08/08/2013 14:43:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 11 - Wheat & Wheat By-Products

Today’s air quality is mauve and speckled.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Representatives from the greater medical insurance community announced this week that major insurance providers would no longer cover government-disseminated illnesses. These ailments were created to control undesirable populations and include: AIDS, most cancers, irritable bowel syndrome, telekinesis, tingling, and any kind of food allergy.

Doctors advise that the best way to avoid acquiring any of these conditions is to limit questionable public activities. Try not to be in a lower economic class, and give regularly to an approved religious organization. Take these precautions and you should live a healthy, or at least medically-insured, life.

In other health news, the Night Vale Council for Commerce reminds you to regularly consume wheat and wheat by-products. By doing so, you are directly supporting the local Night Vale farmer, as well as the local Night Vale commodities conglomerates.

Looking for a snack? Try wheat, or a wheat by-product. Dinner? Wheat and/or its by-product. Trying to patch a leaky roof? We have just the thing for you, and we also have its by-products.

Wheat and wheat by-products. By Americans, for Americans, in Americans, watching Americans.

New information on the Apache Tracker, who you might remember as that white guy who wears the cartoonishly inaccurate and offensive Indian headdress, and who disappeared some weeks ago after investigating the strange occurrences at the Night Vale Post Office.

Well, word is in that he has reappeared, except it now seems he is actually Native American. Witnesses say his features are still recognizable, but during the disappearance he has transformed into that which he always absurdly claimed to be.

More explanation, of course, is needed – but the Apache Tracker is also now only able to speak Russian, and I did not bother to get his statement translated.

Apparently, he has been taking to leaning on the hood of an old Honda Accord in the parking lot of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, shaking his head slowly and checking his watch.

Does his complete racial transformation make his previous actions less offensive, listeners? Write us a letter telling us what you think, and then put it away in a drawer for ten years. Reading it again, you’ll get a little pang of nostalgia for the person you used to be, once upon a time.

The City Council today issued a strong warning against the manufacture and sale of discount bloodstones. They say that these bloodstones of inferior design and construction have the potential to cause major accidents in even common day-to-day chanting rituals. These accidents have included, in just the past few months: locust swarms, pus tornadoes, and the creation and subsequent obliteration of a mirror version of Night Vale, forcing all of us to watch our identical counterparts perish – and thus confront the inevitability of our own futures.

Anyone caught selling these bloodstones will be put into the Dark Box, pending erasure from recorded history. The lesser charge of buying or possessing them will be met with mere summary execution.

Critics charge that the City Council is lying about all of this, due to the fact that the Council owns the only certified bloodstone factory in town. But, the Council has vehemently denied this charge by gibbering, howling, and knocking over microphones.

…..

Oh, dear. I apologize, listeners. We at Night Vale Community Radio are experiencing the following technical problems: the need for air, eye movement, and gooey stuff inside. Please, stand by.

…..

Thank you. These problems have been corrected.

An update on our previous message about wheat and wheat by-products. You should not eat wheat or wheat by-products, say several frantic scientists, waving clipboards in our studio.

As it turns out all wheat and wheat by-products, for unknown reasons, have turned into venomous snakes, which are crawling all over our small city, causing even more chaos than is normal. These snakes have been described as terrifying, loathsome, and “probably from the bowels of hell itself!” – also, green and three feet long.

If you have any wheat or wheat by-products in your home, you are almost certainly already dead.

Sorry about that.

Property taxes are going up again, Night Vale. Several citizens are justifiably upset over this latest increase, but municipal services do, after all, cost money. Schools, public transportation, parks and recreation facilities, and of course, the multi-billion dollar pulsar development facility.

Speaking of which, scientists say that they are on the verge of developing the first ever human-made neutron star. Usually the aftermath of a supernova, this pulsar would be roughly four miles in diameter, but with a nearly incomprehensible density that makes it about half the mass of our own sun.

And to think, this rapidly rotating sphere of radioactive matter will be right here under the sands of Night Vale, producing enough energy to power the earth for billions of years.

The City of Night Vale plans to use the pulsar to light the high school football stadium, which still uses whale oil lamps.

John Peters – you know, the farmer – is particularly upset…not only about the pulsar development, but also about the higher taxes. As owner of more than 150 acres, John will certainly have to pay a large share.

And given that John is a peach farmer in a desert, he hasn’t actually raised a successful crop ever. His only income is his half a million dollar annual subsidy for imaginary corn, which has been one of Night Vale’s greatest exports. People come from all over – even Desert Bluffs, unfortunately – to buy his imaginary corn. I like to butter up a piece of bread and then rub the imaginary corn along it, and then sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and cayenne. Boy, is that a delicious and low-carcinogen summer treat!

But even our town heroes like John Peters – you know, the farmer – have to pay their fair share. No citizen is above paying taxes.

Well, except Marcus Vanston, but that’s understandable because he’s so wealthy. When you’re worth as much as Marcus Vanston, you have proved your value to society through hard work and determination, and are no longer required to show anyone any further proof that you care about anything or anybody else, because you obviously do. Look at all your money!

