01/08/2016 22:53:50 ¶ ●

## Episode 91 - The 12:37

Do not bite the hand that feeds you. Grab it first. Take the keys. Set yourself free. Then bite the hand…and run.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Exciting news for rail enthusiasts (and fans of punctuality): the 12:37 train to Red Mesa has arrived on time at Night Vale Station.

Uhhhhh, sort of on time. Night vale has not had a train station or train service in a little over a century. So the train is about a hundred years late. This is, naturally, a cause of some confusion at the moment.

The station, which used to be where the Little League baseball fields are right now, was decommissioned and torn down after it was discovered the tracks just sort of ended in the middle of the desert, connecting to nothing.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police have encircled the train, which is stopped right in the second base line, and has not opened its doors. It is not yet clear where the train came from, if there are any passengers, and if there are, what condition they are in.

Sheriff Sam announced that they are an avid rail enthusiast – or, as they called themself, a train spotter. They whittled a small caboose out of a block of balsa to demonstrate their enthusiasm. They also repeatedly pronounced my name as “Sessil” too, so do with that information what you will.

We’ll keep bringing you the latest on this story.

In other news, there’s a crowd of several hundred people gathering over on Somerset. They have organized themselves into a tidy single-file line. None of them can say what they are lined up for, nor where the front of the line is.

Neighborhood resident Wayne Ferry said he got in line around 7:00 this morning, and it was already pretty large by that point. He’s not sure how far back he is in the line.

“I saw my friend Charelle and said, ‘Morning, Charelle!’ I and then kept walking toward the back of the line,” Wayne said, “but I kept passing Charelle. 'Morning, Charelle!’ I said each time. Eventually, she let me cut in line.”

Wayne said the line collapses back on itself. There is no beginning or end, even though it appears to be perfectly straight. More and more people are joining the line just to find out what everyone is in line for.

Wayne added, “Whatever we’re waiting for must be pretty cool!”

You have to admire such childlike optimism, even though optimism is doomed to almost certain disappointment and/or injury.

We have more on the 12:37 train to Red Mesa. Dozens of volunteers have arrived to take selfies in front of the old-timey steam engine. And also to weep in terror at the sudden anachronism.

Sheriff Sam applauded these civic-minded helpers by kettling them into a small chicken wire pen and shouting at them with an electric bullhorn.

Sheriff Sam, as part of the police investigation into this mysterious train, constructed a wrought iron abstract statue seemingly depicting a bird devouring a snake. We think it’s supposed to symbolize man’s inhumanity to man, and the frightful conditions in which immigrants were exploited in the building of our nation’s railways. Also, the iron construction surely represents the indomitability of American capitalism, but anyone who looks directly at any form of art gets a headache, and trying to understand art is usually fatal, so no one is certain.

[Ahem] Uh, how did the train get here with no tracks? Where did it come from? And now that there’s a giant metal sculpture in its way, how will it leave? How much would a ticket even be in today’s dollars? Who are the people gathering about the baseball fields wearing deer masks?

Oh. Breaking news. Some people wearing deer masks are gathering by the train, distributing roaches to bystanders. The roaches all have phrases printed on them, things like “Business in the front, knife in the back” and “#NotAllTrains.”

Weird.

Listeners, your guess is as good as mine. Well, almost. I’m pretty good at guessing things.

And now, traffic.

You are driving on a foggy night. There are faint taillights from a car in front of you. There are also faint headlights from a car behind you, all moving at a steady 30 miles per hour.

But then the lights of the other cars just switch off, at the same time. Are the other cars still there? It’s too foggy to see. Should you slow down? Speed up? If you slow down, the car behind might hit you. If you speed up, you might hit the car in front. Best to stay at 30.

But your speedometer is creeping up to 35. The pressure has put you on edge. Your boss, Catherine, has been really on your case lately, and you’re pressing your foot down without realizing.

Now you’re at 40. Should you go back to 30? What if the cars are still there, matching your speed? Is going back to 30 safe? Should you stay at 40?

Wait…it’s 50 now. You’ve been so worried about driving at 40 and lingering on what Catherine said to you about terrible quarter two sales, your speed has crept up again.

You imagine three cars speeding through the night, all of you mere inches away from a bone-crunching, life-changing, possibly life-ending collision, before you know it you’re doing 60, then 70, then 80. 80!

You can scarcely believe it. I mean, wasn’t that Tina’s account and not yours that failed? How is quarter two your fault?

