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.