01/12/2015 9:24:46 ¶ ●

## Episode 79 - Lost in the Mail

We brought something back with us, something we cannot escape: memories of a great vacation to deepest space! And, the merciless Distant Prince.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, it is a solemn day here in Night Vale. Even more solemn than last year’s Solemnity Fest, during which three people were overcome and had to be revived with party hats and whoopee cushions.

Today is Remembrance Day, that special day once per year when we interrupt our routines to reflect upon those who probably sacrificed their lives for us in the endless Blood Space War. We’re not sure whether they are alive or dead, because there is a thousand-year difference between our time and those who fight for us on the vast intergalactic battlefields where time converges.

But, we assume that they are all heroes.

On this day, we put aside our political differences – even deeply bitter, divisive differences, like the belief or disbelief in mountains – and we all come together to remember those who will die thousands of years from now, and hope that the impossibility of victory is less impossible than before.

Like any deeply painful and serious subject, it is best remembered through the medium of a civic parade.

Looking out of the studio I can see the parade route is packed with onlookers, and everything is getting underway. The symbolic dead lead the procession, each of them wearing the mask of one of those who went into the distance of time and can never return.

Behind them is a float depicting the enormous serpent whose mouth contains the universe, a playful reminder to us all that even the stars must someday be swallowed.

Following that apparition comes our mayor, and my friend, Dana Cardinal, in her ceremonial mayor’s coffin.

Behind her are the Citizens for a Blood Space War, still over 600 million dollars left to hit the fund-raising goal for their bomb that may destroy reality as we understand it. Get those cookies in the oven for the next bake sale!

A brief departure now from the parade in progress.

All this week, we have been reaching out to you, the listeners, and asking for stories about how the Blood Space War has affected your lives. You heard from the Black Dauphin on how to grow a victory garden inside your body, and Sarah Bismuth shared the story of her Etsy store where she sells dolls that represent individual soldiers in the Blood Space War, showing the actual wounds they will someday suffer.

And now, today, in her own words, I bring you the story of a girl whose father volunteered to fight. Let’s listen together.

[Sound of a tape player being started]

Basimah: Uh, I’m Basimah Bishara and I am a junior at Night Vale High. My father, Faqir Bishara, left to join the Blood Space War when I was six.

I remember the glowing doorway he stepped through when the tall, silver-skinned recruiter came to our house, and the sound of it, like, a slide whistle going up, but the most tragic slide whistle I’ve ever heard. My dad was gone forever…but also, he isn’t gone at all.

I think I’m a regular student…whatever that means. I haven’t grown wings like the cheerleaders, but I fit in. I’m bad at math. I mean, I used to be good at it, but I think I stopped paying attention. It seems like it was pointing toward a truth I didn’t want to learn.

I’m really good at science and English. I used to be in marching band; now I prefer guitar. Me and my friends formed an all-girl thrash group. We’re called The Misfits.

I guess how it works is that, once a year for the first hundred years of Dad’s journey, they’re going to wake him up and allow him to send a message back to Earth. I have a big family, so it’s not like I don’t feel loved.

Sometimes I feel like it would be easier if my dad couldn’t get in touch with me at all.

No, I don’t wish that. I love him!

I wish he never left.

The messages show up on my night stand in these gelatinous gashapon capsules. They are warm and soft in my hands. The words are printed on a tiny roll of plastic inside.

He only gets to send one every year, and he always sends it to me right around my birthday, but not exactly on my birthday. I don’t know whether he’s getting it wrong or they are. Or, maybe, it’s just time being weird again. I like to believe it’s that.

To my dad, he left 11 days ago but to me, it’s most of my lifetime. I’ll be an old woman and he’ll still be on his way to the war sending letters to a me that he remembers from just a few weeks before.

It’s stupid.

It’s not stupid, I guess.

It is stupid, though. It is.

[Sound of a tape player being stopped]

Cecil: More from Basimah in a bit, but we need to update you on the parade.

Aah, here comes The Emissary, listeners! It wouldn’t be Remembrance day without a visit from the only entity to ever return from the war. It has been hauled up from the pit, and yes, here it comes!

No one knows what The Emissary is, or why The Emissary inhabits a cosmonaut’s suit.

Oh! It’s lifting the visor and giving us a glimpse at the void within the helmet. And it’s…it’s saying something! Um, I’ll try to interpret.

“All these things are meaningless. End the war.”

Well, of course, that’s the whole point, isn’t it, listeners? If we end the war, it will go on eternally. We must continue the war to bring it to an end. It’s why all those brave people enlisted, and keep enlisting, and will enlist forever.

And there goes The Emissary, a solemn reminder of why our volunteers continue to fight in the Blood Space War. Ah. What a brave being!

Soon we will trap it back in its pit.