According to some, Marcus is worth over five billion dollars, and that’s five billion reasons Marcus is our town’s greatest citizen.

Further updates on wheat and wheat by-products:

The good news is that they are no longer poisonous serpents. The bad news is that they have transformed into a particularly evil and destructive form of spirit.

Please, be aware that wheat and wheat by-products are now malevolent and violent supernatural forces, capable of physically moving objects up to 200 pounds and entering human souls of up to Soul Strength Four.

The frantic scientists, who are now hopping up and down just outside my recording booth, indicating various charts and figures, recommend creating a simple lean-to out of animal bones and mud, such as you might have made and played in as a child, and hiding there until the spiritual forces of wheat and wheat by-products have passed.

A reminder to all Night Vale citizens that the annual Sorrow Songs Sing-Along is this Thursday. There will be a potluck lunch, and the softball team will be selling refreshments to fund things that each of them individually want to buy for themselves.

Anyone who has their own Sorrow Song they’d like to add to our communal vocal malaise should submit it to City Hall by Tuesday, at the latest.

Remember that low moans and minor-key chants do not count.

The composer of the best Sorrow Song, as indicated by our audience participatory Weep-O-Meter, will be ritualistically drowned in a pool of our own townspeople’s tears. Good luck!

Listeners, the City Council, for national security reasons, have replaced the following report with the sound of a burbling brook, followed by the sound of a running blender.

Friends, listeners, there’s a…
[Sound of a burbling brook]
[Sound of a running blender]
…what it does.

City Comptroller Waynetta Barnett received a $1.5 billion check from the federal government this week. The check was to support rebuilding efforts from this past week’s massive earthquake, reaching 9.7 on the Richter scale, the epicenter of which was directly below Night Vale.

Of course, we experienced absolutely no damage to the town, and nobody reported feeling any effects at all from this enormous seismological event.

Comptroller Barnett says that she suspects that FEMA just saw the meter reading, declared this a disaster area, and sent a check. She doesn’t think they have any interest in visiting Night Vale, so we can probably just spend the money however we want.

Barnett added that those new Mini Cooper sedans are really cute, and wanted us all to look at their website.

We asked Carlos about our inability to experience tectonic shifts. Carlos, lovely Carlos, had previously recorded other massive tremor activity underneath our city.

His response was a few seconds of stammering followed by a sigh and slow head shake. His eyes were distant – distracted, yet beautiful.

I asked him where he got his shirt. It fit him so well. He said he would look at his notes and computer models and see if he could figure out what was going on.

I don’t know if he listens to me sometimes.

Ladies and gentlemen, I take you from an unreal disaster to an un-unreal one.

It is my sad duty now to announce that the City Council is officially putting Night Vale under an emergency state, due to the ongoing and life-threatening wheat and wheat by-products situation. The Council states that anyone who has come into contact with wheat and wheat by-products, and has by some happy miracle survived, should consider themselves infected and proceed to the usual quarantine area, just behind the playground in Mission Grove Park – there to spend the rest of their days in quiet contemplation and weaving.

Everyone else should head immediately to the Wheat and Wheat By-Products Shelter that has been sitting unused for decades under the public library.

When asked why a Wheat and Wheat By-Products Shelter already existed, the City Council answered, simply, “Prophecy.”

May you all be safe. May you all be well. May you be strong and flexible with ruddy cheeks and legs like tree trunks.

And now, the weather.

[“Cigarette Burns Forever” by Adam Green]

News from Old Woman Josie, out near the Car Lot. She reports that the Angels have gathered in a circle in her living room, blocking her view of the television. They are shoulder-to-shoulder, facing each other, radiant with holy light.

“The Bowling Alley,” they are chanting. “The Bowling Alley.“

She says that a repeat of The West Wing she had really hoped to watch is on, and she is quite annoyed by her usually considerate Angelic house guests.

More on this story, maybe…if there ever is more.

And finally, some good news. All wheat and wheat by-products have mysteriously vanished from Night Vale, and the City Council promises that they will be gone forever. This scourge, this siege upon us, this salvo of food-based warfare is finally over. Nevermore will be we threatened in our homes by this enemy or its by-products.

We also will never eat bread again, and that’s a pretty big bummer.

But this is the balance that must be made between what we desire and what we fear, between pain and pleasure, between wheat, dear listeners, and its by-products.

Many of you are huddled now and forever in the quarantine behind the playground in Mission Grove Park. For this community-minded sacrifice, we thank you.

I know you were forced there by martial law, but still, you should be commended for your brave action. Terminal quarantine might seem scary now, but I understand they have a well-stocked supply of canned lentils and the Silver Screen Edition of Trivial Pursuit.

And of course, you have the radio. I hope you will let my dulcet voice and our humble community station into your ears and hearts until your final wheat-loving breath.

Dear listeners, stay tuned next for a live broadcast of a man, locked in a recording booth, silently staring at the microphone with intense suspicion.

And as always, since always, and for always, goodnight, Night Vale.

Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Today is the last day of your life up to this point.