good end of the universe, you guys.

Sparks: Seriously?

Sparks: That ended poorly.

Steve: What was wrong with that guy?

Sparks: Yeah, that was bad.

Steve: I mean…

Delores: Love is what was wrong with him.

Sparks: Yeah, the bad kind of love. How long anyone reckon we got?

Claxon: End’s startin’. My ocular sensors are telling me the moon’s nearly gone.

Pemily: Oh, dumb old time travelin’! Nothin’ good never came from it.

Sparks and Cecil: Wait…

Claxon and Steve: What [is it]?

Sparks: If'n too much time travel caused this disaster…

Cecil: Then it stands to reason that we can fix it the same way.

Croach: That is unsound reasoning.

Carlos: Yeah. And that makes no scientific sense.

Cecil: No, listen, it does!

Sparks: It does. We still got time travel in our pocket, or Deputy County’s, more specifically.

Cecil: She can go back!

Delores: Yeah, but if I go back, I’ll destroy everything!

Sparks: Unless you go to before this all happened…

Cecil: And stop it all from ever happening.

[Sound of two palms slapping together]

Cecil: That was my very first high five!

Sparks: Well, you are great at it.

Cecil: Thank you!

Steve: Wait, wait, wait! If that happens, then none of us would ever have met!

Cecil: I am 100% OK with that. [Perhaps a “No offense” under his breath – I didn’t hear it but it works with Sparks’ next line.]

Sparks: None taken. All right, let’s do it. And by “let’s,” I mean “you.”

Delores: Yeah. Yeah, I think I can do that. But…I may never come back. Marshal Stallwark, may I tender my resignation?

Carlos: Guys! This won’t work, according to science, OK? If no one’s going to listen to science, I’m just going to project myself back into the Otherworld desert dimension, where I live. OK? Good luck, Delores. I’m sure you’ll be fine. Cyborgs are always fine. I’ll talk to you again soon, Cecil.

Cecil: All right. I love you.

Carlos: I love you, too.

Pemily: I, uh, I…accept your resignation, deputy.

Delores: Love you too, boss.

Croach: And I…lo–

Sparks: Save it. Yup.

Cecil? It’s been interesting getting to meet you. You got a soothing voice, and I think that helped folk. Also, you got a lot of heart.

Cecil: Well, tha–

Sparks: Not as much as me, but you got plenty of heart.

Cecil: And this was all like being in a western! You know, I also love every film that Lee Marvin has made. Howdy adios Marshal! Howdy adios.

Sparks: What? Those are two tot– All right. Bye.

Delores: Diverting power…to do this. Won’t…be…silent.

[Sound of time travel stuff happening]

Sparks: Felton! What kind of trouble?

Felton: What kind of trouble? The worst kind! Robot outlaws! Also a human who ain’t a robot, but who is an outlaw. I runned out soon as they started talking about gunnin’ for you, Marshal! So’s you’d have enough time to prepare yourself for their eventual arrival here! At…

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Claxon: Which one of you flesh and bone and blood and nerves and organs-havin’ so-and-sos is Sparks Nevady, Marshal on Mars?

[Sound of something violent happening, accompanied by screams of surprise and pain from Claxon and Samuel]

Dan: Well, there you go. I lured these robot outlaws here to be destroyed for the bounty.

Sparks: So…wait, you two are working together?

Delores: I come from a possible future, Marshal Nevada. And now I have prevented that future.

Sparks: Yeah, OK, I’m just gonna take that at face value.

Dan: So you ain’t interested in the bounty?

Delores: Then the bounty’s mine! Use it to open up a shoe business, I reckon.

Sparks: All right! I’ll fill out the paperwork. Credit should be in your account by end of business today.

Marshal Station AI: The Marshal Station doors are open.

Croach: I also will leave.

Sparks: For good, then?

Croach: Yes. I shall depart. Unless you are somehow responsible for the cyborg having prevented a destructive future.

Sparks: I’m…sure I’m not.

Delores: Um, you kind of were.

Sparks: Uh, no, uh, uh, no. I’m sure it wasn’t that destructive of a future.

Delores: Ehh, universe-ending level destructive.

Sparks: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, I’m sure you did most of the work.

