15/02/2014 14:05:00 ¶ ●

## Condos (official release)

This is the officially-released version of Condos, recorded on December 18, 2013 in Brooklyn, New York. If you want the version recorded in San Francisco, California on September 25, 2013, you want the Episode 31.5 transcript.

At last, we are alone. At last we are, all of us, alone together. At last, every human, alone together, on this earth.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Thrilling news, listeners! It has come to our attention that there will be condos for sale, right here in Night Vale. Details on them are a little hazy – for instance, we don’t know what these condos will look like, where they will be located, who is building them, and what they will cost. But in the official brochure for the development, it does say

CONDOS
FOR
SALE

in a thick, all-caps, black scrawl.

One local realtor, speaking under the condition of anonymity, and from within the belly of a grazing deer, said that the condos are a great investment.

“Invest your money in condos,” said the realtor. “Invest your time in condos. Invest your life. Invest emotion and hope. Invest your ideas about the future, invest your disappointment with your ongoing ‘now.’ Invest drops of blood. You lose blood all the time on frivolous accidents, now is the chance to imbue it with purpose and verve. Spill your blood for the condos!”

The realtor was then cut off when the deer was spooked by a passing car and ran away.

Listeners, I don’t know much about condos. I…don’t know much about anything at all, honestly. But I do know this: condos are coming to Night Vale. They will be for sale, and this is great and exciting news for us all!

Well, it seems that just about half the town of Night Vale is lined up outside of the Condo Rental Office, which is located in the Abandoned Gas Station on Oxford Street. Everyone is there.

Janice Rio (from down the street), who was practically hopping up and down with excitement over owning a new condo…whatever a condo is…whatever it looks like; Leann Hart, Publishing Editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal, who was holding a bloodied hatchet, in case she came across any bloggers or online journalists who might threaten her grip on the printed word; Carlos the Scientist. Ahh…

Ahhh, Carlos the Scientist.

He was there, wearing a business-casual lab coat, and analyzing those around him with complicated devices he couldn’t explain without eventually just shaking his head and muttering, “Uhh, science.”

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this on this show, by the way, um,…but Carlos is totally my boyfriend! I just didn’t know if I had brought that up before. He’s— he’s very handsome. And into science. And he is learning to be better about calling when he needs to cancel dates to get some experiments done.

Where was I? Ah, yes.

Even the dreaded Glow Cloud was there, hurling dead animals down upon those in line and intoning, to all that would listen, THE SUN WILL NOT SET AGAIN ON YOUR LIVES! ALL THAT YOU ONCE WERE NOW BELONGS TO ME! BURY YOUR FACE INTO THE BREAST OF THE EARTH AND WORSHIP THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND!

You know, it makes total sense that the Glow Cloud would want one of these condos. I mean, after joining the School Board, and sending your kid to the local school, you know, you need to have a nice place at which to raise whatever strange and terrible creature it is that constitutes your family.

No one could see into the Abandoned Gas Station, so no one knew what the Condo Rental Office looked like. There was only a bubbling, dark movement, like a pot of boiling squid ink, and the occasional pinpoint of light, like distant, dying stars. People began to shove each other, trying to catch a glimpse of what the condos might be. There was shouting.

Roger Singh started to point at every object in his sight – blades of grass, the rust shell of a former gas pump, Janice Rio (from down the street) – asking, “Is that a condo? Is that a condo?” in a high, cracked voice.

And…all right. I know this is out of nowhere, but…at what point in a relationship is it normal to think about living together? Is…let’s say…buying a condo a sign that you want to move to that stage? Is that what an action like that might hypothetically be indicating?

Oh, yes, also, Roger was holding a freshly-severed spine of an unknown animal or possible person, waving it at the bubbling dark window and howling, “Give me a condo! What is a condo? Give me one! Will this buy me a condo?”

As of press time, no one had told him whether a spinewould buy him a condo.