Speaking of those volunteers, the Night Vale Veterans of a Blood Space War Association is holding a fish fry this Saturday to raise money for a statue of the unknown soldier, to be built 1,000 years in the future – by which time we may know who the soldier is. Bring friends, family, fish, and whatever else you would like fried over to the VFW Hive located in the space between the walls at the abandoned cannery.

Oh! Uh, oh no! Uh, while I avert my gaze from the Shriner’s homunculi, let’s have a word from our sponsors.

Do you have dry eyes? Red eyes? Goat eyes? Aphid eyes? Any other eyes you’re not currently using? We want your eyes at Richter’s Eye Glass Hut!

We give you money for your unwanted eyes and turn them into glass for affordable window panes.

How? Don’t ask questions.

Come on down to Richter’s Eye Glass Hut, located conveniently off the highway helix in the shadow of the immense precarious rock.

No longer accepting potato eyes or the eye of a storm. Not responsible for our windows watching you while you sleep.

And now, let’s return to Basimah’s story.

[Sound of a tape player being started]

Basimah: “The ship is so big, it makes me think of big things, Basi.”

That’s what he calls me. It was my nickname when I was six.

I’m not six.

It all comes out of him at a jumble.

“They say what we are going to fight is an idea like a color or pride, but it can kill us. If the idea gets inside you, then it’s over. Basi, do you remember the song we used to sing you to put you to sleep? Paula Abdul, Rush Rush.”

And then he wrote the whole song out, but he got a bunch of the lyrics wrong. I guess he was doing it from memory.

I got a capsule two months ago telling me he wants me to be a doctor so I can cure one of the big diseases like cancer. “Like cancer,” there is nothing like cancer. There is just cancer.

Sure, I’ll cure that, space-dad. No pressure, right?

Most of the messages my father sends me are lists of ways I need to live my life, things I should do and shouldn’t do, you know? He told me to pray every day, and obey my mother. When I was nine he warned me not to kiss a boy until I was 16, which…well, I guess good news for him there!

Divergence started with little things. He said I should get a puppy for my eighth birthday, but I got a snail. When I was 15, he wanted to make sure I had started wearing my hijab. Mom said I should make my own choices, so sometimes I wear it, and sometimes I don’t. Like, always at mosque, but not that often at school. That sort of thing.

My father is talking to a person who isn’t me, to a person that doesn’t exist. He has imagined my entire childhood and young adulthood. He brings up obvious milestones, like starting high school or that first kiss, but…he doesn’t know about that car accident I spent most of my 14th year recovering from. I can’t tell him about the poems I write, or about the fact that I have a girlfriend, not a boyfriend.

He’s a ghost to me and my mom. Or, maybe, since he’s going to be around long after I’m gone, I’m the one who’s a ghost to him.

I take some comfort knowing my dad got paid a lot of money for joining the Blood Space War. Enough to take care of me and Mom for a long time and, really, having a space-dad is just another way to have a family. Everyone’s got their own thing, you know?

Like, all of The Misfits. Clara is in a nuclear family straight from the 1950s but, like, literally from the 1950s, even as she lives her life in 2015. Neesha has a council of fathers. Jacqueline’s mom is a spider. So long as you are loved, it doesn’t matter.

So my dad’s a space ghost. I can deal. I just wish Dad loved me, not the me who I was 11 years ago.

Or maybe I’m not OK with it. Maybe I wish he would come back. I wish he would be a dad to me, not to the ghost of me that haunts him.

[Sound of a tape player being stopped]

Cecil: More with Basimah coming up, but first, the weather.

[“Sharon” by Good San Juan]

The parade has ended. Most of the onlookers have ceased to look on, and the wind is gathering up the paper Remembrance Day masks, and depositing them in a random scattering across our sidewalks and streets.

A lone dog I recognize from a recurring dream is staring at me from a block away. A dark van rumbles past. Everything is calm and quiet once again and…

[Cecil is interrupted by a sound not unlike several flutes]

Oh! Oh, my!

Oh! You startled me.

Uh, listeners, The Emissary has appeared in the studio without warning…without even opening a door. It is sitting in the chair next to me and slowly rotating. Its visor is open, and I’m being forced to stare at the ineffable darkness within The Emissary’s helmet.

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

Uh, I believe it is asking if I understand the nature of unreality.

Um, Emissary, I understand dreams, and fantasies, and this gooey sometimes-incredible sometimes-painful world that surrounds us, but I can only experience it with my seven senses.

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

Listeners, The Emissary is saying that the nature of unreality is that experience and reality are linked, but separate. What is experienced may not be real. What is real may never be experienced.

Well, so far this is just basic geometry, like we all learn in the third grade. Where is The Emissary going with this?

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

The Emissary is saying…in a thousand years, we will turn the vastness of space red for no reason. There was never a purpose to this war we made.

But…if Remembrance Day has taught me anything, under strict order of the Sheriff’s Secret Police, it is that war is a purpose unto itself.