You can’t possibly slow down now. The car behind won’t have time to reduce their speed. And where is the car in front of you?

At least the road is straight…or is it? And, are you even still on the road? Is there any way to know? All around you is fog. If you crash, even if you survive, will anyone find the wreckage to save you?

Without noticing, you have lifted your foot and the car has slowed down to 60. You keep your foot off the gas, and your car keeps slowing. 50…40…30…20…10…and then zero. You have stopped. No crashes, no screeching tires.

You put on the parking brake and get out of your car, and walk off into the mist, your face tight and tear-stained. You think about how Tina takes such long smoke breaks, and Catherine doesn’t say a thing about that.

The mist coats your cold skin, and you hear birds just above you.

This has been traffic.

We have an exciting update from the baseball fields! The train has opened its doors. Nobody has disembarked yet. It looks completely empty. The Secret Police are keeping a safe distance while politely shouting at the kettled witnesses to board the train and see what’s up. A few are reluctantly going in.

The figures in deer masks, looking like the same transit lovers who built the Night Vale subway system three years ago, are in an inverted V formation out in left center field, their shoulders and heads bobbing as if in silent laughter.

So far, none of the…umm…“volunteers”….have come back out, despite the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s repeated friendly warnings and helpful bullhorn threats.

The City Council could not be reached for comment on the train, as this whole situation has unfortunately clashed with their annual (and inaugural) charity golf tournament, somewhere far away from any possible danger. Also, I didn’t even bother to call them for a comment.

Teddy Williams, owner of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, announced that after 20 years, the Laser Tag Adventure Pit is reopening this weekend. In a contrite statement released this week, Teddy says he finally figured out how to lower the power settings on the lasers.

According to Williams’ written statement, “Super sorry, like wow, it never occurred to me that…anyway, things are fine now. Also, I know a doctor who specializes in limb reattachment,” the statement reads.

The statement continued, “Like, spiders with eight legs can afford to lose a few, right? But us humans, with just the two? Crap! Really, what was I thinking? Sorry. I mean, nobody died or anything,” Teddy said, “and I apologized, didn’t I? But Cecil just gets on the radio, reading out stories in that condescending way he does, putting on silly voices, making a mockery of my punctuation and vernacular prose, turning everything into an incredibly long sentence with a lot of sub-clauses and tangents that wander out, like branching paths in a forest, so that when you take one forking path and then it turns into another path you don’t know if it’s a new path or just the same path you were already on, or maybe you’ve just gone in a circle, and anyway the whole quote takes so long to say that you forget it’s somebody else’s words until he says 'Teddy said’,” Teddy said.

Well. Listeners, I…don’t think I need to read the rest of his statement. But I will mention that for reopening weekend at the Laser Tag Adventure Pit, there’s a 20% discount on admission, and everyone gets a release form absolutely free!

An update from the baseball fields: the Sheriff’s Secret Police boarded the train, and did not come back out. Shortly before they boarded, they warned the remaining witnesses not to board the train. Then, shortly after the Secret Police boarded, the witnesses themselves boarded the train…and also didn’t come back out.

Many people have been seen leaving their homes, schools, and places of business to walk toward the station, all excited to take selfies and sob in existential horror at this rift in not only time and space, but also our trust in basic physics.

The figures in the deer masks are all crouched, pounding the ground with their open palms.

There are now more people on the train than its capacity for passengers, but people are still boarding, effortlessly disappearing inside. Night Vale is emptying. Everyone wants to board the train.

I…I feel the same urge that all of you do to board the train, listeners, and if it were not for my strict professionalism and commitment to this show, I would be on that train myself. But I must resist. I will stay here in my studio…and…

You know what? Never mind. Yeah. Uh-huh. I gotta go see this. Okay. Uh, let’s just go to the weather.

[Studio door opens and closes]

[“Windows” by Angel Olsen]

Listeners, I am back. I am back in the radio booth.

The 12:37 train to…wherever (certainly not to Red Mesa) is gone.

As the doors closed on us inside the passenger cars, we heard the thrumming of the massive engine, the churning of gears and wheels, a great steam whistle. Looking out the windows I saw the baseball diamond, I saw houses and trees, I felt us moving, gaining speed, accelerating. I felt it in my ears. But the cars, trees, houses, the baseball fields, did not seem to move at all…at first.