But, do you know what I mean? Like, could this be a sign that he wants to move things in that direction? You know, I just wish he would communicate more directly sometimes, but…scientists don’t communicate directly. Everybody knows that. They communicate using a series of obscure and arcane codes and signals. That is what is meant to be a scientist.

Roger has started flailing at people with the detached spine. Uhh, several people have been trampled. It is still not known whether he will be able to buy a condo with the spine. Probably not.

[Cell phone ringing]

I’m sorry, listeners, I’m going to have to get this.

Uhm, hello?

> Cecil?

Carlos?!?

> Yes. Scientifically speaking, that is who I am.

Yeah, I’ve been meaning to tell you…you sound different lately.

> Yeah, I– I put in new vocal cords recently.

Uh– No– I didn’t know you went in for surgery!

> No no, I’m a scientist. I put them in myself, easy. It’s important that a scientist update his or her vocal cords once in a while. Otherwise, you know…throat spiders.

Oh, no, I knew that. I mean, obviously I knew that. I’m very into science. But hey, listen, I’m in the middle of a show!

> Yeah, I know, you’re covering the story about the condos. That’s why I called.

Well, I didn’t know you listened to my show.

> Every time you’re on!

I–

OK, hold on, listeners. I’ll be right with you.

So…those condos, right? They’re– they’re very exciting, right?

> Everything is exciting, particularly existence! Existence is the most thrilling fact of all!

Right. So…are you doing OK? Um, I’m getting reports that it’s even more fatal outside than usual.

> By 19 Standard Fatality Units, I know. I have a Danger Meter in front of me.

> Listen, Cecil, I called to talk to you about something important, but I– now I don’t think I have time.

But time…

> …isn’t real, I know. Neither is anything else. That is the most scientific fact of all, but they’re calling my name and I don’t want to lose my place in line. This is important, uh, because…mmm.

> I have to go, I’m sorry. I’ll call you back later, probably. Everything is some level of ‘probably,’ nothing is a promise, it is most likely we’ll survive to talk again.

No I understand, I lov–

> Hey, listen, I lov– [talking over each other]

Oh, um, uh, sorry, no no no, you go!

> Th– they– they’re calling my name, I have to– I…ha– I’ll call back when I can. Goodbye.

Oh, um. OK. Um…goodbye.

Uh, I’m sorry, listeners. Um, yeah, where was I? Um…

Let’s talk about your health for a moment. Let’s concentrate on your health. Let’s think about your health. Do you feel healthy? Pay close attention to your body and see if you feel as healthy as you thought.

Oh! Was that a slight twinge in the muscle of your arm? That is a bad sign! That’s a symptom of all sorts of diseases. Was that a slight sniffle as you breathed in? Sure, it could just be allergies, or a mild cold…but it also could be the start of tuberculosis. Does tuberculosis even start with a sniffle? You don’t know! And so it might very well.

Listen to your heart beating. Hear your heart beat. Feel it. Feel the one thing keeping you alive. Feel your heart beat. Are you healthy?

Are you healthy?

This has been a public health announcement by the greater Night Vale medical community. Their lines are open for appointments now. Please have a credit card ready.

Ladies and gentlemen, the condos are here! They arrived, silently, in the night. They are thoroughly modern in their design. They are so modern, it is postulated they might actually be from a few centuries in the future, which is the most modern a thing can be.

The condos are featureless black cubes. They are standing, perfect, dark forms, where the ramshackle homes and dust-worn strip malls of Night Vale once stood. And there are so many of them! They are a majestic cityscape. They are a nightmare. And they are beautiful.

Carlos has hauled out his science equipment (of course), and is testing the cubes. The cubes emit a low level of radiation, and some sort of strange, pulsing energy. The energy would be difficult to describe in scientific terms but, if he had to give it language, he would probably use the scientific terms “pulsing” and “strange.”

The cubes do not appear to have any entrance, or windows…so they are similar to many of the old tract homes that were built around here in the 1950s. But, they also do not appear to have any roof or foundation, or yard, or terrace, or patio, or any other vestige of a home.

