07/10/2020 15:33:07 ¶ ●

## 175 - The October Monologues

[static]
[slightly distorted]
The trees are dying again.
You know it, I know it.
The trees know it.
They have known it for decades, centuries in some cases.
The shiver of cyclic, symbolic death.
A rattle in the cold night air.
A rustle in the footsteps of a hungry deer.
It is October and something is different.
It is October and the trees draw the crackling red and orange curtain in the year’s final act.
It is October, and so listeners, dear listeners,
Night Vale community radio is proud to introduce
The October Monologues.

Faceless Old Woman: I am lonely. Oh, I see people. I see lots of people every day. I see you right now. I see you, Caleb, sitting in your rolling desk chair, hunched over your computer. I am a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home, watching you download yet another video game, Caleb.

But seeing people and being with people are different things. Different ideas altogether. I miss touch most of all. A father’s hand, a friend’s arms. A lover’s chest. I still touch, am touched, but it is not the same. It is not a mutual touch. My touch is unwelcome, unfriendly, unwanted. Yet I touch because I love.

And I love you, Caleb. I do. I know you don’t believe me after what I did to you tonight, but I do. My love is not romantic nor maternal. It’s not platonic, either. I love you the way a deer loves a cornfield. It is safe, it is nourishing. It is in its DNA to want to be there, to hide, to eat, to play. You’re very much like a cornstalk, Caleb. You are loved and you are benign. Better than benign, you are a contribution to this world. The cornstalk is unaware that a deer loves it so much that it will bend it and stomp it until its edible morsels spill out from its crumpled empty husk. The cornstalks, there are so many cornstalks, do not understand that they are so loved by the deer as to be devoured.

You’ve seen a kitten before, Caleb, I know you have. Sometimes kittens are so cute. So so so so cute that you wanna put them in your mouth. Do you understand that kind of love, Caleb, that kind of touch? You do not, no one does. And this is why I’m lonely. But I think you know that. You’re different. You’re lonely too. That’s not what makes you different, we’re all lonely in our own way.

You’re different, Caleb, because you know I am here. You see me even when I do not want to be seen. No one has been able to do that in at least 200 years.
Sometimes you speak to me. Not in terror, not in rage; I’ve heard many of these voices in my life from those who feared and detested my presence.
No, you ask me my name. I won’t tell you, not yet. You tell me about your day, I’m sorry your new boss is so mean, I will rectify this. And last night, you prepared a dinner for me. You’re not a good cook, I can smell that much, but it was your gesture of generosity that touched me. You made cashio e pepe, a recipe you learned from TikTok, and you prepared a bowl just for me. You waited to see if I would appear, and when I did not, you told me you understood wanting to eat alone, so you left it for me on the dining room table, as you went to play the new flight simulator.

Few men have ever been this kind to me before being frightened into it first, or without using their kindness as a disguise. I think you genuinely understand your own quiet desperation among the mass of men. And in turn, you understand others too.
I don’t trust the kindness of men, Caleb. I don’t trust the kindness of women, either. Or anyone else’s kindness, to be truthful, but I especially don’t trust men’s kindness. There are exceptions. Andre, whose kindness was loyalty and honesty, and Albert, although his was a much different kind of kindness.

But Caleb, 23-year-old, unshaven, video game loving, boss hating aimless Caleb, your kindness frightens me. I’m scared of what you want, what it is you plan to take from me. Kind men have stolen my childhood, my morals, my money, my love, my life, and my family. What will you take from me, Caleb, that I have not already lost? I’m afraid. I’m afraid to respond to your gentle bait of friendship, because I am afraid you will take my loneliness from me. I am lonely, and that is a choice I have made for myself.

One day, Caleb, you will die. I know exactly when. It will not be of my hand, although I will do nothing to stop it. It is my fate, my path, to know such things. And in your death, you will return my loneliness to me, and it will be a horror to behold, bloody and misshapen. My loneliness, not recognizing its former owner, will howl an unholy and unceasing cry, and I will not be able to bear it.

