01/09/2013 23:09:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 20 - Poetry Week

“You’ll be safe here,” says a whisper behind you.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, today begins Night Vale Poetry Week – one of our most sacred town traditions.

As you know, every citizen is required to write hundreds of poems. Non-stop poems. During this time, the City Council lifts their bans on writing utensils, thesauruses, and public descriptions of the moon. And they mandate that everybody uses their municipally granted Free Will to join in on the fun.

Last year over 800,000 poems were written by Night Vale residents, and then eaten during the Poetry Week’s closing ceremonies by real live Librarians who were chained to titanium posts inside double-locked steel cages.

Honestly, listeners, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ever have Librarians out in public, no matter how secure the posts or cages are. I know there were no serious injuries last year, but some of you older listeners might remember what happened in 1993, when an unchecked Librarian population resulted in the loss of many innocent and screaming book lovers.

But that was twenty years ago. Let’s not dwell on our corpse-strewn past. Let’s celebrate our corpse-strewn future!

On the show today, we’ll be featuring some poems sent in by listeners from all over Night Vale. We’ll start with this one. Last night Night Vale’s Poet Laureate, Trilety Wade, with clenched teeth and frightened eyes, delivered the opening stanzas for the Poetry Week festivities. Here is what she read:

I fell in love with a Hooded Figure
who tied my tongue with an ink ligature,
and silently urged I write this poem.
Please believe me I wasn’t forced,
through bone telepathy or the code of Morse
to pen this uncoded, un-subversive gem.

On the desert farms, the ghost-eyed maidens make the cheese
while a maelstrom of thick milk falls with ease.
Our punishment? Hot-blooded clotted cream.
The days here pass like cancerous sunspots
and black metal trees can’t compare to Car Lots.
You are in Night Vale. Welcome.

Wade capped off her reading by screaming, “It is lies! It is lies!” before separating into minute white particles and fluttering away on a swirling breeze. Like soft snow, she covered our hair and light coats. And, like snow, it smelled of fennel and meat. Then, a voice announced over the P.A., “Everything is perfect in our little town!”

Poetry Week has begun, Night Vale. It’s going to be a great one.

This weekend, the Night Vale Zoo finally reopens after last month’s renovations. Among the new features are fences and plexiglass to separate the animals from each other, and from zoo patrons. Zoo officials promise that they focused especially on the tiger, bear, spider, and snake areas in this regard.

Another new feature is the Sensory Extraction Room, where a randomly selected zoo goer will be dropped into a pitch black soundproof booth or two straight days, while zookeepers harvest their scent and teach it to genetically improved predators.

They’ve also unveiled a new logo, featuring a swan being eaten by a giraffe, and a new slogan:

You go to the zoo so the animals can watch you.

So come join in on the fun this weekend! Slow-moving children with more than 15% body fat get in free!

Oh, I can’t wait anymore listeners. Poetry Week has to be the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s get back to some fantastic poems that have been sent in. Some of them are even from our city officials, like Mayor Pamela Winchell, who put her quill to parchment and sent us this lovely stanza:

No one will
have to be
anyone
ever again.
In fact,
it will not
be
allowed.

That poem also doubles as recently-enacted legislation, enforced by the Sheriff’s Secret Police. Thank you, Mayor!

And now – and this is very special – a poem written by the Sheriff himself. Here goes:

The town criers have cross-stitched their mouths shut
and stapled their eyes open.

The benches are all broken.
No one sits down anyway.
No one can fit
their broken wings beneath their cloaks.

A skin condition
that makes its victims appear timelessly sad
afflicts most.

Prominent citizens drown in the carpool lane.
Their makeup floats to the surface.

Wine glasses clink together.
They hate each other.
They clink until one breaks
and then the other.

There is no such thing as vagrants.
There is no such thing as home.

The sun has a tick.

No one can afford flowers,
but the children
stand very still in the garden
until the cold snap cracks.

Very pretty! Thank you, Sheriff.

And now a poem set in by Irena Panchyk, a third grade teacher from Night Vale Elementary. It is called “Street Cleaning Day.”

Run.
Run.
Remain calm.
Run.

Where are my children?
Do I have children?

Run.
Run.
Remain calm.
Run.

I know.
I know where.
They will not go.
But what way?

Again, the announcement.

Run.
Run.
Remain calm.
Run.

They are coming.
I must choose.

I have chosen.
Save myself.

Thank you, Mrs. P! You did the right thing.

Madeline LaFleur, executive director of the Night Vale Tourism Board, sent in a piece of paper that just reads, in all caps:

TOURISM
IS
IMPORTANT.

Below that is a reddish-brown smudge shaped like an underfed hawk alighting upon a mesquite tree. She also scotch taped what appear to be three human molars to the page.

Y’know, at first I thought, “This is not poetry. This is visual art!” But that’s mere semantics. We are all poetry, Night Vale. Every breath or branch or sigh before another hopeless night of uneasy slumber is itself a verse in a great poem.

Oh, here’s a question, listeners!

Have you seen those new billboards all over town recently? They have no pictures, just hyper-bright and colorful text that reads “20% off everything! We’re going to take 20% off everything! Every thing! We’re crazy!”

There’s no store or brand associated with the advertisements, and the Highway Department said there’s no record that anyone owns the billboards, or that they were ever put up.

“They just appeared one day, and we all sort of accepted that they were there,” a representative from the city told us.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police warned that the advertisement appears to be completely literal, and that soon, 20% of everything might indeed be gone. They are still investigating as to whether or not we have a choice of which 20% gets taken off and where that 20% goes. Scientists say that the 20% must go somewhere, because of something to do with something called “thermodynamic laws,” but police officials remind us that scientists are comedians, and that they should stick to comedy.

Let’s have a look at traffic.

Old Town Night Vale resident Katherine Ciel just sent in the following report of what’s happening out there on the roads. Katherine writes:

On Sunday, a lambent crevice
opened up in the street outside my house.
By Tuesday, birds were flying into it.

“I probably won’t miss you,” my mother said.
“I’m only interested in the end of the world,” I replied.

Many find it difficult to breathe
without the atmosphere,
but we knew how;
we just stopped breathing.

We’re at the Moonlight All-Night Diner,
and they’re serving up fruit
from the plants growing out of the waitress.
The closed sign whispers, “Please, don’t touch me.”

We watch bodies fall to the ground outside
like deep sea creatures surfacing.
You turn to me and ask,
“Do you ever think about suicide?”
I look away from you and close my eyes,
eat the raspberries to confuse the blood in my mouth.

Now you’re in the only car in the parking lot at midnight
and you’re watching me throw stones at the moon
which hangs low in the sky
so that he can look into your house.
Your sister tried to touch him
from her window once,
and he flinched.

Now he and the oceans watch her with a quiet concern.
The lilac sky is trying to rest her head on his shoulder,
all trees gradually growing through her.

A hummingbird whispers to you,
“Be careful. Under her dress is her skin,”
and then builds his nest in the middle of the highway.

I look back to you,
and you close your eyes.

So, Night Vale, it sounds like you should use some alternate routes today. Thank you, Katherine, for that report.

This has been traffic.

An update now on Poetry Week: a strange thing has happened, listeners. A note was posted at the entrance to the Dog Park. I’m told the note is on paper that is black like the ocean of space and the text is…well, it’s not white, really more transplendent, radiating its strange free verse message from the dark page. The message reads:

Today they scratched me from sleep,
nails unhinged,
carving my name in cement.

Ash stains my pillow
and bruises the shape of spiders
climb my neck.

Sunlight catches dust and
broken glances between strangers
dodging desert puddles
of something metallic.

I’m highly contagious,
quarantined to another body
I’ve since infected.

I will sleep into you
if you hold me too tightly.

I assemble your letters
left torn in the pocket of a hospital gown.

I stain the paper with sweat.
I’m beginning to steal your voice.

The voice that lies, dying, in the Dog Park.

The poem is signed with just the letter “E.”

Listeners, while I certainly love luxuriating in the language of a good poem, I do not condone entering the Dog Park. It is forbidden. Dogs and dog owners are not allowed in the Dog Park. Please, disregard this renegade poet’s radical lies and stay away.

Oh, I fear the damage is done, listeners. Whoever this “E” is must now know we are all now in grave danger.

And now, a word from our sponsor.

With low interest rates, now is the perfect time to buy a home. Just name your amenity! Every house in Night Vale has a luxurious view of The Void. We also have great schools and plenty of spiders! Who wouldn’t want to settle down in Night Vale?

Seek a licensed realtor to help you find the house of your dreams! Realtors live inside deer. When you find an undersized stag or ailing doe you can catch, simply wrestle it down and knife open the chest cavity. Then let the realtor inside help you achieve your American dream.

The head of the Greater Night Vale Realty Association, Russell Swenson, says:

“No one has lived here for years.
You’re one of them.
One of the no ones.
A woman is a fire,
and no one is invited.
Anyone can watch.
No one can help.”

Hey, Dana? Is this a poem Russell wrote for us, or…?

Ahem.

So, start looking today for your new Night Vale home. As the old saying goes, “streets swallow their own tails and choke!”

Listeners, oh, this is bad news:

The gates to the Dog Park have been opened for the first time anyone can recall. In fact, no one even knew there were gates. We’ve only ever seen tall black walls with no visible entrance or exit, but there are gates, and apparently they’re just standing wide open.

Witnesses say that inside you can see a couple of old tennis balls, some frisbees, and a black stone monolith that is humming a hum that makes everyone who hears it feel calm, and ever-so-slightly more sensual.

The City Council issued a statement moments ago, which was a series of ancient glyphs. No one could read the language, but we all understood what it said. It was a dire warning. A warning to the mysterious “E.” A warning to those by the Dog Park. A warning to all of Night Vale. A great pain, a great piercing, a great scream that will soon break apart our sky and our lives if this insolence does not stop!

If you are near the Dog Park, listeners, do not enter it. The Monolith, or whatever think you see, is not for you to know. Public property is not for citizens. Stay home, Night Vale. Write your poems. This should be a fun and festive time to write government-mandated rhymes, not storming the shores of hell and bringing us all to war with you.

I’ve just sent intern Dana (or intern Dana’s doppelganger, I am still unsure) to the Dog Park to warn those who are standing so near to their demise. I only hope Dana is in time to save them.

Let us go now, possibly for the last time, to the weather.

[“Get Me Home” by Robin Aigner]

Old Woman Josie called during the break and said that the mysterious “E” is one of the Angels, and that the “E” stands for Erika.

“Erica?” I asked.

“No, no, Erika, with a K,” she said.

“Oh, Erika, with a K,” I said.

And then there was a weird pause, and then she said, “All Angels go by the name Erika.”

And then I was like, “Right, right, right,” and then I felt dumb, because that’s, like, the first thing you learn in seventh-grade transmigration studies.

Anyway…

The City Council, in a press conference said, “Oh! An Angel wrote that? Well, okay then, never mind. Sure! We’ll show you the Monolith! Come on in.”

And so those on the streets outside the Dog Park entered. And the City Council showed them the Monolith, welcoming all with friendly upturned palms.

But some witnesses resisted. Their conservatism served them well, for the tall black gates soon closed, vanishing into the smooth onyx walls, taking the Dog Park visitors with them.

No entrance.

No exit.

There may never be either again.

Sadly, intern Dana (or her double) was inside the Dog Park when it was sealed. And listeners, I hesitate to tell you but, as a journalist, I think I must: intern Dana (or her double) texted me a photo of the Monolith just before the gates closed. Did you know? There is an inscription at its base. And get this: right here, on this, the first day of Poetry Week, the inscription is a poem.

According to the plaque, the poem was written in 1954 by former Night Vale mayor Danielle DuBois, quote “In honor of nothing, that should never not be unknown.”

The poem reads:

The gentle man in glow light
is a candle in his maybes.
His face is a loamy bog.

Do you ever stop to look at all the blood you gather?
Metal halos spring from your attention.
She said, “watch with all your eyes
lest chance again escape you.”

Said, “chalk’s wasted on blind children,”
wrote today’s specials on the board.
What’s blessed entry in this weather?

I heard it tapping, but it doesn’t leave a trail.
When you catch a beating heart in the wild,
you hold it squirming and say, “that is that.”

But the damn thing keeps on moving
‘til you squeeze it in your hands.

I know not what the Monolith’s poem hides, Night Vale, nor if there will be any consequences for my actions today.

But I do know it is Poetry Week. It is only the beginning of our favorite fun and festive time of year. Let’s not think about what we’re not allowed to know! Let’s think about what is safe to know!

And let’s start with the beauty of our words. So get out those pens and dust off your iambs and couplets.

Also, intern Dana (or your double), you will be missed. I tried texting you back, but now there’s just blood seeping up through some newly-formed crack on my touchscreen, so…I think that’s a no go.

Goodbye, Dana.

And to the rest of you, goodbye too, but with the hint of a future hello. Stay tuned next for the sound of some helpless thing being eaten.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Pain is just weakness leaving the body. And then being replaced by pain. Lots of pain.

03/09/2013 3:41:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 21 - A Memory of Europe

Hang a map of a place you’ll never go on your living room wall. Draw new streets. Tear off bodies of water. Wait for news crews to arrive.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Teddy Williams – owner of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex – has reported that he is starting an around-the-clock militia watch on the entrance to the buried city beneath the pin retrieval area of Lane Five. This watch will consist of a line of patriotic volunteers, armed to the teeth and forming an unbroken perimeter along the whole of the bowling area.

Teddy admits that this will make bowling slightly more difficult than usual, and league games may have to be rescheduled…or made illegal. But he adds that this is a small price to pay for safety.

The other price for safety is $2.25, which is how much he would like every single good Night Vale citizen to pay him for this important defensive service against the unknown – but presumably fearsome and dangerous – aggressors from the buried city.

Witnesses have reported seeing the Apache Tracker out back of the Bowling Alley, in fervent discussion with a Man in a Tan Jacket. Sheriff’s Secret Police report that the conversation was too quiet for them to hear, and reminds all citizens to please hold all conversations in a loud, declamatory manner, facing outward, and making dramatic gestures to increase both the ease and excitement of their surveillance duties.

The Man in the Tan Jacket was described as “impossible to remember,” but presumably a man of some kind, with facial features, and limbs.

The Apache Tracker was described as a real jerk, just now, by me.

Listeners, the coming of the first gentle winds of Spring has brought me back to my college years. And to the late spring I spent backpacking through Europe. Truly, this is a milestone in the life of any young person able to afford it, and I am thankful for the opportunity.

I remember spending a wonderful period in the country of Svitz. Svitz, of course – land of low rolling hills and off-key tones heard on the breeze – is perfect for the visitor with a strong constitution, and a low tendency for hallucination.

My traveling partner and I stayed in a lovely two-bed hostel, situated in a plywood shack on a steep hillside. The incline meant that my partner kept rolling into me, and then we would both roll out of the shack and tumble down and down until we came to rest in a ravine full of thorns and fragrant, violently blue flowers. At which point we would trudge up the hillside, settle in, only to have it happen over again.

Oh, we laughed and laughed!

The situation was made stranger by the fact that I don’t remember having a traveling partner before or after Svitz. Who was he? Who knows? It all seemed perfectly normal at the time.

I also don’t know how long I stayed in Svitz, rolling down that hill and climbing up again. What with the tones on the breeze, the intoxicating smell from those flowers, and the fact that it was never any time but the middle of the night, it was difficult to keep track. But it couldn’t have been more than a decade or so.

Eventually I was knocked out on one of our falls and when I awoke, it was in a different country. I had aged by years, and no one I talked to knew where the country of Svitz was, or even had heard of it.

Anyway, it was a lovely place, and I would say it’s a must-see for any European traveler that can find it.

Trish Hidge, from the mayor’s office, called a press conference today in which she stood in front of a large truck, painted in bright neon colors and decorated with flashing lights, and resolutely denied the truck’s existence.

She continued this denial for several minutes, and through a lengthy round of questioning from the gathered reporters – although it should be noted that many of the questions took the form of just pointing at the truck and raising an eyebrow.

Ms. Hidge admitted afterwards that the conference was simply a workout for her denial skills, which she says she must keep sharp through constant practice…and which she also says do not exist. She was then heard to deny the sky, the existence of a loving deity, and eggs.

“Eggs aren’t real,” she said. “Nuh-uh! Show me an egg! That’s not an egg! What’s an egg? Who let you in here?”

Simone Rigadeau – the transient living in a recycling closet in the Earth Sciences building at Night Vale Community College – released a statement today, saying that the world has ended.

“The world ended three or four decades ago,” she scrawled on a Subway sandwich wrapper. “I don’t know what this thing is that we’re living in, but it’s not the world. Scientists won’t investigate it because they’re not real. Turkey with extra Swiss.”

I think that last bit was already written on the wrapper by a Subway sandwich artist, or one of their familiars.

Well…provocative stuff from one of the foremost minds in the Earth Sciences building, ever since it was condemned by the city as unsafe and left vacant.