They only have their sleek lines, their contours, their corners, the sheerness of their featureless walls.

We do not yet know if these condos mean us harm, or well.

We only know of their presence, and so, let us know that. Let us all hold on to that knowledge. The condos, black cubes of enormous size, are here…and we know it.

And now—

> Cecil? Cecil?

Um, listeners, there is a voice, but I can see no one in my studio. It is a familiar voice, and also my coffee cup appears to be three inches to the left of where it was.

> It’s me, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Also, I put your coffee cup where it was supposed to be. For reasons of fate.

Ahh, I see. Um, well, while I have you here—

> It is terrible what the condos will do to you. Not ‘to you’ as in ‘you,’ but ‘to you’ as in ‘all of us.’ But, not to me. Nothing ever really happens to me. I am completely safe from harm, and this is a great burden.

> Oh, while you were out this morning, I made your dining room table half a foot shorter. I thought it looked better that way. I hope you like it, it took me an hour with a hacksaw and a level.

Well, I’m sure that lower meals means…faster digestion! Um, or not sure, but I’m saying it. And in saying it, I am instantly believing it, and then I’m going from believing it to being violently certain about it, against all evidence to the contrary.

> Thanks, that means a lot. Not ‘to me,’ but your words hold a lot of meaning intrinsically. Almost everything we say does. If you looked at any word in the English language close enough, you would see within the great, glowing coils of the universe unwinding.

Right!

> Our language holds the key to it – the key to the unraveling of all things. I think that one day, this world will simply talk itself to death, and I will be left to flit about in the void. I will be the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Nowhere.

Now, you mentioned the condos. Let me ask you, what do you think it means when Carlos says he’s looking at condos? I mean, did he mean that he wanted us both to look at condos together? Or was he communicating independence, like, “You stay here, I’m going off to look at condos alone.”

> “Beware the condos, Cecil.”

I mean, do you think he’s looking to just buy one for himself? Is that what you’re saying?

> “Beware the unraveling of all things.”

Or is he looking for a shared condo?

…Hello? Hello?

Well, I can no longer see a fleeting image of someone just over my shoulder, no flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, so I guess she’s gone.

Also, there are three slow walking gray roaches climbing out of my coffee cup.

And also, I am out of coffee.

And now, traffic.

Picture a car.

No, you are doing it wrong. Try again.

Picture a car.

…Really? That’s what you picture when you picture a car?

All right, look…we’ll go with that. I’m not happy about it, but we’ll go with your idea of a car for now. So.

Picture that car. And now, picture a road. Are you picturing it? Close your eyes if you have to. If you need to, gently remove your eyes and slip them into your bag.

Do you see the car driving on the road? Good.

Now, picture a destination. Any destination you want.

No, that was incorrect. The correct destination was a clear and placid lake.

So, all of you, out there, picture the car. Picture the road. Picture the clear and placid lake.

And what I want you to do now is put the car in the lake.

It’s very simple. Just imagine the car leaving the road, and now entering the lake.

Leaving the road, entering the lake.

Great.

Are we all picturing the car in the lake? OK.

City Council is notifying me that the test went perfectly, and that we all successfully murdered a lone driver using the collective willpower of our minds. Wow! Wow! The human mind is a powerful thing!

This has been traffic.

Reports are in that the first condo buyers nervously approached their acquisitions, those black cubes, giant, where once stood other places. The buyers edged toward them. They reached out their hands, trembling. They touched the smooth, cold walls of the cubes, and they saw.

They saw.

Janice Rio (from down the street) saw a city. A lost city. A dead city, nestled in a jungle – the kind of jungle that only ever existed in books written by people who have never seen a jungle. The city stood, and Janice stood, in perfect dread, its doors were open jaws. Its windows were open jaws. Its roads and avenues were gaping mouths and open jaws. That dead city teetered. It rotted in its jungle tomb, but…it was not empty. And she started to run. Run through the thick foliage of that absurd place, she shouted and ran.