Then the trees withdrew into the ground. The houses disassembled themselves. Distant power poles and tall buildings vanished. There were more plants, more water, the grass grew up higher and higher until the baseball fields were merely imprints on my eyelids. The clouds moved more and more rapidly. I saw the sun curl across the sky like a pop fly ti right, I saw it over and over. The firmament pulsed blue. And orange. And black. And yellow. Blue, and orange, and black, and yellow, blue and orange and black and yellow, faster and faster, flickering dark and light, flicker dark and light, a disorienting strobing inside our passenger car.

In the millisecond darknesses I saw empty seats all around. In the millisecond lightnesses, seated about me were all of my fellow Night Vale citizens. These two realities simultaneous and overlaid.

At the front of the car, visible only in the rapid flashes of dark, stood a woman wearing a deer mask.

She stared straight into me, walking slowly, stumbling every couple of steps – not clumsily, but deliberately, a painful and grotesque dance. She seemed to lose control of her whole body, only to recover gracefully…and repeat.

She stopped, inches from me. I could see her body was covered with roaches.

She said, “They take our miniature buildings. They put them in crates, and deliver them to warehouses across the desert. Their interests are furthered. It could not be more terrible.”

“Miniature? Like, like the tiny nation of people under Lane 5 of the Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex? Oh, did you know that they’re reopening the laser tag–”

She took off her deer mask. Her actual face was the face of a deer. Her face and the mask were exactly the same.

“Who are you?” I asked.

She leaned in, insects scuttling across her long brown snout. “I am the destroyer. They take our buildings. They put them in crates. Their interests are furthered. I am the destroyer.”

Strobing light from the spinning sun stopped, and it was only dark now. No Night Vale. Even the deer-headed woman was gone. Around me, barely visible in the dark train car was a sparse scattering of men dressed from a bygone era, holding wooden crates. They were sitting upright, twisted around, and silently watching me.

My face and chest itched. My scalp itched. I could feel a tickle along my thighs. I reached to scratch…and I felt them. Felt them all. I screamed and swatted them away, hundreds of roaches in my jeans, my shirt, my hair, I wa– I wanted to wretch but instead just writhed.

And I felt the grass under me. I saw sunlight above me. I…I saw trees, I– I heard a woman’s voice. I– I tasted nothing.

“Cecil? Why are you in our field? You should be at work!” Lucia Tereschenko, one of the Little League coaches (and also a ghost), was standing over me, a group of kids in ball caps and jerseys behind her.

“I’m…I’m sorry…Lucia, I…” I said, getting up, patting my chest, feeling for insects. “Did you see a train here just now, or…some men with crates?”

There was a long pause. Lucia looked like she wanted to either answer me or hit me.

“Cecil, you’ve got something on you,” she said.

I reached my hand to my neck, and pulled back a roach.

Lucia looked closely at it.

“Oh! What is this it says on the cockroach?”

We both looked at the lettering across the roach’s back.

“Huntokhar,” we read together.

“Cute name for a bug!” she said. “No go back to work, Cecil. We do infield drills now.”

I called Carlos, but…he had no knowledge of the train or what happened today. I called Sheriff Sam, who laughed at the notion, and then complained about the media for fifteen minutes. I tried contacting representatives from the Night Vale Transit Authority, but their line is busy (as it has been since they opened their offices three years ago). I called Teddy Williams with some questions about the tiny nation of people under Lane 5, but…he screamed and hung up on me.

I reached out to Wayne Ferry and confirmed the line of people on Somerset is totally real, and they’re all still waiting on whatever the line is for. Didn’t hear anything about a train.

I…I must have dreamt it. The train, the woman in the deer mask, the men with crates or…or…hallucinated?

Maybe the military was test marketing some new chemtrails. Or the Transit Authority was test marketing a new imaginary train system. Who knows?

Oh. Uh, Kareem just brought me some lemon and honey tea. It smells real, and it feels warm in my hand. Ugh. Oh! And hot on my lips! Uh, thank you for the tea, Kareem, and– and thank you for the realest thing I’ve felt all day! [Chuckles]

[Ahem] The 12:37 train to parts unknown from parts unknown is gone, and like most everything else in our memories, it likely was never there to begin with, but…

Huntokhar. Huntokhar is real. Right?

Kareem! Huntokhar is real! I– I– I– I– I saw it on a…a roach. Lucia, the ghost who– who– who coaches Little League, she showed me!

Kareem is shaking his head and backing out the studio. [Laughs nervously] Don’t forget to blink, Kareem!

And he’s gone.

Stay tuned next for the sound of a beating heart, a muffled sob, a nearby whisper while you are supposedly alone in the dark, and all of your other favorite jams of the 1980s and '90s.