This is what I fear, Caleb, and this is why I took the bowl of cashio e pepe you left for me and hurled it against the wall, just missing your cheek. I’m not sad that you screamed at me, I’m happy that you did so. This is how it has to be. We are not enemies, Caleb, no no. I love you deeply. Deeper than you can know. I am your deer Caleb, and you are my corn.

Cecil: The fiery flash of fall leaves stuns us, captivates us. Fireworks in slow motion. Or the crackling embers of a finishing flame. Upon the leaves are written instructions for how to make oxygen, how to give life, with every exhalation. How to find flair in fading grace, and how to raise new life by falling to your death. The leaves know they will return again, so much will return again. We return now to the October Monologues.

Michelle Nguyen: There’s this new song I like, but I don’t wanna tell you what it is. I find it kind of embarrassing. Usually I love to talk about my favorite music. There was that summer I was obsessed with the new single by Saint Vincent. The single came in the form of a glazed vase containing three blue flowers. Only one was ever made, and I got the only copy. I found it very catchy, but the flowers eventually died. Or the year I spent listening over and over to that new Janelle Monae album. I forget the name, but the cover was a black and white picture of a well, and if you didn’t share it with someone else in 7 days, you would die. Of course no one ever died, because the album was so good, people just couldn’t stop telling their friends to listen.

My favorite song of all time is a blank cassette tape still in its plastic wrapper. It was owned by a man named Gary Joy. He was a real estate lawyer, reasonably successful, but he always dreamed of being a singer/songwriter. He dreamed all the time of quitting his job and writing songs, but he had never even written one song. Then one day, in a fit of optimism and energy, he bought this cassette, intending to make his first memo. But the day got away from him, and then the week, and then the rest of his life, and he never quit being a lawyer, and he never even wrote one song. This blank cassette tape, still in its wrapper, contains the potential of all the songs he could have written but never did, which is better and more powerful than any song anyone’s actually managed to write. The potential of the thing is always more perfect than the reality of the thing. However, and this is the crucial drawback, the potential is absolutely useless and the reality, however imperfect, can be quite useful.
Anyway, I like to hold Gary Joy’s unwritten demo and imagine what it would be like. Hold on, sorry. There’s a customer.

[bell dings] Welcome to Dark Owl Records. What? No, no. No. No! No. OK, bye! [bell dings]
Sorry about that. Some people are so unreasonable. I don’t even know what a Taylor Swift is.

But there’s a new song I like, and it’s not cool like my other favorite songs. It’s not a song that fits the kind of image I like to project. When I put on my mirrored leggings, my extra long jorts, and my really big hat, people expect something from me. They expect me to be on the cutting edge. They expect me only to be into bands that aren’t popular yet, or will never be popular, or that frankly don’t know how to play their instruments very well.
And the song I like now is not any of those things. It’s… ordinary. It’s… popular. I don’t wanna say what it is. Remember when I only listened to the sound of beez buzzing? That was a good summer. Of course I got stung once or twice or 30 times. [sighs] Hold on, sorry, there’s a customer.

[bell dings] Welcome to Dark Owl Records! Hey. Hey! Hey! Hey! HEEEEY!
Thanks, nice to see you again. [bell dings]
Sorry about that.

I’m tired of being cool. I was going to say trying to be cool, but trying implies the possibility of failure, and there has never been a moment when I’ve failed to be cool. But here’s the hard truth I’ve come up against: being cool is a young person’s game. And that’s not because young people are better or more interesting than older people. God no. God no. God no! It’s that coolness itself is a concept tied to youth. Coolness is a reactionary manifestation of insecurity. The more insecure you are, the cooler you need to be. It’s colorful plumage.
But as I’ve gotten older, I no londer need flashy plumage. I just wanna sit in the comfort of who I am, and not worry about what that looks like from the outside.

Anyway, I can’t stop listening to “Karma Police” by Radiohead. It’s just… a good song, you know? Hold on, sorry, there’s a customer.

[bell dings] You! You’ll never catch me alive! [sound of running] [bell dings]

Cecil: An abundance of words, words falling, fluttering to the earth. Words crunching beneath our feet. They were beautiful once, the words. Now they are beginning to rot, to wilt, to compost, to ferment new growth. To fertilize new words growing upon great trunks of paragraphs and chapters, but not now. Those will come later. Now the words sputter and drop in spiraling arcs to the ground. Here, then, are the final few brightly painted words falling upon you now. The October Monologues.