And then her hand slipped away from the condo, and it was all gone. And she fell to her knees weeping, as though she had lost something, although of course, she’d never had anything at all.

Roger Singh (who had been able to buy a condo with the spine) saw a cave, underwater, in an ocean far to the north. And the water around him was dark – so dark! – that he wasn’t sure even which way led to the surface, to life…and which way led down only to the deep silent. He gasped, but found he had no breath…and no need to breathe. And there was this cave that smoldered with a light, a light that was charged and alive. And shadows moved against the light, cast by…what?…within the cave. And then he swam towards it, uncertain whether he was guest, or sacrifice, or invulnerable dreamer. And he heard a song from the cave, and he knew it, and it was perfect. And he sang along, but at the same time, he had never heard that song before in his life. And what was life? What made it his? It all seemed so small, part of the world that didn’t exist anymore. And then he went backwards from the face of the condo, and the ocean and the cave vanished, and he stared up at the blue sky, as awash with light as the water around him had been dark.

“Was that a condo?” he asked. “Was that what one is?”

Another, Samantha Guzman, only screamed — her eyes bulging wider and wider, her hand clamped to the surface of the cube.

So…it seems that move-in day is going pretty well so far!

Today’s show is brought to you by the generous support of the following sponsors:

- The sun
- All other suns with their own planets and own possibilities
- A trail, winding its way into a thick wood
- The gesture [Cecil smacks the top of his own head — with flair]
- This bit of melody: [Cecil hums a tune not unlike (but also not like) the first few bars of Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show theme]
- A&W Root Beer
- The slow disintegration of your body
- Light, in every form: visible, invisible, deadly, hidden

Please help our show by supporting these sponsors, using chants and simple offerings.

And now, more on the condo story.

‘Scuse me, uh, Cecil.

Oh, yes, excuse me?

Sorry to interrupt, but–

CEASE SPEAKING AND TURN YOUR AMUSINGLY SHAPED EARS TO HEED MY BOOMING AND IMPRESSIVE VOICE!

Yeah, thank you, Green Head. Uh, hey, listeners! Hiram McDaniels, here. Mayoral candidate, noted five-headed dragon, and completely innocent of any trumped-up insurance fraud charges.

Hello, Hiram. Uh, it’s great to have you live in the studio, and also you, and you, and you, and you.

Great, yeah. We couldn’t help but notice that you had the, uh, Faceless Old Woman on just a bit ago, and uh, that hardly seems fair.

Candidates must be given equal time on community radio. Says that in Section 12, Clause 3 of the Fairness Code we are all born with imprinted on our hearts.

My apologies, you are perfectly right. That was my failing as a community radio host, but it’s just…hey, listen, I’m just a little distracted. Um, oh! Can I ask you sort of um…a relationship question?

NO, YOU BARELY-SENTIENT SACK OF FLESH AND FLUID!

Sorry, there, Cecil buddy, but we just don’t have the time right now. Anyway, if it’s OK with you, I’d like to exercise my right as mayoral candidate by talking about the important subject of my favorite memory.

Now, my favorite memory was when I was just 30 years old. Hardly half as big as I am now.

We were 43% of our current stature, give or take a decimal.

GIVE IT OR TAKE IT, BLUE HEAD, GIVE IT OR TAKE IT! IT’S YOUR NATURAL RIGHT!

Thank you, Purple Head.

So, there I was, standing on a city street. And not this city, I hadn’t heard of Night Vale yet. I asked a man walking by on the street where a good place to eat was. You know what he said?

I…know very little.

HE HOWLED IN FEAR AND SCRAMBLED TO THE FRAGILE SHELTER OF THE NEAREST BUILDING! I ROARED! FILLED WITH SHAME AT THE EFFECT MY FORM HAD ON THESE JUDGING INSECTS!

It was a real bummer.