Has the world ended? What would the world ending even mean? And how did Simone get this Subway wrapper, given that all Subway restaurants have many entrances, but no exits? As their motto goes, “A thousand ways in, no way out. Eat fresh. Eat so terribly, terribly fresh. Terribly, awesomely, gruesomely, terrifyingly fresh.”

For more on this world-ending story, we now go live to the sound of an aquarium pump.

[Sound of an aquarium pump]

Returning now to my hazy and sepia-toned European memories.

Another country I recall – with great fondness of course – is the nation of Franchia. Franchia, Land of Arches.

It is fascinating to see how other cultures live, shaking you out of your locked-in Night Valeian ways. And Franchia is a prime example.

To see a culture that doesn’t even have any people, a country with no population – just ancient stone arches, hundreds of square miles of arches, intertwining and leaning against each other. The wind hollows through the narrow alleyways as the lone traveler, camera in hand, explores the vast, empty cityscape.

One doesn’t need to be able to speak another language to be able to try your hand at communicating inside the borders of Franchia. Merely call out “Hello?” after long silent intervals, and hear your call echo back to you from the depths of the knotted, crumbling arches, unanswered.

The beauty, oh listeners, of intercultural exchange.

Of course, despite the fun times I had curled up with a blanket through the long nights of Franchia, looking up at the stars in a haze of cheap wine, no visit can last forever. Eventually, I became convinced that I was not alone in the labyrinth; that somewhere among the arches was a beast, stalking me. I would stand still for hours, listening to that wind, searching for the slightest sound of movement off in the distant halls of arches.

I fled Franchia, running desperately for the border, finding dead end after dead end before, heart pounding, I crossed into the next country and fell to my knees on the grassy hill of the countryside, the arches having stopped completely at the border.

And I swear, listeners, I swear that in the moment of crossing, I felt a single claw graze against my back. I swear, I felt the endless wind of Franchia turn hot and wet – the breath of the beast inches away from my neck.

So visit Franchia – but, you know, watch out for the monster that I may or may not have only imagined.

Now, traffic.

The Night Vale Department of Transportation has advised us that work crews are slithering on certain sections of Route 800. Commuters are advised to drive slowly in these marked areas, as construction-hatted workers will be roiling on the ground all over the place, a heaving mass of limbs and lolling, panting mouths.

Fines for traffic violations in these marked areas are double. All fines outside of the marked areas are quadruple, as usual.

Also, the DoT has asked me to read the following advisory notice – using their exact wording. So:

Silverhawk - Copperhead - and the Gopher
Activate
I repeat
Activate
Execute - Mission - Alpha - November - Zulu - Zero - One - Three
Lethal parameters acceptable

I’m not quite sure what that means, but if you understood it, then avoid an annoying traffic ticket by obeying…whatever dictate was being relayed.

And remember, wear seat belts. They are a cool fashion statement, and easily obtained by cutting them out of your own car and crafting them into any number of accessories.

And now a word from our sponsors:

Seven lights in the window.
Seven lights in the hall.
Seven lights, seven lights, all in all.

Six notes in the melody.
Six notes form a dirge.
Six notes to rid you of the urge.

Five ways of escaping.
Five ways all blocked off.
Five ways, each one broken and lost.

Four words in a whisper.
Four words in your ear.
Four words that fill you up with fear.

Three taps of a finger.
Three taps on a wall.
Three taps as you try to stall.

Two eyes wide and desperate.
Two eyes squinting scared.
Two eyes open, yes, but nothing there.

One light in the window.
One light in the hall.
One light, one light, all in all.

Taco Bell. Live mas.

To return once more to pleasant reminiscence, Europe is not just about looking at monuments and talking to monuments and licking monuments. It’s also about the people.

One memorable interaction happened in the little Alpine country of Luftnarp.

It had been a long day of train travel and searching for, then checking into, a cold and dreary hostel, and I was in desperate need of a warm meal and some good company. I remember heading down to the local ale house, where the proprietor stared at me, frozen, with a gaping mouth and gray, ashy skin. So did everyone else in the place. All of their mouths were stretched to almost cartoon-ish dimensions, outside of the bounds of known medical science.

I asked for a plate of whatever they found most delicious, adding a quick “please” in the local language, to indicate that I was trying to blend in, and was not the usual ugly American tourist. They graciously responded by letting out a guttural rattle, in unison, and by not moving as I walked into the kitchen and devoured some of the less-moldy potatoes and a few mysteriously (and slightly sour) sausages.

I left them, rattling away in their local tongue and frozen in a caricature of human terror, feeling like I had not only gained a good meal, but a few new good friends.

Big news in the science world! Scientists announce that they have discovered the world’s deadliest spider – a previously unknown species that is as hard to spot as its bite is hard to survive. Apparently the specimen was found when your dead body was examined.

They say you were a portrait of agony, your skin a myriad of pulsing, angry colors and…oh – you know what? I’m sorry. This report is from next week. Aww, things have gotten so confusing ever since the wire services started using time machines. Never mind. No need to worry about that report for a few days.

And now, the weather!

[“Sni Bong” by Dengue Fever]

Thinking back, ladies, looking back, gentlemen, thinking and looking back on my European tour, I feel…a heavy sadness descend upon me.

Of course, it is partly nostalgia – looking back at that younger me, bustling around Europe, having adventures and overcoming obstacles that, at the time, seemed so overwhelming – but now seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story.

But here is the truth of nostalgia. We don’t feel it for who we were, but who we weren’t. We feel it for all the possibilities that were open to us, but that we didn’t take.

Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the table top and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past – a solid single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held.

It is impossible – no matter how blessed you are by luck, or the government, or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind – it is impossible not to feel a little sad, looking at that bit of wax, that bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take.

The village, glimpsed from a train window – beautiful and impossible and impossibly beautiful on a mountaintop, then you wondered what it would be if you stepped off the moving train and walked up the trail to its quiet streets and lived there for the rest of your life. The beautiful face of that young man from Luftnarp, with his gaping mouth and ashy skin, last seen already half-turned away as you boarded the bus, already turning towards a future without you in it, where this thing between you that seemed so possible now already, and forever, never was.

All variety of lost opportunity spied from the windows of public transportation, really.

It can be overwhelming, this splattered, inert wax recording every turn not taken.

“What’s the point?” you ask.

“Why bother?” you say.

“Oh, Cecil,” you cry. “Oh, Cecil.”

But then you remember – I remember – that we are, even now, in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment that is still falling, still volatile – and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the now. Where we never can know what shape the next moment will take.

Stay tuned next for…well, let’s just find out together, shall we?

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Ask your doctor if right is left for you.

05/09/2013 5:49:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 22 - The Whispering Forest

There is a thin semantic line separating weird and beautiful, and that line is covered in jellyfish.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Ladies and gentlemen, several of you may have noticed the new forest that has formed just to the east of Night Vale. It’s hard to say how these dense, piney woods have cropped up in a vast desert waste-scape, nor how they have grown in only a couple of days, but these woods are encroaching quickly on our little town.

Botanists from Night Vale Community College said that this beautiful, lush woodland is called The Whispering Forest – and that, while lovely, should not be approached.

Officials from the Night Vale Parks Department agreed with this sentiment in a prepared statement wherein they just wrote the word “no” on a single piece of paper, but with hundreds of ‘O’s and maybe two dozen 'N’s, so it reads kind of like:

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Or maybe it’s more of an echo-y scream. It’s hard to say – they did not include stage directions in their press release.

What we do know is this: there is a Whispering Forest just outside of town, and it should not be approached under any circumstances.

The Night Vale School District announce that schools will be closed all of next week, because nothing really matters, and is anything even real? They cited the ever-widening night sky as the impetus for this decision.

“How can we place any importance on something so insignificant as math or spelling or history when the void has already swallowed our tiny existence? We are ants, crushed daily by the indifferent feet of the universe, and – it’s just no good anymore! We can’t carry on like this,” the School Board said, swigging on a bottle of table wine and bobbing their heads weakly.

The School Board president, an enormous Glow Cloud that drops animals from great heights and casts a looming fog of despair over all it covers, added, “Grovel, Mortals. Put your tongues to the soil and beg for your worthless lives!”

Some parents, of course, are very upset by the decision to close schools, saying that we can’t let the vast incomprehensibility of the unknowable universe stop us in our tracks. We have to keep pushing forward.

Treasurer of the Night Vale PTA Diane Creighton said, “School is a meaningful part of a child’s life, and to just shut it down because you’re scared of your own insignificance is ridiculous. See? I’m looking at the sky right now!” Creighton continued, “and I’m saying, 'You can’t hold me back, sky! I can do any– I can– I–’”

Creighton then stopped speaking, lowered her loosening fist to her side, and then sighed audibly.

She added, “Nothing is real, I don’t think. Whatever. Who cares?”

Then she stared back up at the sky, and a single tear zig-zagged down her right cheek as she mumbled something about trees having the right idea.

And now, a public service announcement:

The Night Vale Psychological Association, in conjunction with a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, has asked that all citizens start keeping dream journals.

Dream journals can be a spiritually satisfying exercise in understanding your unconscious mind, helping you to fully examine your being, and balance your emotions.

They also can be rife with useful data for government officials and corporate marketing executives.

Of course, dear listeners, many of you are saying, “Well, this sounds fantastic, Cecil, but how do you keep a dream journal?”

Good question!

I have kept one for years now, and I must say I agree with the NVPA on this. It seems hard, at first, because you have to get in the habit of writing first thing in the morning, and also because the City Council’s ban on all writing utensils is still in full effect. But once you learn how to create a makeshift non-pen out of a cocktail straw, some cotton, and any number of colorful municipal food pastes, you’ll be good to go!

In an effort to educate Night Vale citizens about dream journaling the NVPA has created this helpful how-to:

Step One: Find a foreign dictionary or hymnal. It is strongly preferred that you choose something in Russian or Ukrainian, but German will work too.

Step Two: Carve out several pages, creating a secret compartment in the book.

Step Three: Write down your dream in great detail the moment you wake up.

Step Four (and this is the most important step of all): Eat the paper you wrote the dream on, and then place a bird skeleton in the book.

Finally, bury the book near a magnolia or willow tree, and repeat each day.

The sooner you start this process, listeners, the sooner you can start actualizing your existence, exploring your inner self, and the sooner the Sheriff’s Secret Police can track down and arrest those vile miscreants who keep dreaming about horses.

More on The Whispering Forest:

Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, said that he went out to The Whispering Forest this morning, just to see what all the fuss was about, and said that as he neared the woods’ edge, he felt a terrible sense of fear, and began to tremble and sweat.

But then he heard a small, un-gendered voice whisper, “You look so nice today, Larry. I like what you have done with your beard. And just look at that belt! Is that new?”

And of course, Larry’s beard is looking very good, listeners. He finally grew out his old goatee and stopped dying it black. It’s now a full, even blanket of soft-looking peppery wisdom, comforting his wise noble face. The forest is totally right!

So Larry said he entered the woods, and all his angst just melted away. He felt young and carefree in a way he’d never felt, and the woods told him they loved him.

“We love you, Larry,” The Whispering Forest reportedly whispered. “You are good, and you look good. Do you want to hang out more? Let’s hang out, and tell some jokes, and maybe play games! You are a good friend. Let us be friends.”

Larry said he wanted to stay, but that he remembered that he had cable TV, and didn’t want to miss anything just because there was some beautiful nature he’d never explored. So he went home to catch an Iron Chef America marathon.

So, listeners, it sounds like The Whispering Forest is actually pretty nice. I can’t imagine what all those academic types and bureaucratic pen-pushers were going on about. Larry made it sound like a really friendly place!

I’m going to send intern Richard out there, and see what else we can learn about this fascinating new addition to our landscape.

And now a look at the Community Calendar:

Monday is the opening of the new exhibit at the Children’s Science Museum. The exhibit is called “The Moon is a Lie!” It explores how the moon is a government-created myth to keep us all from knowing about the ancient alien machinery that controls the oceans. In the Hands-On Learning Room, children will be able to make their own moons out of styrofoam and aggressive propaganda – just like the Masons did!

Tuesday, Buddy Holly returns to Dark Owl Records. There will be no performance, or book signing, and no one will see him. He will just…hover over music lovers’ shoulders and disapprove of their misguided musical tastes. Incorrect shoppers will receive a bout of uncontrolled sobbing and a horrifying chill up their spine from the legendary rock 'n’ roller himself.

Thursday is Recycling Pickup Day. Paper goes in blue bags, plastic in clear, and any teeth you have lost because of last week’s public water mishap should be gently placed in a wooden box and set afire.

Friday, at the Night Vale Recreation Center, are cooking classes for beginners. Amateur chefs can learn about knife skills, the basics of baking, and a seminar about whether or not deer feel pain or are just sad.

Saturday afternoon is a secret parade. You will know where and when it is if and when you are chosen to see its secret floats and hear its secret songs.

Sunday is the day we decided last fall we would clean up around here. You promised! We need to clean up, OK? And that’s this Sunday. Don’t make other plans, you always do that! You are always doing that!

And now, a word from our sponsor.

You cannot see. You grope around wildly as your footing is also unstable. You feel a thin liquid filling your shoes. It is not water; you can tell.

A pungent smell of brine, or anxiety. Your hands strike something solid. A wall, you think. It is soft, leathery, but also wet. You keep your hands to the surface and it is moving in and out, like it is breathing. No. More like…spasms.

You hear a dull rumble from above; a gurgle from below. You still see nothing.

The walls jerk back, quickly. You lose your balance and slide down to the floor, which is the same surface, but now the liquid is sloshing past you. Something grabs your leg. Something is grabbing your leg! You are being pulled down!

You cannot see which way. Madness!

Which way, madness?

You scream, but no sound comes from your stubborn lips, your impudent throat.

You reach…for what, you do not know. Only that you reach.

A blinding flash, a moment of understanding. You are in an empty storeroom, tied to a chair. There are others, but they are hooded and limp.

You recall this living nightmare. You take comfort in its familiar pain.

You smell fermentation and can hear a dull, unending beeping. Someone shouts in a language you do not know. You love your family. You love them!

Welcome to Red Lobster. Come see what’s fresh today.

More on The Whispering Forest:

Intern Richard called to say the woods are stunning, and the moment he arrived, they were so welcoming.

“Richard, you have lovely green eyes. I can’t believe I just noticed them! That shirt really brings out those piercing gems. You also have nice soft hands. Do you play guitar? Would you like to play guitar? Do you like music?” the Forest apparently whispered.

Richard reported to me that he wanted to stay in the Forest, but I told him that he still has intern tasks to do here at the radio station, like filing ad contracts and renaming the wingless insects, but he insisted on staying.

Richard told me that his feet started itching at first, then tingling – a very pleasant tingle. He then noticed gray-brown patches forming along his feet and legs and he couldn’t move, and Richard assured me that this was exactly what he wanted, but I have already sent for help.

Ladies and gentlemen, for your safety, please stay away from The Whispering Forest. Do not listen to its hollow compliments, its sappy flattery. Learn from Larry Leroy. Stay inside and watch television! There is no reason to go explore nature. No reason!

So, as I try to find out what has happened to our station intern, let us go to the weather.

[“Winifred” by Seth Boyer]

Well, listeners, there’s good news and bad news from The Whispering Forest.

The bad news is that intern Richard – as we know him – is lost to us forever. As are the dozens of first responders, concerned citizens, and curious nature lovers who all went to The Whispering Forest today.

To the family of Richard, let me say I am terribly sorry for your loss. He was an excellent intern, and he will be missed.

The good news is that none of those we lost today are technically dead. According to Simone Rigadeau, from the Earth Sciences building at Night Vale Community College, The Whispering Forest is a place where we can all plunge our feet and hands into the cool, soft soil, allowing our fingers and toes to grow and spiral into the earth, quickly and deeply intertwining with themselves, each other, snaking in and through a complex organic network to become one.

In The Whispering Forest, everyone is one. Everything.

They share each other now.

I know Simone is only a transient who lives in an unused storage closet in the Earth Sciences building and not an actual scientist, but I thought that was a beautiful story, and it brought some meaning to the otherwise meaningless life of an intern.

So…rest easy, Night Vale, knowing that we have lost no one today. They have gained each other. They share the soul of The Whispering Forest now, and we will have them, always.

Or…at least however long trees live, which I think is fairly long…I’m not really sure. I had a hamster as a child and it died in, like, two weeks, so meh! What do I know?

Stay tuned next for the sound of a rapidly beating heart.

As always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: If you love someone, set them free. Set them free now. This is the police, and we have you surrounded.

07/09/2013 12:50:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 23 - Eternal Scouts

We report only the real, the semi-real, and the verifiably unreal.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Here at the station, we have been receiving many calls and emails over the last several months asking us about Khoshekh – the cat found hovering in the men’s bathroom. Well, he is doing just fine, and thank you very much for your concern. In fact, he recently gave birth to an adorable litter of kittens. How does a he cat give birth? Well, how does a he cat hover in an immobile spot in a radio station bathroom?

Some things just aren’t meant to be questioned. Most things, actually.

We slipped a note under Station Management’s door, asking if we could keep all those adorable, floating kittens. Management responded with a great thrashing behind the closed door of their office, and a localized rain storm in the break room. We are still working with the station oracle to understand their message, and we will let you know soon what we do with the kittens.