Steve Carlsberg: What does it mean to be believed? I’ve always known that Night Vale isn’t like other places. As long as I can remember, I could see that. I could also see that no one else could see it. I was alone in my knowledge. Knowledge may be power, but power is often lonely. My grandfather knew. He could see that I was like him.
“Steve,” he would say, “us Carlsbergs have always been the town pariahs, but just because they hate you, doesn’t mean they’re right.”
I would sit at night as a kid and listen to Cecil on the radio. He was the same age as he is now, and at the time he seemed so wise. But I would hear him dismiss what I knew shouldn’t be dismissed. I would hear him cover up what should be uncovered, and I would know with a child’s certainty that it was wrong. I loved him still. Everyone in town loves Cecil. It is possible to love someone who you know is doing wrong. It’s terribly easy, in fact.

What does it mean to be believed?
As a teenager, I started trying to express what I saw about the world. I gave a presentation in my social studies class called “Night Vale – there’s literally nowhere like it”, and I thought it was informative. The class all plugged their ears in unison. The teacher stopped me a minute in, glancing nervously at the 8 surveillance cameras monitoring the classroom.
“Are you trying to get us all killed?” the teacher hissed at me. I remember that her breath smelled like Strawberry Jolly Ranchers, and there was a lose crumb of mascara in the sweat of her temples.
“No,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. It’s not the kind of question that demands a sincere answer. The report earned me a trip to the principal’s office, and then the re-education pit, which honestly is not as bad as its name. I mean, almost not as bad. It’s pretty bad. It’s a pit, for re-education.
So, certainly learned something from that re-education. I learned that you’re equally likely to be punished for being right as you are for being wrong.

What does it mean to be believed? I was a young man entering the workforce, and I had long ago learned to hide away what I knew about my city. I had learned the handshake and the smile, the nod and the necktie, all the signifiers that hid what I truly signified. All of life is a code, and I had been thought the key against my will.

I got a job as a bank teller at the Last Bank of Night Vale. I studied with great interest the townsfolk who came and went there. I learned about their lives and their secrets, and what kind of money they made for the whispered deals out back of quiet parking lots just before the sun went down, pulled up next to a black Sedan that contained their handler who they only knew by a false first name. but I couldn’t forget what I knew, even if I learned to playact that I had. What I know shapes who I am. I can’t close my eyes, not to this town I love. This weird and secret town I love.

What does it mean to be believed?
Then I married into the family of Cecil Palmer, host of Night Vale community radio! And he hated me, because he could see that I knew. And after all these years, my mask had slipped a little. I’d lost my interest in hiding. I wanted to speak the truth as I knew it, nothing could be more threatening to Cecil. His life and livelihood depended on speaking the truth as the City Council wanted it. Or as the Vague yet Menacing government agencies crafted it. And here I was, pointing out to him the sky. There are glowing arrows in the sky, there are dotted lines and arrows and circles. The sky is a chart that explains the entire world! I tried to tell him, and this only made him hate me more. I tried to share who I was with him, and this only made him recoil.

Abby listened to my stories, but she never shared my enthusiasm for the truth.
“Let it lie,” she would say, “let it lie.”
But that’s he point, I can’t let it lie and I can’t lie! We’ve done that for too long! We’ve let our town sit heavy under the weight of euphemism and half truth, and unless someone just said what they saw for once, we would be crushed eventually by that weight!

And then it all changed. I wasn’t alone. The others saw that we lived in a weird place. And you know what? We kept existing. Our world didn’t end merely because we dared acknowledge it.
Cecil and I are friends now. I haven’t forgotten how he treated me, but I understand it and I forgive it.
Forgiveness and understanding are not the same as forgotten.

What does it mean to be believed?
It means everything. It means all.

Cecil: And as the leaves are done, so are the October Monologues. All that can be said has been said. And all that can be said will be said again.

Today’s proverb: Listen, it might seem like everything’s bad right now.