We cried, and– and we cried and we were still hungry, and we cried.

Well, that’s a…nice favorite memory!

Oh, no, no, no, no, that wasn’t my favorite memory, that was just, uh…what do you call it? Uh…

CONTEXT!

Yeah, context. Thanks, Green. Now, my favorite memory was when I was standing in a city – THIS city. I was standing in Night Vale. I had heard of it by then.

Whispers! Rumors! Flying through the night on hot updrafts, with vague directions in my mind and nothing but miles of mad darkness all around me!

Uh, right, this place was real hard to find. So I was standing on the street, and I…I asked a man walking by where a good place to eat was. You know what he said?

Nope, again, knowledge very limited here.

He said, well…

He didn’t say anything.

Right, Gray Head, he didn’t say anything! He just opened his mouth wider than a human is physically capable of doing, let out a loud hoot, pointed at the Moonlight All-Nite Diner. He just went about his day. No screamin’, no fear.

IT WAS VERY DISAPPOINTING!

No, Green, it was magical! Finally, a place where what I looked like didn’t matter! It didn’t matter that I have trouble controlling my fire-breathing, or that the diner looked a bit far, and so I just ate the man instead. None of that mattered. Because I had found my home.

We had found our home.

Yeah. Exactly, yes. That is why I want to be mayor. Mayor of the first city that ever made me feel normal. Night Vale. As my campaign slogan says, I am literally a five-headed dragon. Who cares!

I tell you, many many people care, and all over the world. But no one here! That’s all that matters to me.

And me!

AND ME.

AND ME.

AND ME!

Thank you, listeners. Thank you, Cecil.

No, thank you, Hiram. Um, that was a very nice story. Even if I did my very best to learn nothing from it.

GOODBYE, BITE-SIZED CREATURE!

Goodbye!

Wow! Man, what a striking and charismatic dragon. Mm, mm-mm-mm. Where was I?

Ah, yes. More now, on the condo story.

Those people who have been given terrible visions by the condos are saying that they feel they must go back – go back to their condo. That something felt unfinished about what they saw. That even as they feel terrified, they must go back to see what it is will happen next.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police are attempting to stop the condo owners by sending passive-aggressive messages via helicopter-borne loudspeaker.

“Sure,” they are saying. “Go ahead. Touch the cube again. I guess. I mean, if you don’t care about your community, and your fellow citizens, then I guess you probably should. We won’t miss you anyway! Like, no big deal. Touch the cube if you want!”

And they are.

Roger, Samantha, Janice Rio (from down the street) – they are touching the great black walls of the condo cubes, and the walls are rippling and bubbling as though liquid, like a pot of boiling squid ink, with darting lights, like distant dying stars. The hands of the people are pushing through into the space within, whatever that space is, and they are – one by one, and with varying degrees of hesitancy – entering their condos.

Bystanders say that once inside, the human forms are going limp, and floating up into the center of the cubes, where they stay, paralyzed. Faces, slack. Eyes, glazed.

A small sign has appeared outside of each cube that contains a person. The sign is red, and says in simple white lettering:

Condos:
A perfect kind of human
A perfect kind of life
Get yours today!

Listeners, I cannot advise getting yours today. Not until we understand fully what these condos are. And, given our track record, we will likely never fully understand what they are. So it’s best just to stay away.

More on this as it develops. But first, a look at the Community Calendar.

This Friday, the staff of Dark Owl Records will be holding a clearance sale. “EVERYTHING MUST GO!” they will declare on a bright banner with a thick font.

“Music is old! It’s ancient! It cannot tell the stories of our lives, our souls, our societies any longer!” the banner will read. “It cannot mean anything! It cannot give you what you need! Buy this music, and eat this music!,” the banner will say in bright yellows and blues.

“Tear it into plastic shards and swallow it! It knows not what it has wrought on our world!” the banner will exclaim to excited music lovers. “Let it shred you from within as we laugh from without!” the banner will announce.