Exciting news from the Night Vale chapter of the Boy Scouts. Two of their members – Franklin Wilson and Barton Donovan – have achieved all the necessary requirements to advance from the rank of Fear Scout to that final and most terrible of ranks: Eternal Scout. The ceremony will take place at an unspecified time today, in the Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph’s, and anyone is invited to attend.

Those who wish to view the ceremony should wear loose-fitting clothing and tell everyone they know that they will be going on a long trip – oh, just somewhere, to clear their heads, you know? And that they don’t know when they will be back, but it won’t be for a long time, probably.

“I just really have to find myself, and I think the open road is the place to do it,” you should say. “Don’t look for me,” you should continue, taking hold of your loved one’s shoulder and maintaining an intense eye contact. “Don’t look for me.”

The City Council voted this week to make death a meritocracy. “For all of human existence, death has been a communistic sort of event,” the Council said in a prepared statement, and that “we live in America, where it is not the government’s job to give death to every single citizen.”

The Council noted that from now on, death would be earned through hard work and productivity, not just as a handout for every resource-sucking freeloader on the street.

“If you want to die,” the Council said, “you will have to achieve death yourself. Not everyone gets to die, and that’s just how it will be.”

The vote won by a small margin, with the opposition split between keeping death universal and others pushing for banning death altogether.

Listen, Night Vale, I don’t know about you, but I am for this new merit-based system of death. If everyone gets to die, then no one will really value death. I used to be young, and idealistic, and think that death was a human right, that everyone deserved to die. But now, I realize that dying is very hard work. I’m working hard every day, trying to die, but you don’t hear me complaining, “Oh, government, where’s my free death?" No. When I die, I want to have earned it.

I don’t mean to sound insensitive to those less fortunate, who don’t have the means to die without government help, which is why I support our local non-profit shelters, that will help ease our more ‘down-on-their-luck’ brothers and sisters toward the death they truly want, but just can’t afford.

At her regular daily press conference today, Mayor Pamela Winchell extended a warm congratulations to Franklin and Barton for their Eternal Scout achievement.

"Fire is actually cold!” she shrieked. “It is the cold that burns you!”

She went on to produce several colorful balloons from her mouth, which she presented to strange, mute children in the audience – children whom none of the reporters remembered having been there just seconds before, and whom none of them recognized.

The children thanked the mayor by vibrating and dissolving.

The Scouts, meanwhile, have continued preparations for their ceremony. The Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph’s is now covered by a thick burlap tent, and the scout leaders were seen rolling several oil drums into the tent, drums that rattled as they moved. They also have put up streamers and a hand-painted banner over the tent entrance that reads “GREAT JOB, FRANKY AND BARTY!”

Great job indeed! Oh, this is so exciting! What a wonderful little town we have.

After a long battle with parents over the controversial soda machines in the recently-reopened Night Vale High School, the School Board has finally capitulated to pressure from the PTA. While the School Board – led by the ethereal and menacing Glow Cloud – refused to remove the machines because of the much-needed extra revenue, they concurred that so much corn syrup was simply not good for students’ health.

As a compromise, the School Board agreed to booby-trap the machines with swinging blades and an electrical maze to promote healthier drink choices and physical activity – which can help burn off all that sugar.

To make up for the potentially lowered income from fewer purchases, the School Board said they would raise soda prices, remove all water fountains and sinks in the building, and double up the salt in all cafeteria dishes.

The School Board concluded their announcement with the following:

“All hail! All praise! All submit before the Glow Cloud!”

Then they sprayed themselves, and reporters, with shaken-up two-liters of warm Sierra Mist.

Agents from the Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency are having their annual recruitment drive at the Abandoned Missile Silo Outside of Town next week. Those interested in joining whatever vague but important work it is that they do should submit resumes and head shots into one of several secret drop spots around town.

At the event itself, the candidates will be ruthlessly interrogated to determine how they found out where the secret drop spots are, what exactly they know about the agency, and who told them.

A representative for the Agency, speaking through a representative, who in turn spoke through a heavily-drugged proxy, said, “Oh, you know, it’ll be a lot of the standard job interview stuff. Asking you to name your greatest weakness so that we can use it to turn the screws on you even tighter, breaking you slowly through a series of hypnotic light pulses and disruptive sound patterns…stuff like that.”

Those who make it through this rigorous process will vanish forever from our lives – presumably to join the Vague, Yet Menacing, Agency in some capacity.

Those who fail the process will also vanish.

Eventually, given enough time, we all will vanish – even the memories of us corroding and fading.

The recruitment drive includes a potluck lunch, and the Agency mentioned that they are usually overstocked on desserts and do not have enough main courses, so…keep that in mind.

If you want to witness the Eternal Scout ceremony, now is the time to run to the burlap tent over the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph’s. Scout leaders indicate that the ceremony will be starting any second now – although much of the ceremony is out of mere human control, and so they could not give a specific time.

Scout Master Earl Harlan said, “I’m proud to be the first Scout troop to achieve this rank. I’m also terrified to be the first Scout troop to achieve this rank. The two emotions are mixing inside my body and it’s confusing. It’s confusing." He shivered.

"We could have had something, Cecil. Always remember that,” he concluded, clutching my arm before walking, head bowed, out of the studio.

Well, I think we’re all both proud and terrified most of the time, and that’s because we live in the best town in this county, in this state, and in this nation. That’s where the pride comes from! The terrified part is because life is terrifying. It just is.

And now a word from our sponsors:

Losing hope? Hard to see a way out? Hope: losing it? Lost? Lost in a cave? Lost in a cave that spirals around a single obsidian column, lit dimly by a source that does not seem to be either above or below? Hard to see? Scrabbling amongst the rocks for any landmark that might tell you from whence you came, to where you should go? Depressed? Suffering from depression? Suffering? Tripped on a rock and tumbling for a painful eternity down the evenly-lit featureless spiral? Losing hope?

Six Flags Desert Springs. Just off Exit 64, in Night Vale.

The Night Vale Medical Board announced today that they can’t help you. Not if you’re gonna keep screaming like that! They also asked that you clean up a bit before you come in. They don’t want to get sick!

“One of the major problems we face as doctors is the sheer amount of blood,” said Suzanne Thurgood, Publicity Director for the Medical Board. “We get so much blood all over our floors and jeans and copper magnet bracelets – it becomes nearly untenable.”

Thurgood added that the best thing to do if you are unable to stop bleeding is to first take a few breaths. Calm yourself. This should help you concentrate on not bleeding. Then, once you have finished bleeding, come to a doctor’s office.

“It’s not a matter of medical training,” Thurgood said. “It’s simply a matter of respecting other people.”

Thurgood then lit a cigarette and placed it expertly into the mouth of a low-flying hawk. As the bird flew away, a distant clock tower chimed the quarter hour, and a gentle rain began to fall.

This has been community health tips.

Reports are coming in that the Eternal Scout ceremony has started, and that herds of strange, mute children are streaming out of the burlap tent, filling all public and private spaces and standing silently, as though awaiting an order from some unknown higher source. The Sheriff’s Secret Police advise that the children are creepy and that they are creeped out by them. I myself count five in this recording booth with me – exactly half of them boys, and half of them girls.

Who knows for what purpose these children have come to us, and to what end their actions will take us?

Who knows anything, actually, for sure?

Let’s go, surrounded and confused, vulnerable and trembling, to the weather.

[“Too Much Time” by John Vanderslice]

The ceremony is over, dear listeners. The children are gone.

It seems we have come through this crisis, as all crises before, safe and sound – the alarm only a false alarm.

The children that had surrounded us were not the threat we imagined. After their period of ominous silence, all they did was attack, savagely, dragging many citizens with them into the tent over the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph’s.

Secret Police indicate only ten or so people were taken, and maybe a dozen more killed.

How foolish we were to worry.

How much of our lives we spend building complex prophecies of fear, when the world itself is just the world we have always known and gotten along in.

Scout Master Harlan was one of the ones taken. I hope that he continues to be both proud and terrified, in whichever new reality he finds himself. I think often about the last moments with him, and the things that were said.

I think often about many things.

Other things, I think less about.

Franklin and Barton, now and forever holding the rank of Eternal Scout, have been preserved and placed in glass cases out front of the City Hall – a reminder, to all who pass, of the risks and rewards of bravery. Of loyalty. Of being a Scout. May all children who see them feel a swelling of pride.

Except that horde of mute children from some other world – those children, hopefully, we will never see again.

Listeners, listeners out there, listeners out in the vacant night clinging to my voice as a simulacrum of companionship, remember: fear is consciousness plus life. Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened. Toast is bread, held under direct heat until crisp. The present tense of regret is indecision. The future tense of fear is either comedy or tragedy. And the past tense of toast is toasted.

Stay tuned now for more voices. More reassuring noise in this quiet world.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys. Show them pictures of cows when they’re young, and administer brief electrical shocks.

08/09/2013 9:17:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 24 - The Mayor

The sun has risen. You are awake. This symmetry is not without meaning.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, I’m receiving word from the Sheriff’s Secret Police that Mayor Pamela Winchell has gone missing.

After this morning’s press conference, where she updated the media on standard mayoral news – stuff like her favorite kinds of rocks and a demonstration on hatchet sharpening – she walked to her office and then disappeared.

Trish Hidge, one of Winchell’s staffers, said, “Mayors can disappear. It’s not a big deal. She disappears all the time. She can fly and turn into a horse too! It’s perfectly within her rights, as mayor, to turn invisible. To disintegrate into a thin cloud of imperceptible existence.”

Hidge continued, “In fact, I can disappear if I want to. Because I work for the Mayor, I have all of the Mayor’s powers. I just don’t use them all the time…out of respect for the Mayor.”

When pressed by reporters to show her powers, Hidge reluctantly agreed, saying, “Uh, just this once,” and then standing in place, visibly straining, eyes bulging, cheeks reddening; there was a long, uncomfortable silence before Hidge said, “Well, I can’t do it with everyone watching. Turn around, okay?”

But then, before anyone could turn around, she vanished, leaving behind only a light white puff – like baby powder – a faint smell of olives, and an echoing voice that said, “No, wait, I–I got it! See?”

If anyone has any information on the Mayor’s whereabouts, please contact the Sheriff’s Secret Police, or just speak into any phone. They are all bugged, of course.

The Night Vale Community Theater is proud to announce the opening of their long-awaited production of Once On This Island. The location, and cast, are a secret. Curtain is promptly at 8:00, and those seeking autographs of cast members after the show should ask themselves why signatures are valuable and what that particular kind of transaction even means.

The Night Vale Daily Journal has indicated their intention to review the musical, as soon as they can find out where the performances are taking place. They are interrogating anyone who might provide them with the necessary information.

I am, myself, an aficionado of the theater – having once played the role of Pippin in a high school production. The musical being produced was actually South Pacific, but our director had a real flair for experimental theater, and felt the addition of characters from other famous plays would spice things up.

He also hid dangerous traps all throughout the set in order to keep us on our toes.

Oh, it was a wonderful couple of months, preparing for and performing in front of parents and friends, and those of us who were left at the end of it felt like we had truly been through something. Something we would never forget. Not even in the middle of the night, staring blankly into the darkness. Sweaty…pallid…trembling.

Students and seniors receive a 10% discount on all tickets to the hit musical.

Here’s a public service message to all the children in our audience:

Children, the night sky may seem like a scary thing sometimes. And it is. It’s a very scary thing.

Look at the stars, twinkling silently. They are so far away that none of us will ever get to even the closest one. They are dead-eyed sigils of our own failures against distance and mortality. And behind them, just the void. That nothingness that is everything, that everything that is nothing.

Even the blinking light of an airplane streaking across it does not seem to assuage the tiniest bit of its blackness – like throwing a single stray ember into the depths of a vast arctic ocean.

And what if the void is not as void as we thought? What could be coming towards us out of the distance? Insentient asteroid with a chance trajectory? Sentient beings with a malicious trajectory? What good could come of this? What good, children, could come of any of this?

Fear the night sky, children, and sleep tight in your beds, and the inadequate shelters of blankets and parental love.

Sleep sound, children.

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

More on our missing mayor:

Listeners, this might be worse than I could have imagined. I’m receiving word that Old Woman Josie and a gentleman that may or may not be an Angel friend of hers – depending on whether or not Angels are real, or if they are real, but aren’t really friends with Josie, or not real but suddenly became real because Josie willed them into existence. However it is, Josie and her exceptionally tall winged friend saw Mayor Winchell earlier this morning near the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, talking to a man in an offensively cartoon-ish Native American headdress.

Listeners, that is most certainly the Apache Tracker, and look – I don’t know what he is up to, but everywhere he goes, nothing good happens. For instance: last time he went to the Post Office, they had to spend months cleaning the blood off the walls and hire who knows what kind of specialists to stop the disembodied screaming coming from every darkened corner.

I mean, what kind of contractor even specializes in removing screams? Well, besides Shriek-Tronics, of course, but they moved their offices to several miles deep underground, and mostly just generate earthquakes for the government these days.

The point is that the Apache Tracker – despite his recent unexplained transformation into a real Native American – is not who he claims to be, and is not a trustworthy individual. I can only fear the worst for Mayor Winchell.

Old Woman Josie said she saw the two in a heated discussion that culminated in the Apache Tracker opening a leather briefcase, which in turn released a thick cloud of black flies – more than you would think could fit into a normal-sized fly briefcase.

The man with the insensitively feathered headdress then got into the backseat of a black sedan. Josie said she saw the driver clearly, and recognized him, but could no longer remember any details about his face.

Josie did not see where the mayor went, though, as her possible Angel friend was spending a lot of time explaining why an unassisted triple play in baseball is so rare. And she got distracted, because it seemed like a really important story, and she didn’t want to seem rude.

Listeners, we have contacted the Sheriff’s Secret Police. If you see this black sedan, the mayor, or have any other information (including light and citrus-y dessert recipes for our upcoming special on fresh summer cuisine), please contact us immediately.

And now, a word from our sponsor.

Listeners, are you lost? Don’t know where to turn? Might I recommend The Brown Stone Spire.

Do you need cash? Cast your eyes to The Brown Stone Spire.

Alone, drowning in back taxes and legal problems? Look at The Brown Stone Spire.

Night Vale’s newest spire – built in the night several weeks ago by unknown agents, or aliens, or animals, or just our collective imagination – the Brown Stone Spire offers itself to all those who are down on their luck, or destitute, or simply being crushed by the consequences of their own maleficence.

The Brown Stone Spire does not care. The Brown Stone Spire does not discriminate based on petty morals.

Divorce? Out of work?

Give yourself to The Brown Stone Spire.

You might be asking, how much does it cost to receive help from The Brown Stone Spire? I can assure you it does not cost any money. It costs…other things. But if you’re concerned about what those costs are, then you are not in enough trouble for The Brown Stone Spire. You just need a lawyer.

But if you are filled with glass shards of regret – The Brown Stone Spire – or screaming impotently at an indifferent moon, then no need to look! The Brown Stone Spire will find you.

The Brown Stone Spire has a slogan. It cannot be pronounced.

This message was brought to you by Wendy’s.

During the commercial break, listeners, we received several calls from drivers saying that they saw the Apache Tracker in a black sedan, but that the mayor was not with him. He and his driver, who they couldn’t describe, were standing outside the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, still, unmoving, a swirl of dust and smoke spiraling slowly about them, a soft rumble below the sand, and the visceral tension of something about to burst.

So much bad news with those two men, Night Vale. Stay away from the Fun Complex, if you can. Not only these men, but there is also that secret civilization living under lane five that is planning a great war against us.

On the other hand, tonight is dollar beers and free jukebox tokens.

Listen, you do what you want. It’s your choice. But I’m just saying, that Apache Tracker or whatever he likes being called…I mean, if you knew someone who was always affecting a derogatory accent or told racist jokes, you wouldn’t be friends with them, right? So…who would hang around this guy? What a jerk!

Still nothing on the mayor, dear listeners. The City Council has even become upset over this. They have been on the steps of City Hall, pacing and howling in unison like elephants in mourning.

Listeners, I know we don’t always agree with the mayor, and sometimes we just despise our elected officials because of the artifice of political parties, or because they don’t represent every one of our very specific interests, or because they are a different species, or have frightening supernatural powers and threaten violence against innocent citizens. I understand all of this. No politician is perfect, Night Vale! But Mayor Winchell has overseen some great moments in our town’s recent history.

She increased funding for the cancer ward at the Night Vale Hospital. And now, anyone who wants cancer can get cancer! Whether or not they have health care or a reason to live!

She regularly visits Night Vale Elementary School classes to promote youth literacy by reading children’s classics like Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or any number of Cormac McCarthy’s novels.

She has been controversial, to be sure, but she is our leader, our parent. She cares very much about us, Night Vale, and when she jails or tortures someone without just cause or due process, it is because she loves this town so much.

Let us find our mayor, Night Vale!

But first, let us go to the weather.