Delores: Based on your idea!

Sparks: Oh, come on!

Croach: Then I am under great onus to you, Sparks Nevada. I will discern just how great via an accounting of what occurred.

Delores: [Sigh] And then afterwards, reckon I’ll go to the moon and resume deputying. Except…there’s another me doing my job. The me that never left. I don’t wanna start paradoxing again. Ugh. If I could do anything, what would I do?

Sparks: Hmm.

Delores: Shoe maker!

Sparks: What?

Delores: What? Where’d that come from?

Sparks: You know, that’s what Nice Man Dan did before, and what he’s liable to do again.

Delores: Nice Man Dan, huh?

Sparks: Yeah.

Delores: He’s nice. Real nice.

S'tonge: Nice Man Dan, huh? She winds up with Nice Man Dan? Makin’ shoes? Fine.

And is this the end of Sparks Nevada? Has he endured a visit from past persons only to find the timeline unchanged?

Well, guess I’ll just keep watching and…

Colonel Tick-Tock: Wait, darling!

S'tonge: Colonel Tick-Tock, bulwark of Her Majesty’s Royal Chronal Patrol!

Cecil: And me, Cecil Palmer!

Dana: And me, mayor of Night Vale, Dana Cardinal.

Tick-Tock: Her Majesty’s timeline has been driven dangerously weird, S'tonge. And only the four of us can repair it.

Cecil: And we know weird.

Dana: I;m basically the mayor of weird.

S'tonge: But…but why are y'all here? What happens in this timeline? Do I become a giant jerk or something?

Cecil: Oh, not you, S'tonge. It’s your kids! Something must be done about your kids!

S'tonge: What about 'em?

Cecil: You’re not supposed to have any!

Dana: It could ruin everything!

Tick-Tock: You must end up alone and bitter!

S'tonge: Great! Then let’s go!

Wait…where’s your trick clock?

Tick-Tock: Trick clock? Where we’re going, we don’t need trick clocks.

S'tonge: Is…is that a DeLorean?

Cecil: Yes, yes it is.

S'tonge: Cool!

[Tires screeching]

[Also at this point I decide to stop trying to figure out who is speaking at which points since the story is over]

And that’s the show!

Acker and Blacker and Joseph and Jeffrey wish to thank everyone behind the scenes, Aaron Ginsburg, Cayenne Chris Conroy, Daniel Davis, and the Ladykiller Crew, and everyone at the Spreckels Theater.

And how about the Andy Paley Orchestra?

Thank you to the WorkJuice Players from the Thrilling Adventure Hour: Craig Cackowski, Hal Lublin, Mark Evan Jackson, and Mark Gagliardi!

And thanks to our pals from Welcome to Night Vale: Jasika Nicole, Dylan Marron, Meg Bashwiner, And Cecil Baldwin!

And thanks to our special guest stars, Jason Ritter, Paul and Storm, Molly Quinn, Janet Varney, Michael McMillian, James Urbaniak, and Wil Wheaton.

This show was written and produced by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker, and Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink!

And it was brought to you by WorkJuice.

From the oral tradition to the aural tradition, tradition shared by the Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale, and WorkJuice.

♫ What greets America with each new morn, ♫
♪ A steamin’ cup of rise and shine ♪
♫ What tastes the best and costs the least, ♫
♪ And keeps the wheels of progress greased? ♪

♫ WorkJuice, WorkJuice, WorkJuice, WorkJuice ♫
♪ WorkJuice, WorkJuice, WorkJuice, WorkJuice ♪

♫ It moves the masses marching proud and strong ♫
♪ In the bravest nation in the land. ♪
♫ It spurs the worker bee to thrive, ♫
♪ Keeps the queen bee in her hive ♪

♫ We sip beneath the spacious skies, ♫
♪ Sweet juice of liberty! ♪
♫ We grind thy beans with brotherhood ♫
♪ From sea to shining sea! ♪

♫ Oh, WorkJuice, we praise thy name ♫
♪ Tis you that molds us from the clay ♪
♫ Oh WorkJuice, mighty WorkJuice! ♫
♪ It’s WorkJuice for the U.S.A.! ♪

15/10/2014 10:00:57 ¶ ●

## Episode 56 - Homecoming

Cecil: It is autumn, and nature is vanishing. It is autumn, and nature is beautiful.