“40% off all CDs, 70% off all posters! Friday only!”

Saturday afternoon is the opening of the new Kid’s Unlearning Wing at the Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Well, this wing has been built, but no one is certain where. The museum staff says that they kids interested in unlearning all about forbidden technologies, as well as those kids who are uninterested…well, in fact, all children, the museum says, will eventually be chosen during sleep. They will wake up late one night in this new wing, experiencing all the magic and wonder of unlearning.

Sunday morning, the Night Vale PTA will be holding a raffle. Tickets are only $2 each, and the winner (as usual) will never be heard from again.

Monday has been rescheduled to Wednesday, and Wednesday has been doubled.

Tuesday…oh-ho-ho-ho-ho, man. Uhh, you don’t even want to know.

Or, you do want to know, but the powers that be don’t even want you to know, so you can all just be properly surprised.

This has been the Community Calendar.

[phone rings]

Hello?

> Hello, Cecil. Are you there?

Carlos? Hi. Umm, I’m on the air. Um, I’m still doing the show.

> Right, no, I know, it’s just…I got a condo. A condo for us. I was thinking that maybe we could—

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait…for us? That we could—

> But it wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s a giant black cube, featureless, where the vacant lot behind the Ralph’s used to be. I touched it, and I saw…I saw endless rows of Erlenmeyer flasks, and every one held a liquid, and all of the liquids were bubbling, and before each one was a notebook of numbers, and above was a dial with more numbers. I saw all of this, and I understood—

You touched the condo? Don’t! Don’t touch the condo! Don’t touch it again! You know what? Hold on, I’ll be right there!

> I need to get to those flasks. Each liquid was bubbling. There were numbers. I’m going into the condo. The condo is perfect. It is perfect, and I understand.

Carlos, no! Don’t go in there! Carlos! Carlos! Hello?

I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, um, I have — Listen, I’ll be back really soon. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

But before I go, let me take you now to the weather.

[“Remember Us“ by Gabriel Royal]

> Hello again, listeners. Cecil is still gone. I guess it’s just you and me now. You have no idea how often it is just you and me. I’ve learned this new thing where I can silently skitter along your ceiling. It’s an interesting perspective. I’d show you, but…you can’t see me. And anyway, I think maybe it would upset you to see a Faceless Old Woman skittering along your ceiling.

> There always seems to be something upsetting you. You should relax more. It’s not that there’s nothing coming to get you, there’s everything coming to get you…but relax anyway, just on principle.

> Lie down and look up at the ceiling – a ceiling on which you can see nothing skittering, even though there is something skittering, there are so many skittering creatures on your ceiling, but forget that.

> Lie down, and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry.

> Let me tell you a story.

> Once upon a time there was a young woman who had a face, and did not live in secret. She had a home of her own, and she always thought her life had some great purpose. “This is not my life as it should be,” she said, indicating her life as it was. “My life is different from this. This is not it at all!”

> And so, she sought out changes in her life. She changed careers, and romantic relationships, she changed houses and hair colors and still, her life was not what she was sure it should be. She changed more; she became more secretive. She watched how other people lived. Maybe one of them have a life that should belong to her.

> Soon, there was less and less of her. She was not living her own life, and so she was not living any life. It was harder and harder for people to see her, because there was less and less of her to see.

> And then she died.

> Oh, that wasn’t me. I see the confusion here. No, that was a young woman I watched as I secretly lived in her home. I– I just found her story interesting, as I find so many stories interesting.

> Cecil should be back soon. I know you are hoping he is safe, and that the scientist is safe. I know. I’m watching them right now, even as I speak to you. But I won’t tell you what’s happening. That is because I’m also slightly malicious. Sorry about that.

> I should go now. I don’t mean ‘go,’ I am always with you. But I am going to stop talking now, let you forget about me. Let you find some reason to dismiss that movement in the corner of your eye. After all, it’s probably nothing. It’s probably nothing, after all.