[“Biblical Violence” by Hella]

Listeners: moments ago, Mayor Winchell was found. She was holding an impromptu press conference. The press had to stay at least 500 feet away from her, as she was standing at the edge of the Dog Park. And no one, except city officials and Hooded Figures, are allowed that close.

Mayor Winchell apparently set up a podium and quietly delivered a prepared statement without a microphone and no one could hear what she had to say. Two Hooded Figures were standing behind her. But listeners, oh, listeners, do we ever have a scoop!

Former intern Dana, who I thought had been lost forever after she was swallowed up by the Dog Park two months ago, well…she texted me, just now, from whatever plane of existence she’s on. Dana is still alive, and in the Dog Park, and she heard the mayor’s speech.

And it turns out, Mayor Pamela Winchell is stepping down by year’s end!

Other reports indicated the mayor concluded by lighting the podium on fire, kicking it over, and climbing the 12-feet high, smooth obsidian walls quickly, gracefully, like a salamander, and then shouting several things that sounded like Russian vulgarities.

The Hooded Figures stayed outside the Dog Park and stared down reporters, who grew gray and hunched with melancholy. Many began wailing and clutching their eyes.

Listeners, first of all, it was so nice to hear from Dana. We miss her so. I tried emailing her back, but…my thumbs began to burn and blacken, and blood began trickling from my nose as I wrote, so I had to stop.

Hopefully, we will see Dana again. Time is weird. So is space. I hope ours match again someday.

As for the mayor, well, this is surprising! Did the Secret Police force her hand? Some Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency? Would this have anything to do with the Poetry Week incident, where actual Night Vale citizens, like Dana, got inside the forbidden Dog Park?

Or maybe it was simply the mayor’s choice.

It’s actually a good way to go out. The last six mayors were all executed quite publicly and creatively. Remember that many junior high students still learn about the skeletal system from the late Mayor Tom Garmin himself. So, to get to announce your own retirement is pretty excellent.

Maybe Mayor Winchell needed to spend more time with her family. Or, maybe she has been exiled to the Dog Park for sins yet unknown. Or maybe, she plans to grow into a tree by joining the collective life force and single shared soul of the Whispering Forest, which has become a very popular lifestyle choice these days.

All I know, Night Vale, is that we should all be so lucky to set our own futures. Dana did not. I don’t know that I will.

Each day the sun rises and sets. The moon pulls the tides. Our hearts beat. Our loved ones love us back. And we share our inhales and exhales with the great organism that is our tiny planet.

But, as you watch the sun rise again tomorrow morning, think to yourself: past performance is not a predictor of future results. And then force a smile, drink another cup of coffee, and try not to look down as you walk across the soil that will eventually fill your lifeless lungs and repurpose your corpse.

Each day that is, is a blessing, Night Vale.

And now, stay tuned next for the popular radio game show, Wait, Wait, Don’t! No, Don’t! Please, Don’t!

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: The most dangerous game is man. The most entertaining game is Broadway puppy-ball. The most weird game is esoteric bear.

09/09/2013 6:54:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 25 - One Year Later

A friendly desert community where the sun is still hot, the moon still beautiful, and mysterious lights still pass overhead while we all pretend to sleep.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Word is in about a disturbance at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. There has been the sound of chanting and machinery from under the pin retrieval area of lane five, and Teddy Williams has changed all the bowlers’ names on the electronic score cards to “They Are Here!”

This is causing some confusion, and has completely ruined Jeremy Godfried’s 50th birthday party – which had rented out a few lanes for the afternoon. Jeremy was last seen drinking a light beer out of a plastic cup, shaking his head sadly as he swished the liquid around, and looking out the window at the sky (mostly void, partially stars).

Teddy Williams was last seen howling, commanding his militia to surround the pin retrieval area and prepare for an attack.

And Carlos – sweet Carlos, brave Carlos – was last seen approaching the entrance to the Underground City, saying he was going to get to the bottom of this, that someone had to, and that Teddy Williams was deranged.

Teddy Williams was then last seen saying, “Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Say that to my face, big shot!”

But Carlos, my poor Carlos, was already gone.

I fear, Night Vale. I fear for what we know. I fear for what we don’t know. I fear for what we don’t yet know that we don’t know.

The Apache Tracker stood outside of the bowling alley, glowering at the entrance and shaking his head. I remind you that this is the white guy who likes to dress in a cartoonish approximation of a Native American, and claims to have “mystical powers.” He’s a real racist jerk, and no one likes him. And the fact that he recently disappeared and reappeared as an actual Native American changes nothing. And neither does the fact that he can now only speak Russian. He is still the same embarrassment to our town he always was. Anyway, he’s glowering at the entrance, arms crossed, wearing one of his stupid plastic feather headdresses.

But…back to Carlos. Carlos the Scientist. Perfect of stature and bearing, perfect of tone and taut, and time having fixed what the barbarous barber Telly so treacherously snipped away, perfect of hair.

One year. One year later. Listeners. Listeners! One single year since two major events in our town’s history.

First, the opening of our lovely state-of-the-art Dog Park (which is forbidden, and which I will not mention again).

Second, and most important, it is one year since the arrival in Night Vale of our most beloved and singular citizen. He came to us to investigate our town. Because, he said, it was scientifically extraordinary, and downright bizarre. We had no idea what he was talking about, but with his golden voice ringing out from the bell of his mouth, who among us could argue with the content of such perfect speech?

Oh, just one short year ago.

I had arranged a small ceremony to mark this occasion, and invited Carlos to attend. However, it looks like he will be…delayed.

But I am not worried. I am not upset. I know that Carlos will be here for the ceremony. I have the trophy here in my hand. I am holding the trophy and I am not upset. Carlos will be here. He will. I am holding the trophy!

In other news, a commercial airliner appeared today inside the home of surprised Night Vale citizen Becky Canterbury, who said she was about to get into the shower when it roared down her hallway and then disappeared, as suddenly as it had arrived. There is no conclusive evidence that this is the same airliner last seen in the Night Vale Elementary gym one year ago. But we have jumped to that conclusion and will defend it against all naysayers, violently and without mercy.

Our truths may or may not be true, but they are ours, and we stand by them – even as the experts and skeptics hold aloft clipboards and intone to us about “snow” and “mountains.”

Becky added that she would like to take that shower now, and that she has no idea how we managed to arrive for an interview mere seconds after the incident occurred.

“My doors are locked!” she said. “My windows too! I’ve had my eyes shut for years! How did you get in here?”

The local chapter of the NRA has begun market-testing some possible new slogans. These include:

- Guns don’t kill people, blood loss and organ damage does
- Guns don’t kill people, people kill guns
- A list of things that kill people:
  1. Conceivably, anything
  2. Not guns!
- Guns don’t kill people, we are all immortal souls living temporarily in shelters of earth and meat

And,

- If you say guns kill people one more time, I will shoot you with a gun, and you will, coincidentally, die

To vote on the new slogan, simply fire a gun at the object or person that best represents your choice.

Parents, let’s talk about safety when taking your children to play out in the Scrublands and the Sand Wastes. All children in Night Vale are missing this week, so there’s no current safety issues.

Hope we find ‘em!

Oh happy day! I have just received word that Carlos returned from the entrance to the city, gesturing to everyone around and asking them to follow him. He lead them into the pin retrieval area, which is not an easy place for a crowd, so there was a lot of crouching and saying “Excuse me. Excuse me!”

But soon enough, they were all arrayed on the clifftop, overlooking that dreaded subterranean metropolis. Teddy Williams, and his militia, and the folks that had come for Jeremy’s birthday, and Jeremy himself – still holding his plastic cup of beer and leaning morosely against the wall, pointedly refusing to look where everyone else was.

This was the first time most of them had seen the city. It seemed so distant below them, its strange spires small and far away. The windows in the buildings, alight with the fire of hostile life, were tiny dots from where they stood. They could hear the footsteps of the approaching army, the chanting!

Many of them quaked with fear, but not Carlos. My brave Carlos stepped out into the pit, climbing down the slope. At first, onlookers were horrified at his lunatic descent. Then, they were confused…as he got to the city much faster than they expected. And then, there was panic, as their eyes told them a story they could not understand, let alone believe.

“Behold,” said Carlos, standing in the center of the Underground City, “this is not an enormous city miles below the earth. It is a very small city about ten feet below the earth, populated by tiny people, who have had to spend a year slowly climbing the ten feet to our world!" He gestured at the spires, which came up, approximately, to his knees. "We have nothing to fear!”

Well…if Carlos says it, I will happily repeat it. We have nothing to fear, and never did!

The City Council would like to remind you about the tiered heavens and the hierarchy of Angels. The reminder is that you still should not know anything about this. The structure of Heaven and the Angelic organizational chart are still privileged information.

Also, Angels aren’t real.

“I really get tired of having to say this!” a City Council representative said to a group of disgruntled Angels. “Angels aren’t real They just aren’t!”

The Angels became unruly, and were dispersed by a thunderclap from Heaven.

Oh… A truly fearful thing has happened, listeners.

Carlos, standing triumphantly in the toy-scaled city, was attacked by tiny people using projectiles and explosives. He fell back to the side of the small hole in the pin retrieval area of lane five, blood welled through his shirt, and here I am, stuck in my booth, useless, only able to narrate and not to help. He staggered, fell to his knees – so much blood! He collapsed completely.

Curse this town, that saw Carlos die. Curse me. Curse it all!

Let us take a moment to–

Let us…take this moment–

Ladies and gentlemen, let us mourn the pass–

Can’t. I can’t!

I am still holding this trophy! I–

We go now to this puh– …pre-recorded public service announcement.

Scientists, and science in general, would like to remind you that some things exist and some things do not. Usually you can apply the simple test of seeing if it is there. If it is there, it exists! If not, it probably doesn’t – but it might just be currently existing somewhere else!

Existence is tricky, these scientists say. Research shows this.

For instance, there is that house in the housing development of Desert Creek out back of the elementary school – the House that Doesn’t Exist. It seems like it exists, like it’s just right there when you look at it, and it’s between two other identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not. But it does not exist. They have proved this with science.

The scientists still haven’t gotten up the nerve to ring the doorbell and find out what happens. Do you want to do it? They’ll pay you $5 if you do! “Just ring it once, OK? We’ll be watching from back here. You’ll probably be fine.”

Ladies, gentlemen, how wonderful! Carlos is not dead at all! It seems that the Apache Tracker ran in, crouching awkwardly through the pin retrieval area and shouting “Наконец, мое время пришло!” (1)

He leapt into the pit, trailing his offensive feather headdress, and heaved Carlos up in a mighty bear hug, carrying him out of the pit while being attacked viciously by the miniature citizens of the miniature city.

Even Jeremy, upset still about his ruined birthday party, couldn’t help but cheer as the formerly false, now real, Native American laid Carlos safely on the linoleum floor.

Teddy Williams, who of course is also a licensed doctor – as all bowling alley owners are required to be – checked his wounds and indicated through a series of rhythmic hoots that Carlos will be, in fact, OK!

He’s OK!

Never before in my career as a broadcaster have I gone through such a roller coaster of emotion and fear! To think, that I had lost that most precious thing to me, the presence of Carlos in my life, and then to have it brought back, so that I could appreciate it all the more.

Oh, Carlos! All the words I would never have said to you!

And the news that the city is in fact only a miniature city ten feet down…well, that was startling as well. But it appears that all is well! And so I say to you, with a heart singing its way from heavy to light, goodnight, Night Vale! Good–

Oh no! I have just been handed a note.

Oh. This is not good news.

Ladies and gentlemen, in his valiant rescue of our beloved Carlos, the Apache Tracker was mortally wounded. He is bleeding profusely and it is getting all over his fake feather headdress, and he says that even his ancient Indian magics will not help him – which of course they won’t, because they’re not real.

Listeners, how could I have been so wrong about this man? A racist embarrassment to our town? Maybe. A real jerk? Yes. But he also was a man with Night Vale’s best interests at heart, who worked closely with the Angels and the mysterious Man in the Tan Jacket to protect us from the miniature city under the bowling alley. And he, at the cost of his own life, saved Carlos.

Carlos breathes and soon the Apache Tracker will not.

Tell me nothing else, and still I will tell you: here is a good man. Here is a good man dying. Here it is, the end of a good man’s life. The Apache Tracker spoke, not in a hoarse whisper, but with a clear, ringing voice, addressing the sky hidden behind the styrofoam panels of the ceiling:

“Ладно, ладно. Я знал, это случится. Ты можешь взять мою машину.” (2)

He said this, and then he died. The Apache Tracker is dead, Teddy Williams confirmed. Jeremy is slumped into a folding chair, kicking his feet and saying, “This is the worst birthday party anyone has ever had.”

Goodnight, brave Tracker. Goodnight. I thought you were one thing and you were another. It is likely I will learn nothing from this.

Oh! Message on my phone…Carlos wants to see me. He says to meet him at the Arby’s parking lot. Um… I am not sure what scientific exploration now needs the services of my radio audience, but I will dutifully go, dutifully meet him.

And as I go, let us all go. Go now, to the weather.

[“Sunday Morning Stasis” by Joseph Fink]

I arrived at the parking lot to find Carlos perched on the trunk of his car in flannel and jeans, his perfect hair mussed, his perfect teeth hidden.

“What is it?” I said. “Wha– what danger are we in? What mystery needs to be explored?”

He shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. “After everything that happened…I just wanted to see you.”

My heart leapt. My heart soared! My heart metaphorically performed a number of aerial activities and literally it began to beat hard.

“Oh?” I said, my voice more tremble than word.

Carlos looked at the setting sun. “I used to think it was setting at the wrong time,” he said, “but then I realized that time doesn’t work in Night Vale, and that none of the clocks are real. Sometimes things seem so strange, or malevolent, and then you find that, underneath, it was something else altogether. Something pure, and innocent.”

“I know what you mean,” I replied.

Somewhere, the tiny people of the city below have arrived in Night Vale, and are beginning their war against us – having already shown themselves capable of murder.

Somewhere, a Man in a Tan Jacket is whispering into the ears of our mayor, and we do not know what agenda they pursue.

Somewhere, the body of the Apache Tracker lies cold and still, never to speak of ancient Indian magics again.

This all happens somewhere else.

But here, Carlos and I sat on the trunk of that car – his car – looking together at the lights up in the sky above the Arby’s…they were beautiful in the hushed twilight, shimmering in a night sky already coming alive with bits of the universe.

One year later. One year since he arrived. He put his hand on my knee and said nothing. And I knew what he meant. I felt the same. I leaned my head on his shoulder.

We understand the lights. We understand the lights above the Arby’s. We understand so much.

But the sky behind those lights – mostly void, partially stars? That sky reminds us we don’t understand even more.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Fun game: Say “toy boat” over and over. Do it for the rest of your life. Retreat from society, and live on alms. Whisper “toy boat” as you die.

Translations:
(1) Finally, my time has come!
(2) It’s Fine, it’s fine. I knew this would happen. You can have my car.

Russian phrases based on a translation by classysushi which I found in a Google search, and then punched in to Google Translate. And then, since Google Translate is never to be fully trusted, I got the actual translation from solorwind. Any inaccuracies, however, remain 100% my fault.

09/09/2013 13:23:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 26 - Faceless Old Woman

Trumpets playing soft jazz from out of the dark desert distance. They come tomorrow. It is too late for us.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Did you know there’s a Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home? It’s true! She’s there now. She’s always there, just out of your sight. Always just out of your sight.

Because you cannot see her, you were probably completely unaware that this woman likes to sift through photos of you and your loved ones. She softly touches each face, as if wishing it were her own. Or perhaps claiming it as her own. Or perhaps simply cursing that person. It’s hard to say. You’ve never seen her doing this.

The Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home does lots of things.

Ever wonder why your web browser’s history is filled with Bing searches for – quote – “pictures of dead wolves,” or – quote – “the melting point of birds?" Or why sometimes your shower drain gets clogged with organ meats? Or why sometimes you hear crying from behind the walls? Or scratching at the front door? Or you awaken to find long silver hairs on the pillow next to you?

Or maybe you’ve never noticed any of those things. You’ve lived your life to this point completely oblivious to this Old Woman Who Has No Face. And truth be told, I think she’s probably harmless. But maybe you shouldn’t sleep in your home anymore…just in case.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dana has continued to send me texts from beyond the tall black fences of the Dog Park. Even though the Dog Park is forbidden to citizens and their dogs, Dana managed to get in, and is now trapped there for…who knows how long?

First off, she says she’s OK. She says she has met some nice people and she’s never bored.

She met the Man in the Tan Jacket, who has been haunting this city for the past few months. In fact, Dana says the Man in the Tan Jacket is quite nice, and they’ve really struck up quite a friendship. She’s still trying to figure out what the man’s involvement is with the Hooded Figures, and the recently deceased Apache Tracker, and the tiny underground civilization of war-mongers who live below lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. He has seemed to pop up in relation to a lot of strange events.

She’s also trying to figure out what he looks like. Every time she steps away from that guy, she can’t remember a thing about him – just that he’s wearing a tan jacket and carrying a deerskin briefcase.