18/10/2020 22:48:01 ¶ ●

## 176 - The Autumn Specter

Lips are the toes of the face.
Welcome to Night Vale.

[spooky theme song]

It’s Halloween again, Night Vale, my favorite day of the year. As a kid, my mother used to dress my sister Abby and I in homemade costumes and take us door to door, vaguely threatening our neighbors until they gave us candy. When I was a teenager, I got a little old for trick-or-treating, so I started going to haunted houses with my friends. A lot of those haunted houses were kind of predictable with all their chain saw killers and Victorian ghost children singing nursery rhymes, who would follow you home and sing by your bed for months afterwards, but they always got to me. I loved the emotional rush of being scared. I still do. Of course, I don’t go out much to haunted houses, but I still love good old fashioned scary stories. I thought today would be a great day to share some of my favorites with you.
I had my new intern, James, put together a few spooky tales that are perfect for putting you into Halloween mood.

But first, let’s have a look at the Community Calendar.
This Saturday night at the New Old Night Vale Opera House, is the annual costume gala. This event is the Opera House’s largest fundraiser and one of the most prestigious costume contests in the region. A panel of judges will be on hand to determine the best costume at the ball. Last year’s winners were Joel Eisenberg and his partner Danny Jimenez, who dressed in a tandem outfit of a stegosaurus. I was there, listeners, and it was impressive! The creature was so realistic-looking. The craftsmanship of the costume was top notch, but listen, I have to confess I’m always more into high concept creativity rather than realistic details when it comes to costumes. Like I remember the 2015 gala, when Amal Shamun came dressed up as the concept of ennui. She made herself 12 feet tall, dressed in a taupe long coat, and created a constant drizzling rain inside the ball room. Anyone who looked at her got super sad and wanted a hug. But Joel and Danny’s stegosaurus was fine.

Sunday afternoon is the fall craft sale in Old Town Night Vale. An inscrutable maze of stalls showcasing the finest products from our town’s artisans. There will be cultural events for children, like finger painting classes, puppet shows, and a visit from the Autumn Specter.
The Autumn Specter returns. It comes to collect its crops, with its great and sharp sickle. [creepily] It will harvest every ripe soul in Night Vale, the Autumn Specter is hungryyyy! It is Octoberr and it is timme to feeeeeee-duh.

Hey James, this Community Calendar doesn’t seem right, it’s just a bunch of stuff about the Autumn Specter. Also this font size, what-what is this 32 point? That’s just much too large. And it’s printed in red ink and that is a waste of our color toner, James. Eww, eww! This red ink is still really damp. OK, plus there’s nothing about start and end times of the craft fair, or anything about the food trucks, like if the Autumn Specter is hungry, surely it wants some falafel or Korean barbeque or tacos. James, could you just redo this story? James?
James?
[clears throat] Well, listeners, I don’t know where James went. Um, I can hear him breathing, but I don’t see him anywhere. Yeah, it’s fine, let’s just get onto our first spooky story.

[static, old-fashioned music]
One quiet moonless night, not long ago and not so far away, a teenage girl sat in a house that was not her own. It was the home of Tony and Sheila McDowell. The girl was their babysitter, and she had just put the two young McDowell children down to sleep. The girl watched TV alone in the dark living room, only the bluish flicker of a scary movie illuminating her face. The phone rang abrupt and loud, startling her. She raised the receiver to her ear.
“Hello?” she said with a slight quiver.
“Have you checked on the children?” came a raspy voice.
The babysitter ran quickly upstairs, opening the door of the kids’ bedroom. She flicked on the light, and there they were, fast asleep. She went back to her movie, but the phone rang again.
“Haave youuu checked on the childrennn?” came the same voice, only more sinister.
The babysitter again hurried upstairs, opened the door, turned on the light, and saw the children still asleep.
The caller called again and again and again.
“Have you checked on the children?”
The babysitter, so scared, barely able to move, hung up the phone before the voice could finish its repeated query.
When the phone rang once again, she answered and shouted: “Stop calling me!” But this time, it was a different voice. The person on this occasion said: “Ma’am, this is the police. We’ve traced the call. The call is coming from inside the house. Get out, get out!”
The babysitter panicked and started to run, but then she remembered: she never called the police! How would they know to even trace the call?
So she crept fearfully upstairs to the children’s room, and the phone was ringing again, the clamoring bell igniting her fright. And she cracked open the door and she saw-
She saw the young McDowell boy and his little brother hunched over a phone and giggling!
They were pranking her, and she felt relieved but embarrassed. And she told them to stop fooling around and go to sleep. And they all shared a good laugh.