Welcome to Night Vale.

It’s that time of year again, listeners! This Friday night is Night Vale High School’s homecoming game. I’m not much of a sports fan, but this is the one game I truly care about. All of the Night Vale High alumni come together for it. Everyone! Current students, former students, students long dead, future students who aren’t born yet. It’s the one night we can see our loved ones who have been lost to time and mortality. The dead alumni come out at halftime, and we all get to visit with them while the marching bands go spear hunting for dinner.

Aww, I can’t wait to see my late mother again this Friday night. Especially after I found those old cassette tapes last fall. I have so many questions! Important questions! And with Carlos out of town, I’ve gotten kind of isolated. A little…hermit-like lately. I need to get out. This year’s homecoming means more to me than ever.

Plus, we’re playing the Red Mesa High School Ant Carpenters, who were dreadful last year, so…should be a fun night, and a big win for our team.

Team? Team. It’s a football team, right? A baseball club, a soccer unkindness, a hockey murder, a football team. Yes, that’s it. Team.

And now, a public service announcement from the Night Vale Seismological Society, who have released their schedule of upcoming municipally-planned earthquakes.

On Sunday, from 8:00am to 8:30am, there will be a small series of minor tremors. “It’s likely you will feel nothing,” the seismologists say, as these quakes are just to test some new equipment.

At 3:00pm on Tuesday, there will be an enormous earthquake, rating upwards of 7 to 8 on the Richter scale, so, wear long sleeves, or goggles, or gloves…whatever it is you do to be safe during an earthquake. “We’re not entirely sure,” the Night Vale Seismological Society said.

The following Saturday, be ready for anything. They’re not sure what’s going to happen. Maybe nothing! Probably nothing. But…hopefully, something really, really cool. They don’t want to get your hopes up, so just be on the lookout, but…no promises.

“Oh, man! Fingers crossed! This could be super amazing!” the Night Vale Seismological Society said.

This just in: There’s news breaking of a possible scandal involving one of the Night Vale football players. Senior running back Maliq Herrera, according to an investigative report by Leann Hart of the Night Vale Daily Journal, Herrera doesn’t actually exist. Like, he’s right there when you look at him, and he plays in a team of other players, so it would make more sense for him to be there than not. But, Hart claims in her report that the all-district running back is, in fact, completely fabricated.

Anonymous sources say that Herrera is collectively imagined by the Night Vale High School fan base – a shared dream, in the form of a boy who won the district rushing title the past two years, and was Freshman of the Year three seasons ago.

Red Mesa is threatening to cancel this Friday’s game if Night Vale does not bench Herrera, citing District League Rule 12, Article 6, that states: “All players must be real people. Don’t not be a person, OK?” The rule continues, “Because if you’re not really real, man, I’m mad just thinking about it!”

Night Vale High School head coach Nazr al-Mujaheed said they will not bench any player until a full investigation is performed, which can’t happen until Tuesday – maybe Monday at the earliest.

Coach al-Mujaheed then concluded the statement by removing his goat-horned headpiece and comically large sunglasses, revealing tattoos of cat eyes on his eyelids.

“Coooool,” the gathered reporters shouted.

Night Vale? If there’s no game, there’s no homecoming. If there’s no homecoming, we will miss the one chance we have this year to see our lost loved ones! I will miss the chance to talk to my mother! To see many of my friends! To…get out, for once, and…not feel so lonely. We will not have our biggest night of the year to come together as a community. I hope this scandal is not true. And, if it is, that it doesn’t…you know, ruin anything.

Well, there is at least one old friend I’ll get to see. Listeners, I’m so excited for this next segment! My old friend Earl Harlan is in the studio today. Earl is the new sous chef at Night Vale’s hottest new restaurant, Tourniquet. And he’s here to teach us a simple and delicious dessert recipe.

Welcome, Earl.

Earl: It’s good to see you again, Cecil. It’s been a long time.

Cecil: Many of you listening may not know this, but Earl and I grew up together. We fell out of touch for a while, and then he was taken to another world during a Boy Scout ceremony. But I recently saw his name in the news releases about Tourniquet.