Look, I’m— I’m sorry, listeners, I’m back. I’m really sorry for…

By the time I got there, Carlos was floating in the cube, and there was that sign, “a perfect kind of human, a perfect kind of life.” Well…I didn’t hesitate, I jumped into that black cube after him, and instantly I saw. I saw great distances. I saw…ugh. Jagged mountains.

I saw a dark planet lit by no sun. I saw shrouded figures standing on a beach in a circle, gently swaying into each other against the backdrop of a roiling, bottomless ocean.

I saw all of this, and I understood!

I understood that the cubes are perfect! I understood that this is how we become perfect. I understood that what I was seeing was the way to perfection. And I don’t know how I understood this. Thinking about it now, nothing about it seems good, let alone perfect.

But inside the cube, within its chambers, it all makes sense. And I understood.

And there was a moment. There was a moment, dear listeners, where I considered it. I considered joining Carlos and becoming perfect. But I’ve come to know something after these months together with dear Carlos.

Perfection isn’t real. Perfection isn’t human. And Carlos is not perfect, no. Even better — he is imperfect.

Everything about him, and us, and all of this, is…it’s imperfect! And those imperfections in our reality are the seams and the cracks into which our out-sized love can seep and pool. And sometimes we are annoyed, and disappointed, and that too is a part of how love works. It is not a perfect system, but…

Oh, well.

And so I resisted.

I fought off the vision of the shrouded figures and the dark planet and all that was perfect and I held close to imperfection.

To my imperfection.

And to my imperfect Carlos.

And I took him, and I carried him out of the cube. And we came up, heaving, into this world that will disappoint us.

Finally, free.

And he said, “Well,”

Actually, I– I recorded the whole conversation. Of course. Because I’m never without my microphone.

He said,

> Cecil? I was thinking about the series of ongoing actions that we perceive as the present, and the amassing of memories that we treat as the living record of the past and the hopes and dreams and assumptions that we project as the future. I was thinking about time. And about how it means something to so many people, and about how it’s so finite, and also so infinite.

> I was also thinking about space. About how it is nothing, and then, a point which is just a single spot within the nothing, and a line which separates the nothing into two nothings, and how a plane is a patch of nothing and an angle just where two nothings meet, but all those things combined, with an object of points, lines, planes, and angles, an object with length and width and depth that can take up actual space. Until that object becomes something made of nothing – within nothing.

> An object can be a wall, a floor, a roof, a bed, a table, a dog, a door, a rug, a…a home.

> And then, I thought about how a home is just a group of objects connected by a shared personal experience of time – our past, our present, our assumed future. A home is…I mean, uh, scientifically speaking, speaking form the point of view of mere facts and logic, and um…hmm. You know, what with science, and all…uhhh, I– I– I just thought it was…time for us to…make a home together.

And I said “Yes! Yes! That would be, well, that would be neat!”

"But somewhere else, OK? A duplex, or an apartment…I don’t think a condo.”

And he said, “No, not a condo.”

And then he said…

Listen…he thinks I shouldn’t tell you everything, that…I should leave a little something there that belongs just to us.

So.

The cubes are slowly fading into the earth, taking those who are frozen inside within them. The Sheriff’s Secret Police report that those within the cubes are becoming another thing entirely. That they have become the sound that a certain type of sand makes under your feet, the tone of light at a certain time of day.

Walking through where the condos once stood, you can hear their voices — but distantly, faintly. And if you reach out when you hear that voice, if you reach out and feel for them, you too will get a vision of some far-off place, a place that is, in its own way, in a way perhaps that can never be explained, perfect.

A perfect place that you will never visit. And that is the best news of all.

Listeners, I send you now back out into the night. And it’s dangerous out there, and it’s lonely, and it’s not perfect.

Stay tuned next for a round of applause followed by a round of silence and departure.

Goodnight, all of you here, goodnight, all of you listeners, and goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: All tattoos are temporary tattoos.