And, as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Here is the church, here is the steeple. Open it up, and see all the people screaming about the giant that just tore the roof open.

15/08/2016 22:24:41 ¶ ●

## Episode 92 - If He Had Lived

Which came first – the chicken, the egg, or airplanes?

Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello, listeners. This week is National Alternate History Week, in which we celebrate our rich history that could have happened, if what actually happened didn’t happen. The Night Vale Historical Society sorts through the local submissions, and the best story gets placed into the elementary school curriculum. It’s a fun activity that helps boost creativity and obfuscate the past.

Today, for my version of history, I will be looking at the Kennedy assassination and trying to answer the question, “What If He Had Lived?”

Well, here’s a start.

He would have eaten lunch. Did you know he was on his way to a lunch when he was killed? He was! He was probably hungry. If he had lived, he would have eaten – big bites full of gusto.

Later that day he would have gone to Austin. He would have breathed deep, healthy breaths.

He probably would have been reelected if he lived. Sure! Handsome charismatic guy like that? Four more years! No Lyndon Johnson (or Lyndon Johnson would, as far as I know, continue to exist – but no President Johnson). Without the pressure of having to win another term, perhaps he would have pulled us out of Vietnam in ‘66 or '67, saving countless lives and forever altering the cultural and artistic landscapes of the late '60s and early '70s. Our art would be different, there would be more of us, and he would go on living.

Jackie Kennedy would feel no grief. She would never have to feel grief again. She would stand, ageless and smiling, on bandstands, on stages, waving, her smile distant (not even a smile, but a performance of a smile), waving, on bandstands, on stages, griefless, waving, ageless, smiling.

More on our story of “If He Had Lived” soon. But first, the news.

I know that some of our listeners were worried about the Beatrix Lowman Memorial Meditation zone, that state-of-the-art (and enormously expensive) institution that reopened this Spring. There was concern that the Meditation Zone may have been damaged or even destroyed at the attack by the evil beagle and his army of unmoving strangers that nearly erased our town from the map just a couple months ago. But the good news is that the Meditation Zone is entirely undamaged, and it is ready for you to meditate in.

What a tragedy it would have been to lose such an important aspect of our community! And also, how frustrating it would have been, given that large parts of our city government were facing huge budget shortfalls while more and more city money was heaped on the rebuilding of the Zone. All of that money for nothing!

But no, the Zone still stands! Celebrate by coming on down to the Beatrix Lowman Memorial Meditation Zone, and hooking yourself up into one of the state-of-the-art meditation machines that will have you calm and harvested in no time at all. What a stress reliever!

The National Weather Service has released a statement saying that the thunderstorms that have been going continuously for the last several months to the west of Night Vale might not be thunderstorms, but instead the movements of the terrible court of the Distant Prince. They explained that when warm, moist air enters a low pressure system, sometimes it does so around the barely-understood (and all-powerful) Distant Prince, flanked by his harbingers and served by the court shriekers, the mangled servants, and the hollow-eyed weepers – all of which would result in some lightning, thunder, and of course, localized atrocities.

It’s also possible that they’re just some particularly persistent thunderstorms. Either way, the Weather Service said, “Best to just avoid the area entirely. Because being struck by lightning, or being skinned alive by the mangled servants, are both real and deadly threats that should be avoided.”

The year is 1973. Kennedy had not died, and is finishing his third term. An embargo in somewhere called the “Middle East” results in soaring gas prices. But the confidence America has for their president is high. He saw us through many other crises – including the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the Svitz-Franchia Standoff of 1967, and the rise of the Blood Space War in 1971. We wait in long lines at gas stations, but he comes by to each gas station – thousands of gas stations at once, multiplying himself as he has learned to do, and smiling at us, and we feel at ease. Broke, but at ease.

He continues as president through the turbulence of the '70s and into the '80s. A biopic is made of his life, starring the mid-level movie star Ronald Reagan (who will soon be washed up and entering his late-life career of narrating commercials for frozen food and insurance). The movie doesn’t even mention Dallas. Nothing happened in Dallas, except a short drive to lunch. This is mostly what happens in Dallas.

Paul Simon releases his classic album Graceland. It is about the time that President Kennedy visited Graceland in 1982. The album is a huge flop due to its limited subject matter and aural motif of pained moans and lawnmower engines.