Earl: We were very close friends.

Cecil: We were, Earl. What happened after high school? I completely lost track of you.

Earl: Well, I turned 19, and then [chuckles] I was 19 for a long time. I don’t even know how long. I was 19 for longer than I care to admit, and then one day, I was suddenly a grownup. I had a kid, and a house, and a job.

Cecil: Some of us mature early, some of us mature late. It sounds like you had plenty of youth left to live after high school, and you just…came to adulthood later.

Earl: Cecil, I meant that literally. I was literally 19 for…oh, I think it was decades. Maybe a century, or more? I don’t know exactly how long.

Cecil, we graduated the same year, right?

Cecil: Yeah, of course we did! I remember our graduation party. We drank an entire case of warm orange milk, and told dirty jokes about the moon, until we were frightened off by the sunrise.

Earl: What year was that? Cecil? What year did we graduate?

[Prolonged silence]

You don’t remember, do you, Cecil?

Cecil: So, tell us about your recipe, Earl!

Earl: OK, sure thing. [Clears throat] Tiramisu is a popular dessert at many restaurants – especially at Tourniquet – but few people make it at home. Once they hear how easy it is, and how delicious Chef Mason’s recipe is, they’ll want to make it all the time. They’ll want to never stop making tiramisu.

Cecil: Oooh, sounds good!

Earl: NEVER stop making it!

Cecil: Oh-ho.

Earl: They’ll lose their minds making it, Cecil!

Cecil: So…what all do you have here? What will our listeners need?

Earl: Well, everyone should have most of these ingredients already at home. A carafe of pre-made coffee, six eggs – go ahead and separate them into whites and yolks, but make sure to remove organs, teeth, and other debris – uh, salt, two tablespoons of cocoa, 1/3 cup of sugar, two cups of marscapone, which is a kind of fish, a package of gluten-free ladyfinger cookies, two ounces of dark rum, and – Chef Mason’s special culinary touch – one and a half cups of ground nutmeg.

Cecil: Ohhh! I do love nutmeg. Oh…it’s been deveined, right?

Earl: Yes. You can buy deveined nutmeg at most supermarkets, but in case you’re grinding it fresh at home, make sure to remove the thick vein running up the nutmeg spine after you kill and clean the animal.

To start, just whisk the egg yolks and ¼ cup of the sugar in one bowl, and then work in the marscapone. Then, in a separate bowl, you’ll want to mix the egg whites, a pinch of salt, and the remaining sugar until firm, like this.

[Sounds of a gas-powered mixer on a farm]

Cecil: That looks easy!

Earl: It is! Mix that into the first bowl, and add the coffee and the rum. Then, dip the cookies into the mixture, lay them into a baking dish, cover with your ground nutmeg, and…

Cecil: Oh, dear, Earl? I feel so silly saying this, but…there’s no oven here.

Ugh. I brought a professional chef to do a recipe on my show, and I don’t even have a working kitchen!

Earl: [Laughs] Relax, Cecil. We wouldn’t have time to completely cook a tiramisu on the air! It takes hours of slow baking in an earth oven. I already brought a finished tiramisu!

Cecil: Earl! How sweet of you! Oh, this looks delicious! I can’t wait to share it with the staff.

Earl: Be careful, it is quite poisonous.

Cecil: Oh, yes, of course.

Well, thanks for coming on the show, and congratulations on the huge success of Tourniquet. I hope to get a reservation there soon…will you come on the show again with more tasty recipes? Maybe we can make this a regular cooking feature.

Earl: I’d love to, Cecil. I think we really have something here.

Cecil: Me too!

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Terrible news, listeners! Just…terrible news. Red Mesa High School has called off Friday Night’s game. There will be no homecoming. The campers and RVs that had started to fill up the Night Vale Stadium parking lot have begun to file out.

Maliq Herrera, the running back accused of a false existence, apologized for not being more transparent, and for letting down his school and community. The Night Vale School Board forced the team’s hand by suspending Herrera for his corporeal unreality, but…it was too late. The game had already been forfeited.

Our homecoming is no more.