Let’s have a look now at traffic.
[papers rustling] Um..
OK, well I don’t seem to have a traffic report from intern James. Also James isn’t here right now, because I sent him out to go pick up lunch a few m-
Oh, hey James, James, James, James – wait, why are you standing in the control booth? You were supposed to go get lunch and also I’ve asked you a couple of times not to wear that burlap bag over your head. I mean yes it looks great, with the Jack o’ Lantern face drawn onto it, I mean the mouth is a bit lopsided and the eyes are a tad uneven, you know kinda flat and emotionless, but all in all it’s a cool look, but it’s decidedly not allowed in Station Management’s dress code.
Oh, you’re holing a knife, too! So did you get- did you already get that lunch then? Well if that- if that’s the case, you don’t need to cut my sandwich in half, I’ll-I’ll take it whole. And also I need that traffic report, thanks.
James? What are you waiting for, the Autumn Specter to do it for you? [chuckles] Hop to it!
James?

[clears throat] Well, while James is working on that, let’s get back to my favorite spooky Halloween stories.
This one isn’t a story so much as a fun Halloween game.
The legend of Bloody Mary.

According to the lore, if you turn off all the lights, and stare into a mirror, repeating “Bloody Mary” three times in a row, she will appear and tear your face off!
I’ve never tried this because I don’t own any mirrors, but my husband Carlos conducted this very experiment in his science lab. He said he darkened the room and repeated the name and nothing happened for a long time.
But then a figure of a woman appeared, silvery gray and shimmering, and she approached Carlos slowly, her hollow white eyes never blinking. She brought her face only inches from Carlos and said: “Are you for real?”
And Carlos said yes, he was indeed – real.
And Bloody Mary said: “OK because this time of year, I just get a bunch of giggling, screaming teenagers, and I’m really tired of ripping off their faces for no pay whatsoever!”
And Carlos gave her some resources for starting a union and she thanked him and she offered to tear his face off in exchange for the consulting, but Carlos said no, he liked his face, and wisher her luck.
Night Vale, pay your malevolent spirits! They’re overworked especially around Halloween. And a 20 per cent gratuity for poltergeists, phantasms, revenants, and ghosts is standard.

And now for t- what the, oh you- [papers rustling]
Wait, OK. You know, I thought intern James had handed the traffic report to me, but this is just a piece of parchment with a 9-pointed star seemingly drawn by a finger dripped in blood. And then there are a series of ancient runes scrawled around the outer edges.
Now I took runic in college. I mean, most of my friends took Spanish as their language, but I thought living here in the American Southwest, it would be more useful to study ancient Scandinavian and Germanic alphabets. And from what I can make out, these are a message about the return of the Autumn Specter.
Ugh, alright. OK. I love that intern James loooves Halloween and whatever this the Autumn Specter is. In fact, James is still in the break room right now construction a sacred totem out of ash tree branches and twine. He’s been muttering to himself all day in a language that I don’t recognize, and the only words I can understand are “Autumn Specter”. But I still have neither my traffic report nor my lunch!
Wait, do you think James is… Naah, put it out or you mind, Cecil.