Jackie Kennedy has not aged. In fact, she appears younger than before. At night, she walks among the monuments in D.C., serene and alone, not even a Secret Service escort with her. Anyone who tries to approach finds themselves pushed back by a faint mist that smells of apple and spice, and feels like thousands of needles. Witnesses claim her feet are not even touching the ground. Her arms seem longer than they used to, as though they were the only part of her body continuing to change.

If JFK had lived, listeners, “If He Had Lived.” More soon. First, this.

Remember the phases of the moon: new, crescent, quarter, gibbous, gelatinous, full, very full, swirling, angry, unsure of itself, mad with power, disappointed in the newest Marvel movie, very very full, feeling like an impostor, jealous toward the sun, being extra nice to the sun to make up for the jealousy the sun is unaware of, trying to sabotage the sun’s happiness but only succeeding in sabotaging its own happiness, and finally new again.

This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

Sometimes you are on the precipice, the moment where everything could topple. Maybe it is danger, or a hard choice, or just change (which is, in our perception, the biggest danger of all). And sometimes we are on the smooth flats, where everything is stable, and the precipice is just a tickle in the back of the back of our minds.

But deep down, we know the truth. We see it sometimes, driving at night through a rainstorm, or when the phone rings at the wrong hour, or when the plane starts to shake, there are no smooth flats. It’s all precipice. Always.

And sometimes we are facing the precipice, and sometimes we are turned away. But it is always there, and we are always teetering.

And maybe the fall isn’t even the worst part. Maybe, when we fall, there is at least the relief that we know we’re falling. No more uncertainty. Maybe the worst part is the teetering, the teetering for years and years.

Delta Airlines: It’s not like you’re safe anywhere else.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

The year is this year. The day is today. The time is now. President Kennedy calls a press conference. His salt-and-pepper hair is neatly combed, his hands are steady. He has been president for decades. He opens the conference by issuing a warm birthday message to cinematic treasure Lee Marvin. Mr. Marvin turns 30 today, and is perhaps the nation’s most beloved performer.

This pleasantry aside, the president announced that we have a grave national problem that must be addressed. He then said your name several times, and shuddered for five silent minutes. An aide showed some pictures of you, while the president pointed at them saying, “Here we see the problem.”

Finally he said your name again, visibly blanched, and said, “Right? Right?”

Congress widely agreed with the president’s message, and several bills were introduced with the goal of solving the problem that is you.

Jackie Kennedy had no comment. Not only had she never felt grief, it seemed to her that she had not felt anything at all since that day she had lunch in Dallas. It was as though some real human part of herself had experienced something so intense, and sincere, that all feelings had diverged from this false version of herself, leaving her hollow.

It had been an okay lunch.

The president complained of headaches. He was experiencing more and more as the years went on.

A continuation on our story soon.

If, hypothetically, angels existed – which, legally, of course, I cannot say that they do – but it they did, then the angels would have let me know that Old Woman Josie fell in her garden and broke her hip this week. The hypothetical angels (who are all named…oh, let’s say Erika) said that she is fine and in good spirits, but will have to spend a few days in the hospital. They are a little worried about that, since the hospital is a barely-understood and terrible place, where doctors lurk and nurses flit from patient to patient.

Rumor has it that on the darkest night of the darkest month, if you stand in just the right place, you can see ghost ambulances carrying ghost patients into the ghost E.R. – which is the best and most up-to-date ghost E.R. in the region, much better even than the ghost E.R. available over in Pine Cliff (the town nearby that is entirely populated by ghosts).

Pine Cliff residents often come to our hospital for treatment, rather than going to their understaffed and underfunded ghost hospital. It’s…it’s just not right, them straining our resources and taking away medical attention from our own local ghosts instead of fixing the ghost problems in their own ghost city.

Anyway, here’s wishing a quick recovery to my good friend Old Woman Josie. It sounds like a painful slip, but hopefully the sheer desire to escape a place as baffling and terrifying as a hospital will help her push through her recovery as soon as possible.

Back to “If He Had Lived.”

The year is 2080. Coastal cities all over the world are succumbing to the water that had long sustained them – the basic elements of each city, like streets and burger shacks, slowly disappearing below the sea foam.

The Eighth Siege of the Great Night Vale Temple rages on. The scion of the Dark Order makes his prophesied appearance at the exact correct prophesied time (after several false starts where he had arrived too early and had to leave again).

President Kennedy offers a steady hand to the nation, even as his beloved Massachusetts is swallowed by the rising seas. He brokers a deal with the Sino-Soviet superstate that provides safe passage for the masses of climate refugees, and also those fleeing the shrouded armies of the Dark Order. He addresses the country with inspiring words that people will remember for decades afterwards.