Oh – and that briefcase, Dana says, is kind of weird because it’s full of flies. And that’s kind of creepy, at first, until you realize that he’s a fly salesman, and that they’re all trained. They can retrieve mail, and speak German, and play dead, and all kinds of cute things.

She says he’s a pretty cool guy, if you get to know him.

Oh, and I almost forgot – Dana wonders if any listeners with a good arm can get kind of close to the Dog Park and throw some beans or chips or beef jerky or something over the tall fence? She’s very hungry. In fact, it took me a while to get through her typos, listeners. She must be shaking really badly.

And now, a public service announcement from the greater Night Vale medical community.

Are you feeling run down? Even after eight hours of sleep? Are you having trouble breathing between the hours of 2:00 and 4:00? Are you gaining several extra pounds of weight, only to lose those pounds suddenly and then gain them back, all in five to six hour stretches of time?

Are you craving soil, like, all the time? Rich, dark soil that you just want cooling your tongue, filling your throat, your sinuses, your lungs, your belly? Are you digging up the earth in the early morning, screaming at the half-formed sun as if it would cordially leave, returning you to the darkness you so richly deserve and psychologically demand?

If you answered yes to all of those questions, then you’re fine! The program is working. All tests have been successful, and Phase Four is imminent.

This has been Community Health Tips.

More on the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home. She has issued a statement to the media just now. Here is that statement:

> I’m confused. There’s no sense to how you organize the objects in your fridge. I cannot determine any sense of order. What systems do you use to contain your vegetables, your cans, your jars, your food stains? There are stains, organic brown and pink smears that tell the esoteric history of your food. I like the yellowish one near the crisper because I think it is the oldest. It has a topography.

> Although I do not like all these bugs you have in your home. I like some of them. I also changed your sheets. You do not change your sheets enough. I do not think you are unsanitary, but I think you would feel better if you changed your sheets from time to time.

> And time is weird because it doesn’t exist for me in the same way, so your sheets are already covered with your bones and hair and blood, but…not yet. Not really yet.

> I wish you could see me, just cleaning and reorganizing, making sense of the nonsense plants and muscles in your fridge, but you never look. If you would just glance left or right every so often, you’d see me. I’m right next to you, right now. I’m even in the mirrors, but you just stare at yourself, staring only at your over-ripe potato of a face. I’m there in every mirror, if you could just look for me in the background behind you.

> Also, what’s your wifi password?

So, that’s the Old Woman’s special announcement. I have no idea how we received that recording, who recorded it, or how an Old Woman with no face – and by extension, no mouth – could speak so clearly. But it was very informative. Maybe you should try paying more attention when you’re at home.

Or better yet, destroy all of your mirrors. As my mother used to tell me, "Someone’s going to kill you one day, Cecil, and it will involve a mirror. Mark my words, child!” And then she would stare absently through my eyes until I giggled.

Ah, I miss her so much.

Listeners, a lot of you have written in asking for photos of Khoshekh, the station cat, and to learn what became of his litter of kittens. Station Management did not let us keep the kittens, but they have been given away to good homes. Unfortunately, like Khoshekh, the cats are also stuck – floating in fixed points in space – so their owners will have to visit them right where they were born, right here in the station bathroom. Khoshekh hovers about four feet in the air, but some of those little ones are as high as nine.

It’s sad that we cannot keep the kittens for ourselves. But it will be nice to see them every time we take a restroom break at work. I wish I had some photos to share with you, but alas, radio is not a visual medium. Also, the last three staff members that took photos not only found that Khoshekh does not show up in pictures, but those staff members also died pretty agonizing deaths the week following. So we’re refraining from even describing what he looks like.

Oh – but I did make a quick recording of the meow Khoshekh makes when it’s time to eat.

[Khoshekh meows]

Like I said, I’m not a cat person, but Khoshekh has found a truly special place in my heart.

I’m getting word that authorities are surrounding your home. These authorities are secret agents from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency. You are probably looking out of your window now to see these agents, but they are highly covert. You cannot see them, even if you look hard. These specially-trained men and women can expertly disguise themselves as trees, and doors, and birds, and feral cats, and wind gusts. A group of them have even disguised themselves as one item of furniture in your home. I am not at liberty to even speculate which one, but you’re probably looking at it right now.

The Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency seems upset that the Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home has been alerting you – and the media – to her presence. I mean, we all knew she was there. Who doesn’t know about the Faceless Old Woman that hides in all of our homes? It’s not dissimilar to knowing that Santa Claus isn’t actually real. Everyone – except young children, of course – knows Santa is this huge population of heavily-sedated and costumed bears that the CIA lets loose across the country every Christmas Eve.

And, like the Santa Claus myth, it’s important we keep up the image that we all don’t know the truth. Like, “let’s all pretend Santa is a gift-giving old man and not a drugged-up government bear.” And, in the same vein, “there’s no Faceless Old Woman hiding in your home.”

Anyway…the agents are encroaching on your home now, and preparing to use deadly force. I’d like to tell you that you need to run, to get out of there now, to save yourself, but it is too late. Every entrance and exit is barricaded. I am afraid you are doomed.

Unfortunately, the Faceless Old Woman must know something. She must know secrets, some very important bits that the Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency holds dear, and those secrets are probably about you. Perhaps she is planning to reveal your purpose here. Perhaps you too are connected, albeit unwittingly, to the Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, and this information cannot – must not – be shared. You are a walking top secret document. And now, on the verge of this revelation, you must be destroyed.

On the plus side, you had a purpose. And that is more than most of us can say.

You will be missed.

So, for your last moments – though surely not ours – I give you the weather.

[“Long Gone” by Mary Epworth]

The Faceless Old Woman secretly living in your home wants to apologize to you. She has issued another statement:

> I’m sorry, mostly I just wanted to figure out how to get online. I reset the wireless router and that helped, but you use Chrome and you never clear your cache or history, and it was so slow. I downloaded Firefox for you and that seems to be working much better.

> I heard the Mayor was retiring, and I wanted to know if mayoral candidates were required to have faces. I have some good ideas I think would help this town, like one thing I think is that we can increase school funding while still lowering taxes. It’s an innovative plan, and I’m gonna build a website that explains it, and other great ideas I have that could help this town.

> I’m very excited to announce my candidacy for Night Vale mayor.

> Also, I lit your fridge on fire. It was upsetting me.

> Now I’m smoking a cigarette and notating your copy of Infinite Jest.

She didn’t leave a name or a website URL, and I’m not sure how she can read websites or books at all without a face – and by extension, eyes. We’ve also received word that the covert agents from the Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency have retreated, and have obviously not used deadly force, as you are still alive – regardless of how dead you feel inside.

They did, however, release several thousand spiders into your home. Fortunately for you, like the Faceless Old Woman, you will be unable to see these spiders unless you look closely. They are highly trained spiders, moving just outside of your periphery, but – and this is also just like the Faceless Old Woman – from time to time, you will feel them brushing against your soft cheeks and lips as you sleep. So keep your eyes open.

Listeners, let us all keep our eyes open. It’s not always easy knowing who and what wants to be seen, but when you look around you, pay attention to those fuzzy and dark corners. Peer deeper into those predictable patterns, like walls and moons. Furrow that brow and seek visual truth, Night Vale.

If you could only see what you’re not seeing! If you could only take in all the complex layers of horrors that lie just beyond your range of sight. If you could only see the world as it really is. It is awful, and on fire…and beautiful.

Listeners, stay tuned next for our newest hit program, Open-Mouthed Chewing! Tonight’s topic: Glass Shards – How to make the most out of a bad situation.

Until next time, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: The human soul weighs 21 grams, smells like grilled vegetables, looks like a wrinkled tartan quilt, and sounds like bridge traffic.

10/09/2013 7:27:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 27 - First Date

Mountains. Endless mountains! Peak after barren peak. And what lies, restless, in the shadowed valleys? I cannot say. I cannot say!

Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello.

Let’s start there. Let’s start with a greeting. A simple “hello.”

And then let’s move right into the most exciting news, the most wonderful news!

As you may remember, a few weeks ago, along with the beginning of a vicious war against us by tiny people, from a tiny underground city, Carlos – the beautiful scientist – finally returned my expressions of affection. And not in that dry science way he always used to use, saying things like, “I’m not calling for personal reasons, I need to tell your radio audience about a strange hole that might appear in their wall.”

Oh yeah, I forgot – there’s a strange hole that might appear in your wall. He said it was important to tell you…especially after what happened in the Smithwick house. I forgot. That was a while back, so I guess it doesn’t matter much now.

But yesterday, when he called me, he started his call by saying, “I am calling for personal reasons. Also, my calculations show a strange source of energy approaching the town, but not emanating the kind of light that such a source should.”

Isn’t that so sweet? And well…one thing led to another, and last night we went out on our first date. I just have to tell you about it! I have certain obligations, though, so first, let’s get to the news.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police, in association with a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, announced that those trucks full of crates far out in the desert are nothing, and that we shouldn’t worry about them. The trucks, which no one in town knew about until this announcement, are filled with crates that are warm to the touch. Some of them tick, others do not.

“Don’t even worry a little about them,” say the Secret Police. “Forget we said anything. No, really, remembering we said anything is now against the law.”

We reached out to Lieutenant Regis, of Unit 7 of the local National Guard Station and KFC combo store, for a comment, and he said he’s been “ruminating on a lot of things. Just a lot of stuff’s been running through my mind. That’s an interesting phrase. ‘Running through the mind.’ Where are those thoughts going? Are they trying to leave? And if so, where?”

When pressed to comment specifically about the trucks full of crates out in the desert, he just repeated everything he had said, with the exact same inflections and gestures.

Well…I’m sure these crates won’t come up again, and pose no future danger to any of us. No more on this story, ever, I’m sure.

The Night Vale Public Library will be expanding into a second branch: the Night Vale Private Library. This library will be right next door to the current location and will be available only to one person: local billionaire Marcus Vanston. It will contain thousands of books on any given subject, an interactive children’s area shaped like a full-sized pirate ship, and a biography section featuring not just biographies of Helen Hunt, but also biographies of Sean Penn.

Plans include floor-to-ceiling windows facing the Public Library, which Marcus, the only person who will ever be allowed inside, says he will use to stroll nude through his library, staring ordinary citizens in the eyes as he does not read or make any use of the towers of books around him.

Marcus continued, “Maybe I will pick up a book and open it as though I were going to read it, but then reveal to those watching that I am holding it upside-down before laughing and throwing the book away! I’m not sure. I haven’t planned out every moment. I will definitely be nude, though.”

The Public Library Board of Directors issued a statement via loudspeaker from their helicopter that hovers continuously over our city, indicating that they feel this expansion will serve the community, by showing how rich Marcus is, and what a great guy that obviously makes him. And have you seen how many cars that guy owns? Wow!

Reports also indicate that the Night Vale Private Library will be entirely free of librarians – a fact that will be of little comfort to the many Public Library-goers who are injured or killed in librarian maulings every year. Remember, if confronted by a librarian while looking for a book to check out, do not attempt to escape by climbing a tree. There are no trees in the library. And the precious moments it will take you to look around and realize this will allow the librarian to strike. Don’t become a statistic.

All right! News done! So, now let’s talk about the date.

Carlos and I met up in Old Town. I was wearing my best tunic and furry pants. And he had on a laid-back weekend lab coat. We were both beautiful in the late afternoon sunlight, each other’s dreams met in a real world moment.

Our destination was none other than Gino’s Italian Dining Experience And Grill And Bar – the fanciest restaurant in town. It was a perfect day…other than the strange blot of darkness buzzing on the edge of town. But that was probably yet another Applebee’s under construction. We went arm in arm into Gino’s and were immediately seated, with no memory of who greeted us at the door or how we got to our table – situated in a classy, understated, and absolutely doorless room. The full Gino’s experience.

Their menu is somewhat limited after the ban on wheat and wheat by-products, so we each ordered a single portobello mushroom, served rare and bloody (as is the Gino’s way).

From the window, we had a great view of the sunset, and of the buzzing shadow thing, which seemed to have moved closer.

“I’ve been thinking,” Carlos said.

“Uh-huh?” I said.

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve been doing lately,” he said. “Thinking. It’s part of being a scientist. What have you been up to?”

And so we talked. Just us and our bleeding mushrooms, and the buzzing shadow presence, and a blooming haze of romance in the air.

Wai– hold on.

Station management is apparently getting agitated, uh, flailing around their office and howling, so I need to do some more news real quick.

Violent incidents increased across the entire Night Vale area over the last several weeks as the people of the miniature city under lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex continued to wage their war against us with tiny bodies and tinier weapons. Citizens are urged to protect themselves against this army in their midst by stomping everywhere they go, and keeping a vigilant watch towards the ground rather than keeping our eyes closed as we usually do.

In related news, the City Council has erected a monument to the fallen Apache Tracker – that hero who died for the welfare of us all. The monument will be dedicated in a secret silent ceremony, attended by no one, and the monument itself will be buried in the desert where no one will find it – because he was also a racist embarrassment and we don’t want our town associated with that kind of thing.

And now, the Community Calendar.

Monday will be the Annual Bluegrass Festival, held in the burned-out shell that used to be Louie Blasco’s music shop, before he lit it on fire and skipped town with the insurance money. Participants can huddle among the ashen remains, casting haunting looks at each other and sharing some of their favorite bluegrass dirges. Legend has it that if you look into a mirror and say absolutely nothing three times, Louie himself will appear and teach the crowd some simple, easy bluegrass licks – before taking your soul back with him into the dark of the mirror.

Tuesday is a holiday. Make sure you have adequate emergency supplies and plenty of clear plastic sheeting. We’re not sure which holiday it is, so have all possible antidotes on hand.

Wednesday, the staff of Dark Owl Records are getting a band together. “We know a lot about music,” they’ll say, grabbing knives and hammers. “We should start a band, definitely!” they’ll continue, over the screams. “Let’s get a band together. We should do that!”

Thursday through Sunday will be a blur of routine and practicalities – a series of moments and actions that we will fail to notice as we experience them, and will forget the moment they are gone.

This has been the Community Calendar.

All right! Boring stuff done. Back to the date!

We wrapped up dinner at Gino’s with a slice of their special invisible, non-corporeal, and tasteless carrot cake, which was as light as air and resembled air in all other qualities as well.

Our waiter, formerly a heavyset man with a large mustache, was now a buzzing shadow man defined only by the absence of light in the vague shape of a torso and limbs. Presumably, our former waiter was on break. We asked for the check, and then made our escape from the doorless room by breaking the window, using the brick our waiter had provided for that purpose.

Carlos and I – oh, the magic of that phrase, oh, the ecstasy that a simple conjunction can imply – took a stroll through Mission Grove Park. It was just us, and the trees, and the crowd of our fellow citizens who were all doing the usual recreational activity of pointing at the sky and shouting in terror. I asked Carlos if he wanted to join in for a round, but he said he had already been scared of all that the empty sky implies yesterday, and so was pretty tired.

“If you want,” he said, “we could do some tests on the trees. I’ve been meaning to do some scientific tests on the trees. They seem normal, but given all that I’ve observed in this town, it is a significant chance that they are not.”

Well, of course I could not pass up the opportunity to perform real science side by side with my Carlos! And so we approached the nearest tree; an old sagging thing, and began to perform tests – the nature and purpose of which I am not remotely qualified to describe.

Meanwhile, our fellow park goers had ceased screaming and had taken up being strange, buzzing shadow beings. All of them were standing exactly where they had been, but were now defined only by the absence of light in the vague shape of a torso and limbs.

I stroked Carlos’ cheek. I don’t know if he noticed. He said the tests were inconclusive, and also was perfect in face and form.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

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Denny’s Restaurants – why not?

And now a station editorial.

Listeners, a lot has been made about the topic of beauty. And I don’t think we, in the media, always do our best to promote healthy self images. Movies and magazines and TV shows and advertisers love to use photo and video editing to make people seem skinnier, fairer, and more appealing to a false ideal of human beauty, and I think this takes a strong hold of us – especially children.

But remember: you are beautiful only when you do beautiful things. Full lips aren’t as beautiful as a full laugh. Skinny hips aren’t as attractive as a quick wit. Think about treating others right, and those others will flock to you in screaming droves.

Just peel back those artificial layers, Night Vale! Unzip that name brand coat, those skinny jeans, wipe off that makeup and gently (but very quickly) peel off that skin that’s covering up the true you. Look at those exposed eyes, dangling unprotected from their gaping sockets. Look at the blood and sinew slowly uncoiling from quivering bones. Admire that slippery viscera trying to squeeze under those dynamic ribs of yours.

You are organic to be sure, listener! Be proud of who you are!

Speaking of pride, speaking of beauty, more from my date soon.

But first, the weather.

[“Team the Best Team” by Doomtree]

Let’s get right back into it, shall we?

After the park, I drove him back to his lab next to Big Rico’s Pizza. The drive was…difficult, because at this point it seemed that everyone in town but the two of us had hopped onto the ’buzzing shadow entity’ train, and were loping around town as malevolent holes in our reality, emanating an energy that made the hairs on your arm stand and your bowels vibrate.

Or maybe that was just the chemistry with Carlos I was feeling.