I had…I had so much I wanted to say to my mother! I imagine all of you had so much you wanted to say to your lost loved ones, to…to say to each other. I imagine all that could’ve been, and all that is now lost. Our biggest community event of the year is gone, perhaps because we imagined too much.

And, to make things worse, a, um [clears throat]…a dangerous storm front is moving right now into Night Vale. You should seek shelter immediately from the imminent rain, and as a duty of public safety, I must take you now to the weather.

[“Understood” by Y.R Generation]

It’s been five days, Night Vale, since that weather report began. It was a historically massive storm, and we needed the ongoing weather coverage. I hope you are all OK.

I’m looking at some of you right now, and you seem just fine, so…that’s good news. Sadly, the homecoming game remained canceled. League officials conducted an investigation into Maliq Herrera’s reality and determined he was indeed not real. They said he was tangible, they could feel a body when they touched him, they could hear a voice when they spoke with him. They could see a boy when they looked at him. But Red Mesa coaching staff presented, as evidence, a photograph of the many galaxies of our universe. And, after viewing this, league officials determined that Herrera was too immeasurably small to be considered real.

Coach al-Mujaheed argued that it is unfair to discriminate against someone based on their reality. Just because someone does not exist, does not mean they do not deserve equal rights, equal pursuit of happiness.

Even if al-Mujaheed and Herrera’s appeal holds up in the league, it can’t bring back the homecoming we did not get to have. We did not get to see our dead friends and relatives this year, Night Vale. We had unanswered questions. We had unfulfilled hugs. We had unacknowledged “I miss yous.” We did not get to cry that night the way we wanted to cry that night, Night Vale. The way that, perhaps, we want to cry every night.

And even if there had been a game, the rain from the weekend was so monstrous and so intense that it would have been postponed anyway. There would have been no halftime in that deluge.

But, in spite of all this, coach al-Mujaheed called a pep rally last Friday, in a gesture of support for Maliq Herrera. This – as any time – is when we should join as a town. Despite the game that never was. Students and alumni, unfortunately only those still living, met that night in a rainy parking lot in the well-lit shadow of an empty football stadium.

And we told stories.

Inez Cordova told me about her son, who has started to walk!

Teddy Williams told me he finally rolled a 450 in bowling!

Wilson Levy and Amber Aquini whispered the story of their vacation to Luftnarp last spring!

I told my friend Diane Creighton about Carlos, and how much I miss him, but how proud I am of the great work he is doing. And Diane introduced me to her son, Josh, who is a monarch butterfly. And later, when I saw him, he was a motorbike. Aww, he’s a sweet kid, that Josh.

Everyone was sad, and everything was perfect.

We stayed late into the night under the fluorescent corona of the bleachers, eating damp barbecue, wearing our orange ponchos and telling those tales we wanted to tell to those loved ones who have left us. Telling them instead to those who we currently, or may eventually, love.

Tears were hardly noticeable on our rain-streaked cheeks by the time we said our goodbyes.

“Goodbye!” we all said.

“You too!” we all replied.

“Oh! Let’s stay in touch!” we all added, with wildly varying levels of intention.

Before getting into my car, I saw Maliq Herrera standing alone, wearing a full football uniform…shoulder pads, knee spikes, and all. I told him he’ll be playing again soon, and we’re all on his side. Even though he’s just a figment of our collective unconscious.

He said, “I don’t even like football, sir.” He said he likes painting and bound poetry.

I told him he could be an artist, if he wanted.

“Only if the town imagines that for me,” he said.

“Ahh. Well, you’re a real trooper,” I told him.

“Hmm. Just a trooper,” he said. “I’m not real. I gotta get to practice now, Mr. Palmer.” Then he put on his helmet and jogged away.

“But…it’s 2:00am!” I called out. But he had already vanished into the unrelenting storm.

“It sure is, sir!” he called back faintly in my mind.

I fell asleep easily that night. I dreamed of sun, of being with Carlos again, of a lighthouse that was not a lighthouse. Of a world that is not anything at all. Perhaps a dream of things yet to come.

Huh.

Stay tuned next for a radio program that only dogs can hear.

And as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: I’ve got more rhymes than the Bible’s got Psalms. 151. I’ve got 151 rhymes.