Let’s tell another spooky Halloween story.
There once was a beautiful young woman who wore a green ribbon around her neck. She won the affection of a handsome young man. They fell in love and one day the boy asked the girl why she always wore a green ribbon around her neck. She would not tell him.
One day the man and the woman were to become husband and wife. In her white bridal dress, the woman still wore her green ribbon. The man asked her on their wedding night if he could untie the green ribbon, but even on the most intimate of evenings, she said no, and he respected her answer.
But he longed to know what she was hiding behind the ribbon.
Through the years, the man asked the wife again about the ribbon, but she never removed it, nor answered his questions about it. She only warned him that he would not like what he saw if she were to remove it.
He asked less and less, but his curiosity grew and grew. And they became old, very old, and they knew their time left was short. The man asked one more time: “My dearest wife, love of my life, tell me that I may remove the green ribbon from around your neck.”
And the old woman said: “My adoring groom, here in our room after all these many years, yes you may. But I caution you, as I have many times before, that you shall not like what your eyes behold.”
The man hesitated, but finally reached his weakened, wrinkled fingers to the green bow along her nape. And he tentatively pulled the ribbon, and suddenly it unfurled, falling from her neck, and the man gasped. Upon her neck was a series of ornate letters spelling out “GOTH LIFE”.
The woman said: “I got this tattoo in high school but kind of outgrew it and it’s super embarrassing.”
And the man replied: “It is for sure weird, but also pretty cool. I like it.”
And she never wore the green ribbon again.

You know, listeners, I’d love to bring you that traffic report, but right now, um, I’m facing something much more urgent and more dire. My studio door has opened on its own, and as I turned around, I could see down the long faintly lit corridor of our offices. And at the end of the hallway stands a figure, and he wears a Jack o’ Lantern mask, his head crooked to one side like a dog asking a question or like a hanged man, or both. And it is intern James, and he holds a long knife and he walks, he walks slowly toward me. And he is speaking at first in a mutter, but now louder, a strange shout in an obscure tongue like a magician casting a wicked spell, and he is moving much faster toward me, like a limping run, and his blade is raised high, and James is not an intern, Night Vale, bu the Autumn Specter itself come to reap my soul!

But before he does that,
Let me take you to the weather.

[“Welterweight” by Nels Andrews. https://nelsandrews.bandcamp.com/]

So. During the weather, I went to human resources and requested a file on intern James. Oh I’m fine, by the way, and James is not the Autumn Specter, but I’ll get to that.
So I found a copy of James’ résumé and cover letter for the position of radio station intern. His application was originally submitted in 1845.
“That’s almost two centuries ago!” I exclaimed, but according to HR, they’re pretty backlogged on the intern apps.
“What are you gonna do, we get to them when we get to them,” they said from the bottom of their abandoned well.
Paperclipped to James’ application was a wrinkled and yellowed news clipping from the Night Vale °Daily Journal, and the article says that James died on Halloween night in 1849 when he was hit by a train. I then went to the hall of public records and found that our radio station was built in 1950, atop the very train tracks where James met hi send. James’ soul has been wandering the halls and offices of our radio station ever since. For all James ever wanted was to be a radio intern. To serve the listening community, to lift high the voice of journalistic truth. And it was his death that led to the shutdown of those train tracks and the eventual construction of a new station home, and the building we still use now. So I was wrong about James. He was an intern, after all, and not a malevolent Halloween spirit.

But I was right that the Autumn Specter had come for me. For when I turned to see James running down the hill, I did not notice the Autumn Specter behind me, with its bony hands and scarecrow mouth, and I did not notice its soul reaping sickle, which it had raised high above its oversized head and stick thin body. And James had given his life for the building of our radio station, and in death, gave his soul for the very same cause. And James threw himself upon the Autumn Specter, and he tried to stab the Specter’s neck and chest, but it-it- it did nothing. And the Spectre pushed James aside and then turned its black coal eyes upon me. And it raised its curved blade once again and swung!
I tried to duck, but was too slow. And just as the sickle’s edge reached my face, James dove in front of it and vanished in a burst of white flame, as he was struck.
And the room was empty and the Autumn Specter was gone too.

To the family and friends of intern James, he was… an OK intern. Not always on top of his writing deadlines, but he literally sacrificed his soul for our radio station. I can’t bring you a traffic report today, but I will live to bring you one tomorrow. If we find a new intern.
And HR tells me that we have hundreds of candidates, although most of them are not yet aware that they are candidates.

Stay tuned next for our new cooking competition show, “Flay Bobby Flay”.

And as always,
Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: The road to hell is paved with cobblestone. It’s super bumpy, not at all comfortable, and really bad for your car’s suspension.