A woman ran at our car, screaming, a few of the shadow people chasing her, but before I could even touch the brake, she must have changed her mind because she had already turned into a shadow person herself. It’s like, ugh, run from the shadow people or become one. Make up your mind, lady!

We arrived outside of Big Rico’s, and there was that awkward moment at the end of every date, where you pause outside of the person’s door, and it’s like, ’should I call the City Council and submit the Standard End-of-Date Report or…are you going to?' Also, I was wondering if he was going to invite me into his lab to look at all those beakers and humming electrical equipment.

“Well,” he said, pointing to his lab, “this is me.”

“Uh-huh,” I said.

“I should probably do something about this ’buzzing shadow’ thing,” he said. “A few experiments, to see if I can save the town.”

“Oh?” I said. “Do you need any help with that?”

“No,” he said. “A scientist is self-reliant. It’s the first thing a scientist is.”

“Oh,” I said again, but softer, sadder – which is when he leaned forward and kissed me. Just once. Just…gently. Just before slipping out of the car and into the lab.

I’ll tell you, listeners, I was almost swallowed by a cloud of malevolent shadow energy on the drive home and I hardly even noticed. I was so happy!

I guess Carlos managed to find a way to defeat the shadow energy, as everything seems normal today. A couple neighborhoods are emptied out, sure, with books and food and televisions left where they had been at the time of the sudden vanishing, a tableau of the life that never again will be.

But it wouldn’t really be a weekend without that happening somewhere, right?

Night Vale, my sweet and only Night Vale, may you find love. May you find it wherever it’s been hidden. May you find who has been hiding it and exact revenge upon them! As the old song goes, love is all you need to destroy your enemies. Finer words were never chanted.

Stay tuned next for Efficiency Hour with our own productivity expert: a reversed voice, underscored by hypnotic pulses.

And, with all the love in my loving heart, and with a loving voice in a loving and terrifying world, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Production oversight by Torey Malatia, who is holding a small locket. He is not speaking, he’d just like for you to touch the locket. His hand is twisted, his skin is forming into scales. Just touch it once. Just once, okay?

11/09/2013 12:25:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 28 - Summer Reading Program

Does it even matter how many living things you touch today, or where they all are now?

Welcome to Night Vale.

The Summer Reading Program for children and teens has begun at the Night Vale Public Library.

This comes as an alarming surprise, given that the program was abolished by the City Council 30 years ago. Though parents and teenagers have asked on several occasions to reinstate the program, the City Council has maintained its position, citing lack of taxpayer funds, the extreme danger posed by books, the peril of exposing children to librarians, and of course, the incident that precipitated the ban – which the town’s older residents will refer to only as “The Time of Knives.”

Nevertheless, in a show of civic dedication (or mindless bloodlust, and they really are so similar), Night Vale’s librarians have banded together in defiance of authority to reinstate Summer Reading.

Colorful posters with appealing statements like “Get into a good book this summer,” and “We are going to force you into a good book this summer,” and “You are going to get inside this book, and we are going to close it on you and there is nothing you can do about it” have appeared overnight around the library entrance and in local shops and businesses – all sporting the clever tagline, “Catch the flesh-eating reading bacterium!”

The Sheriff’s Secret Police have responded by interrogating the proprietors of businesses where the posters have appeared, and by removing and confiscating the posters themselves.

Although…to be honest, listeners, the graphic design work is really cute. I mean, have you seen them? The little flesh-eating germ, with his sun hat and library book, using a screaming semi-skeletal human victim as a beach chair? Ugh! Adorable!

After fierce debate today, the City Council has officially declared murder illegal – a crime that has, until this point, been handled using informal vigilante squads. The head of one such squad, Vincent LeFarge of Grab ‘Em And Sack ‘Em, argued that Night Vale has gotten along just fine for years, without the government “meddling in murder investigation or punishment.”

“Do we sometimes catch the wrong guy?” said Vincent. “Sure, most of the time. We’re not even sure we’ve ever caught a guilty one. Usually, we just grab the first person we see. One time, we tried to arrest the dead body…but it got away.”

Proponents of the bill argued that most things in Night Vale are already illegal anyway, so citizens would hardly even notice the change. The law goes into effect in two weeks, and citizens are advised to get any necessary murders done before then – although there will be a three-day grace period after the deadline, for those who are forgetful, or whose victims are hard to catch.

Some summer tips to beat the heat:

First off, have you tried to reason with the heat? Humans, temperatures, Angels, and chairs are all equally real and sentient – which is to say that we’re all not real, nor are any of us actually sentient. But give reason a shot. It has never, not once in history worked, but it might just work this time!

If the heat won’t listen to reason, try denying that it’s hot.

“Doesn’t seem hot today,” you might say to your profusely sweating neighbor. “A little chilly even,” you could continue, slipping on a sweater and making an exaggerated “brr!” noise as the glaring sun plants the idea of cancer in your skin.

And, if denial does not work, then your best bet – as with all problems in life – is exhausted resignation.

This has been summer tips to beat the heat.

And now a public service announcement:

Here is a brief list of everything that is helpful:

- The Sheriff’s Secret Police
- Clouds
- Anger
- The City Council
- Affection falling just short of love
- Ceiling fans
- Lungs
- Other sundry organs
- Laws
- Government
- Helicopters
- The 2005 Honda Accord
- Secrets
- Whispers
- Ultimately, nothing

Anything not specifically named in this list should be considered not-helpful and potentially dangerous. It’s not just good sense, it’s the law!

An update on the Summer Reading situation:

14 young people between the ages of 5 and 17 have already been reported missing, and are feared to be in the Public Library, and possibly learning. Attempts by the Sheriff’s Secret Police to enter the library, rescue the missing children, and put an end to all Summer Reading activities have failed, as all doors and windows have mysteriously disappeared from the library exterior – just like it was before the renovations.

Our tax dollars paid for those doors and windows, and we shouldn’t be expected to stand for library administrators just deciding to disappear them on a whim – even for a valid reason, like jealously guarding their possession of our stolen children, without at least putting the issue to a popular vote.

Anyway…in light of this development, the City Council has declared a Level Orange Fear Alert. They advise that all Night Vale citizens avoid the Public Library, and provide the Council with any information they may have on the whereabouts of the missing children, on librarians’ secret weaknesses, or on good books they’ve read lately.

Any citizens who admit to having read good books, the Council added in an impromptu press conference, televised from a book-proof bunker, will be immediately scheduled for re-education, and subsequent de-education.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police, meanwhile, have instituted a curfew for the entire town, effective immediately. After 7 p.m., all minors should be at home and under adult supervision, and absolutely no reading, researching, online information seeking, educational games, documentary television, or having a lifelong love of learning will be permitted. As their catchy new slogan puts it, “Once it gets dark, forget everything you ever knew and be silent. Words belong to our enemies, and our enemies are words. So be as mute and pure as a bone bleached clean by our desert sun. By our desert sun.”

The Police have also stated that any Night Vale citizen encountering a librarian, an entity suspected of being a librarian, or any excessively organized and helpful individual with a working comprehension of information systems is encouraged to shoot on sight.

They also added this goes for teachers as well, since “what the hell, as long as we’re at it!”

We’ll have further updates on this story as it develops.

And now a word from our sponsors:

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This message brought to you whether you like it or not.

The Freemasons have announced some changes to their hierarchy. These changes are the following:

Whereas before the Freemasons were under the authority of the Stonemasons Worldwide, they will now be an independent subsidiary of the Hallowed Mason Council, which itself will be split into four branches, corresponding with the four directions we glance when nervous. The Hallowed Mason Council will also provide guidance and financial support to the Retail Masons, the Wholesale Masons, and the Discount Masons – except in cases involving inter-Masonry disputes, which will, as before, be subject to the Small Brotherhood of the Large Chamber, the Large Brotherhood of the Small Chamber, or the Properly-Fitted Brotherhood, depending on the patterns discerned in bones, cast by a fully licensed member of the Masonic Drone Legion, or one of their proxies.

Now, of course, the Masons will continue their proud fraternal associations with the Illuminati. However, the Illuminati will itself be splitting into ten distinct factions as follows: Red, Green, Eagle, Faction Four, the Real Illuminati, the Other Real Illuminati, Red Again, Alpha, Windhind, and Hungry Man Brand Frozen Foods Officially-Sponsored Illuminati.

This split will be overseen by the Council of Three, which will be supported by the Council of Five, and monitored by the Council of Zero. Elections for the Council of Zero will be held never and will result in nothing.

Discretionary funds for the Illuminati and Freemason Alliance Committee will be funneled through a number of secret bank accounts, their numbers known to no one and their secrets kept forever.

All of this is in accordance with the General Secret Agreement of the General Secret Alliance of the General Secret Community, representing all brotherhoods and organizations obscure and hidden, including the Harpoon League, the Flying Cape, the Six Ancient Truths, and the Dental Underground.

The Freemasons would also like to remind you that none of this may be known to you, and that they are only telling you this to demonstrate your fragile mind, which barely parsed the words as they were spoken, and have already forgotten the secrets contained just moments later. You will never know anything, and you will not even know that.

Breaking news:

Despite the best efforts of the Sheriff’s Secret Police and citizenry, we have received confirmation that over 100 children and adolescents have disappeared from their homes, beds, part-time jobs, or summer forced-labor camps, and are now presumed to be inside the Night Vale Public Library, and subject to the Summer Reading Program.

Unfortunately, it is my sad duty to announce that this includes Intern Paolo – a high school junior who’s been helping to organize the radio station archives over the summer months. To the parents and family of Paolo: our hearts go out to you in this time of fear and uncertainty, as in all other times of fear and uncertainty, which is all of them, really. May you find comfort in the knowledge that, though your son may have been lost in a library, at least he – unlike many of his peers – actually went inside one of those at least once.

The situation has– …wait.

Hold on just one moment.

I beg your pardon, listeners, but I’ve just received alarming news. An alert citizen has called in to report inhuman shrieking, thick meaty sounds, and a coppery, rotten smell of gore and viscera coming from the now-sealed and impenetrable Night Vale Public Library – which are, of course, all fairly standard elements of the Summer Reading Program as described in the library director’s original proposal.

Painful though it may be, it seems that all we can do now – as so often in our dull blinkered lives below a microcosm of horror and beauty – is wait. Wait, and hope, and know that our hopes are immaterial and powerless, and our wishes will go unheard by the indifferent multitude of stars, if indeed they (the stars) are even real.

But there are still some comforts that remain to us while we wait. Small, shining baubles to distract us from the endless march of time towards events we have no control over and outcomes we never imagined.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the weather.

[“You And I Belong” by Simone Felice]

This just in, listeners:

We’ve received reports that the entrances to the Night Vale Public Library have reappeared, and the missing children have begun to emerge from inside the building. The children have been described as wild-eyed, feral, some staggering upright, and some running on all fours like animals, caked in effluvia and far more emaciated than the time of their absence would seem to account for…but otherwise, well, healthy, and unharmed.

At the head of the dazed and shambling pack was their apparent chosen leader, 12-year-old Tamika Flynn – her mouth clenched in a blood-crusted snarl, and carrying the severed head of a librarian in one hand, and a gore-streaked sticker chart in the other. Eyewitnesses who dared to get close enough to read the chart reported that Tamika had even finished “Cry, The Beloved Country,” which is very impressive for her reading level. Well done, Tamika!

Indeed, congratulations are in order for all the young people of Night Vale who participated in the Summer Reading Program, for proving that neither abduction nor captivity, neither horrors beyond imagining nor unfamiliar vocabulary can prevent you from embracing the pleasures of belles-lettres.

Here’s to you, boys and girls, and remember: even while we congratulate Tamika for winning your loyalty with her sophisticated comprehension and extremes of berserker violence, that the real victory won today has been for literacy.

Stay tuned next for our countdown of last words, from “Stop telling me how to drive” all the way to “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: A bar walks into a bar. The bartender is a snake eating its own tail. The windows look out only onto the face of the one who looks.

13/09/2013 15:01:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 29 - Subway

Our black suns move erratically, like drunken bees, and each of them stings. Now, more than ever, we are full of blood and honey.

Welcome to Night Vale.

We start our program with some good news, listeners.

Several Night Vale residents have reported seeing subway entrances popping up all over town. These brightly lit stairwells into the underground have been showing up on several street corners over the past few days. But the Secret Police have denied knowledge of any subway system. According to our station’s research into the issue, there are no records of the Night Vale Transit Authority ever creating a subway system. Or getting one approved. Or even having discussed building one.

Nor has there ever existed a Night Vale Transit Authority.

The only hints can be found in the brochures littering the entrances, describing the ease with which we will now commute, the hungers we will sate, the time we will travel, the times we will travel, the happy memories we will never be able to shake loose – even when we wake up screaming.

I’m looking at one of the new subway brochures right now. There is no logo, just smiling faces, with teeth – unusual in their shapes, colors, and spacing, but otherwise quite normal-looking teeth – and the phrase, “Oh, the place you will go!” written in heavy sans serif font across the eyes of smiling train riders, clutching tightly to bags and metal rails and each other.

I’m looking more closely at these transit brochures, and the paper stock is quite strange, listeners. The pages are scaly, brown, and translucent. I mean, I usually just have Intern Dylan make our radio station flyers on colored copy paper (say, a 24-pound goldenrod), but these brochures are so lush, like wings of a majestic insect.

The text also just grows increasingly garbled. For instance: here, it says that our new subway system will streamline the rush hour commute. But about halfway down, it’s a series of nearly indecipherable glyphs our experts insist hint at non-Euclidean emotions and appeasement. Though we think this may be a euphemism for “fares.”

Finally, there’s a crudely-drawn map of our new transit system, all routes resembling spasming tentacles and all passing at least once through a common point deep beneath the center of Night Vale.

No one yet knows where the subways came from or where they go to. But as a city dweller, I am certainly happy to hear that Night Vale is embracing mass transit. This is a fantastic way to unclog our highways, reduce pollution and accidents – and, most importantly, subways allow us to interact with each other. Make eye contact. Acknowledge each other as fellow creatures.

Cars are impersonal machines that close us off from humanity, and with the rising cost of gas and the large iridescent tongues that have been growing from Route 800, I think the subway will be a positive addition to our community.

We’ll have more on this breaking story soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk to you now about a popular new service in town that delivers feelings – whether you want them or not. This service has no name or contact information, it simply delivers feelings. You do not choose the feeling, though Yelp reviews say “tingling horror” and “as though electrocuted, I stood before him” are the most popular so far. It is unclear where on Yelp you look for these reviews.

I myself have received a few feelings so far – such as “blood feud” and “frustrated origami novice” – and I’m looking forward to receiving more. I’m crossing my fingers for “should have left the party hours ago before I could disappoint her.” I would also settle for “overcast Wednesday” and “trampled by horses.”

This is my own endorsement, listeners, not a sponsored ad. I wouldn’t even know which company or person to bill for airtime. I just really enjoy having feelings delivered straight to me without having to worry about choosing which feeling, and why, and when.

The Secret Police, in cooperation with A Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, would like to remind you that here in Night Vale, no one is eating each other. They remind you that this is a friendly reminder. The Secret Police added their assurance that they see no reason to alert us to the not-at-all increasingly-common practice of grill parties and consensual cannibalism.

“It’d be pretty terrible of us to conceal that, right?” a heavily cloaked spokesperson said, distractedly, deeply engrossed in a game of Drop7 on his or her iPhone 4s. “But listen! The important thing here is that we are not– hang on…Darn! –warning or alerting anyone, and I think you should remember to thank us for that.”

The cloaked figure then double-tapped his or her phone and a horse rose up from the floor beneath him or her, and they flew off into the sky.

The City Council has now officially denied any involvement in our fantastic new subway system. We have this direct from a fair-haired and hollow-eyed child they’ve sent with the denial tattooed on his inner lip. “NEVER APPROVED,” it reads.

Just a quick aside, listeners, we’ll get back to the subway news in a moment, but…would anyone like a child? Because I’m never quite sure what to do with the messenger children the City Council sends us? I’m not even sure if the child is completely…sentient. This one just stares blankly ahead, and…oh! Nope! No, he’s wandered off. Never mind!

Also, we’re getting reports that a press conference was just held in front of the ashen shell of the Public Library – which of course was burned down last night, and it’s only a matter of days until we’ll need to burn it down again. Several masked figures, having called the press conference, claimed responsibility for the subway system.

Their masks have the countenance of very concerned deer.

One of the figures spoke to reporters.

“We took the matters into our own hand, even without approval. We don’t need approval of the City Council or the Mayor,” the spokesperson explained. “We do and say what we please. That shirt looks awful on you, by the way.”

Apparently here they pointed to Night Vale Weekly Gazette writer Lauren James, who usually wears very nice shirts…it’s really her bangs that don’t work, uh, I think. I mean, I like bangs, but they just frame her face too dramatically, especially with those thick-rimmed glasses.

Press conference attendees said they could see something moving behind the spokesperson’s deer mask. I am told that the black-charred grounds of the library are covered in roaches as well.

Also, that perhaps the deer masks are not concerned, but disapproving, or maybe merely world-weary and under a lot of stress.