“The sea levels will not rise another inch. Instead, the American people will rise to meet the sea levels.”

Everyone applauds The sea levels continue to rise. Millions are displaced.

Jackie Kennedy lies in the White House Rose Garden. She lies there for years. Moss grows on her face. She is trying to remember what really happened. She is trying to understand what the even means.

“Isn’t this all really happening now? But it doesn’t feel like it!” It feels like what was real was left behind long ago, and now even the raindrops on her upturned face are a series of tiny lies.

Speaking of rain, the finale of our alternate history in a moment.

But first, the weather.

[“Opposite House” by Cass McCombs]

We bring you now to the final installment of our “If He Had Lived” alternate history story.

It is the heat death of the universe. Everything that ever was has broken down to the most basic particles, and those particles have reached a perfect stasis of temperature. There will never again be change. Without change, there will never again be anything at all. The universe has ended – not by ceasing to exist, but just by finding perfect balance. An Armageddon of Zen, not fire.

President Kennedy, never assassinated, floats in the nothing. His hair is neatly combed, and he projects an optimistic but vague expression that gives nothing away.

Jackie Kennedy floats near him. She has never felt grief. Her smile is a forged copy of a painting of a smile, many layers removed from the emotion it is meant to convey.

“What shall we do today?” he asks her.

“Oh, whatever you want to. I have nothing particular in mind,” she says.

Everything around them is beige. This is the average color of the universe, and the universe has been reduced to its average.

He winces.

She smiles, feeling concerned but not knowing at all how to show it with her face.

“The headaches again?”

“Yes,” he says. “Just here.”

“I’m sure they will pass.”

“Yes,” he says. “Yes.”

He has a vision that feels like a memory, of a moment that never happened on a sunny afternoon in Dallas, billions of years ago. A flash of red, and then a nothing, deeper even than the nothing they float in now.

“I don’t know if this is right,” he says. “I don’t know if this is what was supposed to happen.”

“Everything happens as it was meant to,” she says, even though she is unsure of that. She is, in fact, sure of the opposite.

They float silently.

Later, nothing happens.

If he hadn’t died, if he had lived, lived on and led on, if he had continued and continued and continued and nothing changed, if no one else ever got a chance, if the country never moved on, if he had lived, maybe, this is what would have happened.

Or, that’s how I imagine it, anyway.

Thank you for joining us on this celebration of Alternate History Week. We’ve heard some exciting ones, like “What if Germany had Won World War II,” “What if the South Had Won the Civil War,” “What if Bath Mats Were Never Invented,” and “What if (Somehow) Germany had Won the Civil War?”

The Night Vale Historical Society has chosen as their winner an alternate history where the Beatrix Lowman Memorial Meditation Zone was never built. It will be added to the curriculum of all history classes from here on out, and the Meditation Zone will be destroyed so that reality can match the story we have decided to tell about it.

Well, that’s a shame. But that’s just how history works sometimes, you know?

Stay tuned next for a hypothetical history that we are all making up together, continuously, just by living it.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Writing rules. One: write a lot. Two: read a lot. Three: if someone tells you not to use adverbs or some other Elmore Leonard thing, swiftly kick them.

Clip from Alice Isn’t Dead: America has weird things in it. It has so many miles, so much space to put the weirdness in.

Joseph Fink: Here’s what you missed this year on Alice Isn’t Dead.

Clips from Alice Isn’t Dead: I started to look through your things. I had left them alone, didn’t want to get tangled in memories just yet. But now they weren’t memories. They were evidence.

…

He was bent horribly backwards, like his spine was broken, and he was loosely swinging his arms back and forth in a circle, so that they slapped his chest and his back. SLAP SLAP! SLAP! He gurgled.

…

You know what I love more than anything else? Cruise control. I love cruise control more than I love most of my family members. And – sorry to all aunts and uncles and cousins, you are great people – that cramp in your ankle from holding the gas pedal at the angle just so is the devil. And cruise control is the host of Heaven banishing it away.

Joseph Fink: Alice Isn’t Dead. The complete Season One. Available right now wherever you listen to podcasts [transcriber’s note: transcripts of Alice Isn’t Dead are available at alicescripts.tumblr.com].

Clip from Alice Isn’t Dead: Alice, I…I wish I could have seen you again. I guess that’s what this always was, I just…I wish that I could have seen you again. Just that. Okay. Okay. [Heavy sigh] Whatever happens next, is what happens.