Listeners, I am now being told by a different dead-eyed child in my studio, via a complex facial expressions, that if you are anywhere near the site of last night’s victorious fire at the library, please do not step on the roaches. We recognize that there are tens of thousands of these vermin, but we’ve been informed by inside sources – and this really unsettling zombie child – that these are proprietary roaches. If you look closely at one of the many cockroaches crawling up your arm, you’ll notice that they have slogans scrawled across them. Um, “Ride the trains,” “Everything is fine,” “Tenderize yourself as needed.”

We repeat: do not hurt the roaches. We are receiving several reports that the roaches are precious ad space. And, if you hold one up to your ear, it’s true! They sound like…sizzling butter.

And now a look at the financial markets.

You will turn yourself inside out. Your sadness will know no bounds. Ladybugs will flee you, wolves run wild in you. You will hear the wind chimes like shattering. The sun will drip ichor. Whatever peace you find will be taken from you. Nothing will be the same. Nothing has ever been the same. “Past performance does not guarantee future results,” you will whisper to the rising moon, as you hear several foxes fleeing your vicinity.

This has been business news.

The greater Night Vale medical community would like to remind you to become an organ donor. It’s a simple process that only takes a moment, and you could save a life! You can visit the DMV to pick up the appropriate form. It only requires that you check a box, sign your name, and turn it in.

The greater Night Vale medical community would also like to say thank you to those citizens who have already become registered organ donors. They remind you that collection begins this Tuesday at 4:00PM. Please hold still, and wear loose-fitting clothing that day. They also advise that you do not eat anything after 8:00 the night before. They are particularly in need of kidneys and skin.

A representative was quoted as saying something that resembled a hiss, and then quickly biting the reporter’s ankle.

It has come to our attention that some Night Vale residents are getting off the trains…transformed. Mayor Pamela Winchell described these commuters are “thinner somehow, spiritually, like you think it’s the afternoon but it’s almost evening. That’s what they’re like.”

Carlos – caring and reliable Carlos the scientist – thinks maybe the riders’ DNA has been washed out. Emptied. Completely drained of its contents.

Listeners, I’m also being told that some people are not getting off the trains at all.

I’m looking out my studio window now and see a new subway entrance has just appeared across the street during this very broadcast. I have seen dozens enter and few exit those stairs. I have grave concerns, Night Vale.

I have just been handed a press release by another small child. He has…such deep, blue eyes and so many freckles, he is…smiling, and there is something dark moving behind his teeth.

The press release is covered in roaches.

Now the boy is leaving, and I hear a rapid but faint clicking sound.

According to the release, the City Council says we owe today’s increased productivity to our glorious new mass transit system that just appeared this week. It goes on to say that Night Vale could eventually become a true travel destination, like Japan or Brazil or Singapore or Luftnarp or Svitz.

I know we still don’t understand who built the subway or where it goes or what has happened to all of our family and friends that have gotten on the train today. I know there are…concerns, Night Vale. But this subway seems to be a major step forward for our town, for our environment, for our–

Dear. Something is happening, listeners. Uh…this does not appear to be a standard government-created earthquake. Across the street, there are shimmering waves of heat curdling the air above the subway entrance. A… a black cloud of large insects is swirling above. I do not know what this means, Night Vale, and since Intern Dylan never returned from his errands (likely because I told him to take the new subway to save time), I myself must go investigate.

In the mean time, I give you the weather.

[“Poor in Love” by Destroyer]

It’s Spring somewhere, Night Vale, and I must admit the last few minutes – even stretched as they were seemingly into eons – have left me feeling renewed, returned as I am to my home after so long away. It’s like I’m walking into fresh, clean water…even as I lean into the mic.

I entered the subway, like many of you, and like many of you other riders, I saw and felt the cosmic suffering of millennia – was witness to eras of countless births and deaths and wars and discoveries and kisses and plagues and knives and cold, empty void. I saw it all at once, and I could not make sense of any of it. But I understood it fully, and it took years, Night Vale. Years.

I have been missing you since I left you to the weather. What was the weather like then? How much time has passed for you? Only four minutes??

What of the ground-shaking and the cloud of insects and the immense heat? Well…that’s apparently what happens when an express train arrives. People hurrying to far-away, long-away destinations. The click-click-click of rush hour commutes. Reading unimportant news stories. Solving unimportant number puzzles. Looking up briefly to give seats to the elderly or infirm. All the while, not knowing where they were going or why or what terrible things they would never un-know upon choosing to commute through whatever that singular point below our city is. That intersection of space and time. A sort of…navel of the universe.

And somehow we are all better, wiser, kinder for going where we went for as long as we were gone – though we did not age but a few moments.

We still do not know who the deer-masked transit people are, or whether they are people at all. Perhaps they are thousands of roaches packed inside a business suit, hiding behind a mask. Or perhaps the mask was not hiding them at all, but hiding us – sheltering them from our immature, solipsistic minds.

But now, there is a subway. Now we can go anywhere, and perhaps we can know anything if we ride for long enough.

Listeners, there’s another child in the studio. This one is faceless, covered in denim and dust, with a long swoop of unruly brown hair covering what would be the right eyebrow. The child is holding a handwritten note. It reads:

“Because of construction, all subway service is suspended until further notice. For your convenience, free shuttle buses will be provided. At the moment of greatest despair and hopelessness, when you least expect it, a shuttle bus will come to you. Thank you for your patience.”

The future of urban planning is here, Night Vale. And, like our own imminent futures, it is buried in the earth.

Stay tuned next for a swarm of flies circling a hot mic.

And as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Your body is a temple. A temple of blood rituals and pagan tributes. A lost temple. A temple that needs more calcium. You should maybe try vitamin supplements.

14/09/2013 6:43:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 30 - Dana

It takes heart. It takes guts. It also takes cash. It just needs your payment immediately.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Mayor Pamela Winchell announced again today that she is stepping down as mayor later this year. This is the fourth announcement this week. She said again, through tight teeth, that this is totally her call and was never ever discussed in a room with no windows, by small men wearing large pelts and decorative soft meat crowns.

“That is not how we do things,” she said. “That is not how we do things,” she whispered. “That is not how we do things!” she mouthed silently, as a single dark red tear formed in the corner of her eye, and then slowly rolled down her taut olive cheek and onto her clay-stained smock.

Elections for a new mayor will be held at some later time. When asked by the press for a specific date and location, masked representatives from A Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency purred loudly. They then began rubbing their sides against the journalists’ legs. Several reporters began sneezing.

Listeners, many of you recall our station intern Dana who, while reporting on strange goings-on, was locked in the Forbidden Dog Park back in April. I’ve received occasional texts and emails from Dana, but then this morning, well…let’s listen.

> Cecil, it’s Dana. I found a way out of here. I walked the perimeter of the Dog Park looking for a crack or a hole or a weak spot in the obsidian walls. I never found an opening, but…this is very strange. The walls just keep going! If you stand still, the Dog Park seems to take up a single city block, but…I walked one direction for about two weeks, and I could no longer see the monolith where I started. Or the people I was with. Or even hear the tinfoil rustling of the leaves from the tall, black metal trees that protect us from clouds.

> There’s something else. I found a door. An old oak door, standing unsupported by any other structure. I didn’t know if it was an exit from the Dog Park or an entrance to something much worse, but…I went through it. Now I am in some old house.

> Cecil, I can hear someone moving around upstairs. I need to go. I will try to call you soon. Thank you for everything, and I hope our time and place match again soon.

Oh, listeners! I so wish I could have talked to Dana this morning! They were showing Cat Ballou again on TBS and I just couldn’t break away. I tried to call Dana back, but my phone caught briefly on fire, and something sharp cut open my thumb as I selected her number.

And now a Public Service Announcement from the Night Vale SPCA.

Thinking about getting a dog? Dogs are not only great family companions, but also help childhood development. By regularly feeding, walking, fighting, denying the existence of, and ultimately soul-merging with the family dog, young children learn about responsibility, empathy, and pyrokinesis.

There are, of course, some breeds of dogs that are not right for children. Those breeds include spider wolves, double wolves, switch-bladed mountain dogs, secret terriers, flesh-eating spaniels, pit vipers, and table saws. Visit the SPCA for more information on the right dog for your family.

Hello? Dana?

> Cecil? I can barely understand you. Cecil, are you there?

Yes, I’m here! Dana, are you still in the old house?

> No, I’m still in the old house. I made my way out of the basement, which was empty except for a single photograph of a lighthouse. It’s a framed 5x7 black and white photo of this old lighthouse. It hangs crooked just to the right of center on one wall. The lighthouse in the photo looks to be in the middle of a field. There’s no water. Why would there be a lighthouse not near the water?

I have no idea!

> No, that doesn’t sound right. Maybe it’s some other reason.

> Anyway, once I heard the footsteps above me stop, I opened the door to the first floor. I saw a man standing in the middle of the living room, staring straight ahead at the wall. I couldn’t see his face, Cecil, and I knew that I had been through this moment before…not like deja vu, more like a clear but fleeting memory of a dream. I was scared he might hear me, Cecil.

What did you do, Dana?

> Yes, that’s exactly what I did! I got up the nerve and I spoke to him. I said, “Hello sir, my name is Dana and I’m sorry to intrude, but I was wondering…is this your home?”

> And he didn’t move. He didn’t make a sound. He just kept staring at another small photo on the wall. I walked closer to him and I said, “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me, but–” And then I saw. Cecil, I saw who it was!

Who was it?

> No, it wasn’t her. It was John Peters – you know, the farmer? And he was staring at this photo, and I walked closer and said, “John, it’s me, Dana!” But he didn’t respond.

> I looked at the photo he was examining and it was just a picture of a window – a worn driftwood frame inside of which was a photograph of a worn driftwood pane with gently warped glass. I couldn’t see what was beyond the window in the photo, but there was a shape. Maybe a tree? Maybe a person? John just stared ahead looking sad.

> No, not sad. Concerned. He looked concerned.

> I didn’t say another word to him. I waved my hand gently in front of his eyes, and he didn’t notice me. I tried to touch his shoulder, but my hand went right through him! Like through a cold wind! He wasn’t even there, Cecil!

> He eventually turned and looked at another photo on another wall of another window, but he never saw or heard me.

> This home has no furniture, no furnishings, no belongings – only photos. Single, small photos on occasional walls. Most of them are windows – different windows with different panes in different photo frames.

> The house itself, I realize, has no windows of its own, so…I don’t really know if there is a basement or a first or second floor. The upstairs is the downstairs is the ground floor. But I know one thing, Cecil.

What is that?

> No, but you’re close.

> I know that John Peters entered through a door in the kitchen. I can see the door right now, Cecil. It is open, and beyond that door is sunlight. I can see sunlight and sand. I’m going through.

Yes! Dana, do that! Go through the door now! Go through that door!

> I’m sorry, Cecil, you make a good point, but I have to go through that door, no matter what! I’ve got to get back home!

Do it, Dana. Yes!

> Here I go!

Dana? Hello? Dana, can you hear me?

Ladies and gentlemen, I do not know where Dana has gone now. I do hope that we hear from her again. I would try to call her back, but my phone has grown…spiny legs and is crawling away now.

If you are the type to pray, please pray for Dana’s safe return home to Night Vale. If you are not the type to pray, please know that you are violating several laws, and you will receive a knock on your door from armed agents very soon.

Let’s have a look at sports.

This weekend, the Night Vale High School Scorpions kick off their season against the Pine Cliff High School Lizard Monitors. Scorpions quarterback senior Michael Sandero had off-season surgery to remove the second head he grew in the middle of last season’s division title run. Michael’s mother, Flora Sandero, said she had her son’s original head removed instead, as she liked the new head much better.

“This new head’s much handsomer and doesn’t talk back as much,” Flora explained from the roof of the Pinkberry, where she was installing several long pikes with dead vultures and rodents on the ends. “This new head only speaks Russian, so I don’t have to listen to him on the phone with his girlfriend all night long, and he doesn’t hog the television because he doesn’t understand any of the English or Spanish programs here. He’s a better boy now,” she said, jamming another pike into the roof of the trendy fro-yo store, before yelling skyward, causing the sparse clouds to part quickly, revealing a giant floating crystal glowing faintly red in the mid-afternoon sun.

And now, a word from our sponsor.

McDonald’s wants to remind you that the most important meal of the day is breakfast. So why would you let a morning go by without staring deeply into the mirror until you no longer recognize the face staring back at you – mimicking your every gesture, mocking your every movement?

How else will you get the energy you need for a full day’s work or recreation if you aren’t silently screaming into the visage of a man or woman who gives you such uneasy spirit, such unshakable terror, a queasy feeling every time you make the connection between what that thing is and what you are becoming?

What you have become?

Where does the void end? Where do you end? When do you end? What time is it now? You are late for work! You are lying on your bathroom floor, half-dressed in a cool sludge of toothpaste and hair gel. You’ve been crying, but for how long?

McDonald’s. I’m lovin’!

Listeners, I just received word from Carlos – lovely Carlos, with his perfect teeth and hair and…penchant for sometimes chewing a little more loudly than is preferred – Carlos, who is with other scientists at the Desert Creek Housing Development. For the past year, Carlos has been studying a house that does not exist. It seems like it exists, like it’s just right there when you look at it, and it’s between two identical houses, so it would make more sense for it to be there than not…but it does not exist.

Carlos said the scientists asked him to come over and ring the doorbell, just to see what would happen. They offered him five dollars but he turned it down, saying something about scientific integrity and blah blah blah. But I’m like, five dollars is a taco lunch at Jerry’s Tacos, so, whatever, rich guy!

Carlos said that before he could take a step to the house, a woman emerged from the side door talking on her cell phone. He and the scientists ran up to the woman, calling out to her as she walked, quickly, away from the house. She looked panicked.

No, not panicked. Concerned. She looked concerned, Carlos said.

She kept talking on her cell phone, never responding to them. Carlos said she kept walking until she walked right through them, right through the scientists, like she were a cold wind. And then, she stopped talking into her phone, stared back toward the house, and with a look of panic – no, with a look of concern – ran away.

Carlos said – and this is very strange – Carlos said, “it sounded like the person she was talking to was you, Cecil!”

Listeners, I do not know where or when Dana is, but I am going to sit by this phone and wait for her call. I know she is all right. I hope she is all right. I fear she is not all right.

With great anxiousness – no, concern. With great concern, I take you now to the weather.

[“The Lethal Temptress” by The Mendoza Line]

First saved message:

> Cecil, I’m sorry I lost your call. I made it out of the door, out of the empty house and its empty photographs into an empty desert, and I don’t know if anything has improved. I can see nothing but endless sand and a single distant mountain – a mountain I have never seen, because I don’t believe in mountains. But there is a mountain, and there is a tiny red light up on the mountain, intermittently blinking.

> As I exited the house, the door shut behind me and now it’s gone. As I walked, I moved through something that wasn’t there. I heard voices through digital static, and felt a cold wind across my body. The others are here, but not here, Cecil.

> What, or who, did I just walk through?

> Cecil, something is coming. You can feel it in the ground, something very large is coming. I’ve gotta go. I will call when I can, and tell my mother and brother I am out of the Dog Park and I am safe. For now.

> Thank you, Cecil.

End of message.

Oh, listeners, I wish I had more news than this. I wish my phone would have rung, I wish I could have had that conversation instead of another voice mail. I wish Dana were home, safe. I wish I could feel something other than overwhelming concern.

No, not concern – uncertainty.

I wish a lot of things.

But, as the old saying goes, if wishes were horses, those wishes would all run away shrieking and bucking, terrified of a great unseen evil.

So instead, what I want to say is, I am thankful Dana is out of the Dog Park. I am thankful I had my first conversation with her since Poetry Week. I am thankful Carlos did not ring that doorbell. I am thankful that people listen to this show and the stories about our wonderful little community – the most scientifically interesting community in America, as my Carlos once said.

And, of course, I am thankful for you, Night Vale.

Stay tuned next for loud shortwave radio squelches, followed by a lifetime of tinnitus.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Look to the sky. You will not find answers there, but you will certainly see what everyone is screaming about.

15/09/2013 12:39:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 31 - A Blinking Light up on the Mountain

Our God is an awesome God. Much better than that ridiculous god that Desert Bluffs has.

Welcome to Night Vale.

There is, listeners, a Blinking Light up on the Mountain. It is red. Blinking Lights are always red.

It is nestled among the crags and nooks of the precipitous slope. We can all see it – no use denying it! The City Council tried. “Nope,” they said. “Blinking Light? Let me think. Blinking Light...no, sorry, it doesn’t ring any bells!”

But then a bell started ringing – a signal from the watchman who lives in Night Vale’s Invisible Clock Tower, letting us know that he had seen something. And we all saw it, too. It was a Blinking Light, up on the Mountain.

“Oh well,” said the Council, crawling backwards through a window into Town Hall, one by one. “Ahh, well…it was worth a shot.”

What does this light mean? Who will dare investigate it? Will it spell our doom? Dear listeners, who knows? No one.

And probably, more later. For now, just this. Just a Blinking Light – red – up on the Mountain.

Harrison Kip, adjunct professor of archaeology at Night Vale Community College, announced an upcoming three-part series on Night Vale Community Television – defending his fringe views that the pyramids, and other ancient structures, were constructed by human beings rather than benevolent ancient aliens.

Harrison, against decades of reasonable evidence, raved that “It’s possible that these historical marvels could have been made using mathematics and slave labor.” He went on to explain, shrieking like an obvious lunatic, that agriculture was probably not started on Mars, and that humanity was created through evolution, and not through selective breeding of alien DNA.

We reached out for comment to the president of Night Vale Community College, Sarah Sultan – who is a smooth, fist-sized river rock – about the extreme beliefs expressed by a staff member. Sarah had no comment, as she is a smooth, fist-sized river rock, and unable to speak. She can write, however, and wrote, “No comment,” before drawing an insulting caricature of your humble reporter – which was hurtful, and unnecessary.

Listeners, here’s something weird.

I know you can’t see it, but it’s sitting in the studio with me at this very moment, and it is definitely something, and definitely weird. I’m not sure how it got here, but…I’m not sure how I got here either. Causation is difficult and confusing.

I haven’t tried touching it…I’m going to try touching it now.

Oh!

I believe it likes being touched, because it started to vibrate and lean in towards my body, but…that could just be its way of expressing anger or immense physical suffering. When something is this weird, one shouldn’t assume to understand anything specific about it at all.

Is it a bomb?

Is it one of those objects that isn’t a bomb?

Is it just a kind of dog?

We don’t know. And we will never find out. And we will never try to find out. Ignorance may not actually be bliss, but it certainly is less work.

So, with no new information and with nothing learned, I’ll repeat what I said, gesturing at it with a hand you cannot see.

Listeners, here’s something weird.

A continuation on our previous report about a Blinking Light up on the Mountain:

As many of you noted, the very nature of our report indicated the existence of a Mountain – which is surprising, given that we live in vast, desert flatness. So yes, there is a Mountain. Let’s start there.

There is a Mountain now, rising up out of the alluvial Floodplain. It is made of rock, and height, and awe. Its peak is higher than where I am now, but lower than the Void.

Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, said that it was definitely a Mountain, saying, “That’s a Mountain if ever I seen one. I haven’t, though – seen one. I think that’s what they’re like. Mountains are like that, right?”

Madeline LeFleur, head of the Night Vale Tourism Board, said, “Oh, great, now we’re gonna have to reprint all these brochures!” before taking more sips of her coffee than she needed to in a given span of time – because the frequency of sips was under her control, and her own life was not.

John Peters – you know, the farmer? We haven’t heard form him in a while. If anyone knows where he went, or about the Blinking Light up on the Mountain, or the Mountain rising up out of this muddy plain outside of town, please call in to the station and release the information with your mouth.

As part of our service to our community, Night Vale Community Radio is taking this moment to allow one of the candidates for mayor to make a brief statement. The following is from the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home:

> I replaced your books with other books. The covers are the same, but the content has been altered. I don’t think you read enough, but that is not why I did it. I changed every single word of some of the books, in others only a single comma on a single page. This is a metaphor, but I’m…not sure what it represents. That is also a metaphor.

> We all are.

> Our political system has become too complicated. I am not complicated. I’m just a gentle old lady who lives in your home. I’m touching your hand right now.

> No, not that one.

> Not that one either.

> Do not think you are superior because you have a face and I do not. All of your books are now different books and you did not notice. So who is a lost child in the dark howling woods of this fable?

> Anyway, I hope you’ll vote for me. One of the books is now my life story, if you’d like to know more about my background.

> No, not that one.

> Not that one either.

> You’ll know it, because my life story is just like yours – starting with calamity and shouting, and ending with an empty room and a to-do list.

> Also, Hiram McDaniels has been exchanging emails with corn lobbyists looking to elbow in on our local imaginary corn market.

> Hiram: Bad for our community, bad for our interests, literally a five-headed dragon.

> Vote for the candidate you can trust. Vote for the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home.

And now, a word from our sponsor:

Today’s broadcast may have been brought to you…by…uncertainty.

And now, back to our regular programming.

Ah-hah! We have some sharp listeners! Several of you noted that the strangeness of today does not end with the Blinking Light up on the Mountain, or the Mountain itself…but also, this vast, muddy plain it rises from. So yes: we are now reporting that there is a great Floodplain, strewn with bones, around our city. Its wet patches glint slightly when the Blinking Light is illuminated. At night, when all distance is darkness, it appears that the universe itself is glimmering red, and then gone. Red – and then gone.

The mud ripples under the footsteps of the approaching Masked Army, and this warps the reflections in interesting ways.

Carlos says he would like to study it, but that he promised to make a certain person dinner, and he has to learn how to put other things besides science first. Some of this realization might have come with help from those around him.

Mayor Pamela Winchell was seen holding her official mayoral bloodstone aloft towards the Mountain, and the Blinking Light upon it. She was standing on that plain – the plain that exists now, which we should have mentioned earlier.

In other news, a Man in a Tan Jacket, carrying a deerskin suitcase, was seen outside of one of the currently-closed subway entrances, passing out flyers explaining the benefits of a mass-transit system, and encouraging citizens to push for the reopening of the subway as soon as possible.

“Transit is the opposite of traffic!” the flyer reportedly said, and “Subway? More like WOWZA!” Some citizens reported that the flyer went on to say, “Transverse the navel of the world, that secret buried point. It is my home. Help me get home. It is already too late to be early, but not too late to be on time.”

Here at the station, we can’t confirm any of this, as those holding the flyer soon found that it had vanished from their hands. That they could barely remember their interaction with the man. And that, looking back, all they saw was a haze of dust and heat – distant, and indecipherable – like a country they’d never live to visit. Like the landscape of a fading dream. Like fiction.

Like fiction.

All right, we’re really gonna get it right this time. We have been focusing too narrowly, and we realize that. As many of you pointed out, we should have spent less time on the blinking light, and more time expanding on the bit about the approaching Masked Army.

So: there is now a great Masked Army coming towards us across the bone-covered plain. We have no specific information about them, other than that they look small when far away, and then appear to grow as they come closer, which they are – coming closer.

They also might actually be growing. They are quite large now.

The Blinking Light up on the Mountain has not changed its pace. There is a noise like growling, only less organic – like wind howling through a canyon, only more…growl-y.

Ladies and gentlemen, here is what we know:

- There is a Blinking Light up on the Mountain.
- There is a Mountain on the Floodplain.
- There is a Floodplain under the Imminent Army.
- There is an Imminent Army maybe a couple of hours’ march from here.

I do not believe, now, that we are leaving anything out.

If you have homes, I suggest you flee them. If you have friends, I suggest you warn them. If you have children…did you not know how dangerous and unpredictable the world was when you created a defenseless, tiny human within it?

And, much like Madeline LeFleur, head of Night Vale’s Tourism Board, I will now control the one part of my life that is under my control – let us go now (and I do hope we come back), to the weather.

[“Never Be Famous” by Hussalonia]

Well, we did come back. Here we are, post-weather.

Carlos finally took a look at the situation: the Blinking Light up on the Mountain, and all that came with it – horrific Invading Army, et cetera.

“Oh that?” he said, gesturing with a spatula he had, until moments before, been using to cook. “That’s a mirage. I’ve seen that one before. When you get the clouds a certain way, and the temperature is where it’s at, you can sometimes get this…blinking-light-mountain-floodplain-masked-army mirage. Wow! This is a pretty strong one! It should disappear in an hour or two.”

And it did! Completely gone! Well…the mountain and the blinking light and the floodplain disappeared. The Masked Army turned out to be real. But they weren’t coming to attack us, just passing through on their way to attacking someone else. And they provided some valuable traffic for local business. A few of them even took a bus tour of Radon Canyon.

Madeline LeFleur was both relieved and pleased. “I’m relieved,” she said, “I’m also pleased.” She was still sipping her coffee too often. Perhaps her feeling of lack of control stems from a personal issue, rather than the impending doom we imagined. Stress from her failure to live up to her own self-imposed life goals, for instance. Or a relationship that wasn’t exactly the relationship she had envisioned it would be.

But who knows? No one. No one has ever known anything, not really.

Still, nonetheless, we have come to another end. We have come to it as we always do: blind, ignorant, groping…I take comfort in that consistency.

There is no blinking light up on the mountain, there is no mountain towering over a muddy plain, there is no muddy plain under an Invading Army.

There was an Invading Army, but they’re gone now.

What is left? Well, what is always left?

Night Vale. Our little city. our tiny town, our Night Vale. Proud. Safe. Existent.

Stay tuned next for the background hum of the universe – amplified, and with live color commentary.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Throw your hands in the air. Now your arms. Keep detaching limbs and throwing them in the air. Hopefully the birds will be sated, and leave.

26/09/2013 16:40:00 ¶ ●

## Condos (unofficial release - fan recording)

The following transcript is from a live performance of Welcome to Night Vale that took place on the 25th of September 2013 in San Francisco, California. This is NOT the version released on February 14, 2014, which was recorded in Brooklyn, New York on the 18th of December, 2013. That performance is transcribed as episode 40.5.

Video of the transcribed performance is on YouTube in four parts (part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4). There are a couple lines of dialogue missing between the first two parts, which I found in another video here. I have pieced all of the audio together into a single mp3 file which you can download here. [My 2shared account was shut down, so I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on the video links]

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

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 condos are a great investment.

“Invest your money in condos,” said the realtor. “Invest your time in condos. Invest your life. Invest emotions 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 your chance to imbue it with purpose and verve. Spill your blood before the condos!”

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

Well. Look, 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!

And now for some more great and exciting news:

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies is proud to announce their new special exhibit: “A Startling and Highly Forbidden Piece of Technology Brought to Us by Time Travelers…or…Ancient Long-Dead Aliens…or…Russians…or Whatever.”

The technology will be kept in a locked vault, which itself will be wrapped in thick, black bandages, with a hand-written sign taped to one side, saying only:

Your ticket includes a free audio guide, which will play a single piercing tone, designed to considerately remove you from the world of thought, and sound, and sentience.

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Bring your kids! Otherwise, something even worse might happen to them.

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, and 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, and 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…

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.”

Umm…I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this on this show, by the way, but…Carlos is totally my boyfriend! I just didn’t know if I had brought that up? I don’t…um. He’s– he’s very handsome, and– 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? Oh yes, OK.

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 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 husked shell of a former gas pump, Janice Rio (from down the street) – asking, “Is that a condo? Is– is that a condo?” in a high, cracked voice.

And…all right, this is out of nowhere, I know, but…at what point in a relationship do certain people think about living together? Is…is this a…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, also, Roger was holding a freshly-separated 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 spine would 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 do not 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.

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

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.

Aah? 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 that 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 your credit cards ready.

And now–

> Cecil? Cecil?

Listeners, there is a voice, but I can see no one in my studio. It is a familiar voice, 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 have put your coffee cup where it was supposed to be. For reasons of fate.

Ahh, I see. Well, um, 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.’ Well, not to me. Nothing ever really happens to me. I am completely safe from harm, and this is a great burden.

> Oh, and while you were out this morning, I made your dining room table a half inch shorter. 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! 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 to me. Not 'to me,’ but your words hold a lot of meaning intrinsically. Almost everything you say does. If you looked at any word in the English language close enough, you would see within the great, moving coils of the universe unwinding.

Right!

> In language, somebody 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 fill the vagile void. I will be the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Nowhere, and No Time. Because time will also not exist.

Now, you mentioned the condos. Let me ask you, what do you think it means when Carlos says he’s looking at condos? Does 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.”

Do you think he’s looking to just buy one for himself? Is that what he’s saying?

> “Beware the unraveling of all things.”

Or…or is he looking for a shared condo?

…Hello? Hello?

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

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

And also, I am out of coffee.

Ladies and gentlemen, the condos are here! They have arrived, silently, in the night. They are thoroughly modern in their design. They are so modern, it is postulated they may 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. 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. This energy is 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 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 steep lines, their contours, their corners, their 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, the traffic.

Picture a car.

Nope! You are picturing 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? No, 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 down the road? Good.

Now picture a destination. Any destination you want.

Nope! 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 worked, and that we successfully murdered a lone driver somewhere, completely with the power 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, giants where once stood other places, the buyers edged toward them and 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 had never seen a jungle. The city stood, and Janice stood. A 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. The water around him was dark – so dark! – that he wasn’t sure even which way led to the surface, to life…and which 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. Shadows moved against the light, cast by – what? – within the cave. And then he swam toward it, uncertain whether he was guest, or sacrifice, or invulnerable dreamer. 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 his life? What made it his? It all seemed so small, part of the world that didn’t exist anymore. 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…what was?”

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

So…it seems that move-in day is going smoothly!

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, and hidden

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

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. And 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, or 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 dirty 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 out 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 it says in simple white lettering:

Listeners, I cannot advise getting yours today. Not until we fully understand what these condos are. And, given our track record, we will likely never fully understand what they are, so best just 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 putting on a live concert. They will be scratching madly at the sides of a deep pit in a rarely-traveled part of the desert. They will also be screaming, and starving. They will be crying and clawing – no one will hear them for days. They will be found, but they will not be the same.

Tickets are not available and they never were.

Saturday afternoon is Amnesty Day at the Night Vale Public Library. Librarians request that if you have overdue books, or have committed any high-level international crime, or domestic treason, or space-travel felony, you should just come to the library, and all will be forgiven.

The Librarians say that they will not harm you. In fact, they add, “It doesn’t hurt at all. Amnesty is actually quite freeing, quite delicious!” the Librarians explained. “You will never have to worry about anything else. Just come to the library and let us see you. Let us see you!” they added for emphasis, and a long string of spittle flew sideways from their great yellow and gnarled teeth.

And, on Sunday night…

Aaaah, OK, I can’t read this here. Uh, listeners, it looks like someone printed a very ancient prophecy here? Umm, right here in our station’s Community Calendar. Uh, for fear of a curse of misfortune I shall not read it aloud, just know that the prophecy is complete on Sunday night…

OK, OK OK…I’ll give you a hint. Umm, let’s just say…comets, burning rain, animal uprising…

OK, Cecil, OK, enough, enough enough enough! You’ve told them too much, let them have their surprise!

Monday was never meant to be, but it will be anyway. We will wander within its moonlit beginning, and end wondering how such a thing could happen, how anything could happen. We will be appreciative, but a little bit frightened, completely ignoring the persistence of time and the limitations of our own understanding.

Tuesday is a joke. A terrible, terrible joke.

Let me take this moment, also, to apologize for that lengthy monologue a few moments ago by the Man in the Tan Jacket carrying deerskin suitcase. He ran in here, and began ranting into the microphone, and then left quite suddenly. I…I don’t remember what it was he said. It was only just…minutes ago.

Oh, and I think I remember that it sounded really urgent. I can barely remember speaking with him at all, and I don’t even remember what the man was wearing, or carrying with him, or that it was even a 'he,’ or that any time passed at all.

And I guess that concludes whatever I was just saying just before this sentence.

[phone rings]

Hello?

> “Hello, Cecil. Are you there?”

Carlos? Yeah, hi. Umm, I’m on the air? Umm, yeah, I’m doing a show right now.

> “Right, no, I know, it’s just…I got a co ndo. F or us. I w as thinking that maybe we could—”

Wait, wait, for us? You mean, we could—

> "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 they were filled with liquid, and all of the liquids were bubbling, and before each one was a notebook of numbers, and up above was a dial with more numbers. I saw all of this, and I understood—”

You touched the condo? No, no no no! Don’t touch the condo! Don’t— don’t touch it again! Hold on, I will…I’ll be right there!

> "I need to get to those flasks. Each liquid was bubbling. There were numbers. I’m going to go into the condo.”

No, Carlos, no! Don’t go in there! Carlos! Carlos!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry, I have to— Listen, I’m going to be back as soon as I can.

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

[Double Feature by Satellite High]

> Hello again, listeners. Cecil is still gone. I guess it’s just you and me now. You have no idea how often it’s 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. Just 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 that 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. I secretly lived in her home. 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, after all.

I’m– I’m sorry, listeners, I’m really sorry, I just– listen.

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. I saw 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!

And there was a moment. There was a moment, dear listeners, when 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 is not real. Perfection is not human. Carlos is not perfect, no. Even better — he is imperfect.

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

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 own imperfection.

To my imperfect Carlos.

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

Finally, free.

And he said to me, “I just thought that maybe it was…it was time for us, maybe, to make a home. Together.”

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

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

“No,” he said, “Not a condo.”

And then he said, “Listen—”

Mmmmmmm……he thinks I shouldn’t tell you everything.

That’s…I should leave a little something there that belongs just to us.

So.

The cubes were 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. 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 still hear their voices — but distantly, and 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. That is the best news of all!

Listeners, I must send you out into the night. And it is dangerous out there. It is lonely, and it is not perfect. So.

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: Please keep all arms and legs inside the car at all times. Also, you are under arrest. Why is your car full of limbs? Whose are these?

[The Bus is Late by Satellite High]