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

Um, The Emissary is asking me to…end the conflict.

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

But…

I’m sorry, Emissary, I– I– I do not have the power to end the Blood Space War. After all the blood that has been spilled in space, or will be spilled, or…may be spilled at some theoretical point in the future, I– I’m just a humble radio host. And you are a sentient nothingness inhabiting the suit of a dead cosmonaut. How could the two of us hope to stop a war? I don’t know!

I just don’t know.

The Emissary is gone, as though it was never here. Maybe it wasn’t. After all, this moment was only something I experienced, not something I know is real.

Let’s hear the rest of Basimah’s tape.

[Sound of a tape player being started]

Basimah: People always say to me, “You must be proud of your father going off to fight in the Blood Space War.” I used to say yes to that. Not anymore. I don’t care if it makes me selfish or ungrateful, my dad made the wrong choice and I want him back.

He wrote down the lyrics all wrong.

“You’re going to see, I’m gonna run, I’m gonna fly, I’m gonna bring this love back to you…”

[The sound not unlike several flutes again]

Ah! How did you get in my room?

[The sound not unlike several flutes continues]

What are you?

What are you?

…Daddy?

Is that you, Daddy?

[Basimah laughs]

Daddy! Daddy!

[Sound of a tape player being stopped]

Cecil: Listeners, I don’t know how The Emissary ended up in this taped recording dropped off at the studio three days ago, given that The Emissary was only released from its pit this morning.

But then, I don’t know how my favorite type of pie is made, but when I order it, there it is, steaming and delicious! I don’t know how the mail gets delivered, but every day, like clockwork, it doesn’t! I don’t know how lost pets end up on the moon! But they do. And they have built an extensive city up there.

The clock claims it is now 12:01. Remembrance Day is over. We can all return to our lives, and to forgetting that the Blood Space War is going on. Or…will go on. Maybe. 1,000 years from now.

And maybe, in 1,000 years, plus a day or two, those brave volunteers we sent to fight in a war none of us understand will allow the most dangerous idea of all into their heads:

They will turn back, and return home, to us, against all laws of time and space.

Paraphrasing the half-remembered words of an ancient prophet, perhaps they will bring this love back to us.

Or, maybe, they already have.

Stay tuned next for events that will or will not happen in the order that they may or may not occur.

And from the present, as I am currently experiencing it, goodnight Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Ever wondered how a plane flies? Well, the answer is that no one knows. Pilots are scared to ask. If we ask, maybe it’ll stop working.

15/12/2015 13:30:53 ¶ ●

## Episode 80 - A New Sheriff in Town

I fought the law, and the law won. I ignored the law, and the law won. I abided by the law, and the law won.

Welcome to Night Vale.

There’s a new sheriff in town, Night Vale. The former sheriff, whose name we never knew, whose face we never saw, and whose voice was only ever heard through a vocoder, is gone. Our former sheriff was secretive, reclusive, really into classical music, and kleptocracy, rarely made public appearances, and, when he did, it was with a balaclava and cape.

The new sheriff has a more public persona, refusing to wear the traditional mask or cape, and actually allowing their first name to be known (it’s Sam, by the way).

The sheriff called a press conference this morning to announce that they are taking over the Secret Police, effective immediately.

More on this story as it develops. But first, an editorial.

It’s the holidays, Night Vale. I know many of you will get to spend this time with people you love. I know I’ll be sharing some eggnog with my dearest family: Carlos, Abby, Janice…others.

But, let’s not forget those people who quietly make our lives better. The postal carriers, the baristas and food servers, cab drivers, and the agents from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency who sit outside our homes, night after night, recording all of our conversations and activities. Think how boring a job domestic espionage must be. They are out there at all hours. Do they ever get to sleep? Or spend holidays with families? Or take vacations? Who even knows?

So, the other day, swept up in the holiday spirit, I took some delicious pfeffernuesse cookies out to the windowless van across from my home, and gave them to the agent sitting in the back. Her name is Monica Barnwell, and she was just a lovely person. She appreciated that I recognized all the hard work she has put in the last several years surveilling me, and I thanked her for her service to our community.

We had some small talk, and then I said, “well, gotta get back to my dull life!” as I looked down at my shoes.

She said, “Thanks, Cecil.”

And then I said, “Monica, would you like me to…I don’t know…question the world government, or be more anti-war, or talk more like a political dissonant, or something? Just to make your day a little more exciting.”

“Oh, that’d be so fun, Cecil, thanks!” she said.

Then I went back inside and told my boyfriend I wanted to get a beret. Either red or camouflage.

So Night Vale, this holiday season, think about all the people you may take for granted. You don’t have to give them a gift or anything; just a thank you, and a smile for all their hard work is enough. And, if you have any particularly juicy secrets, consider brightening some agent’s day by announcing them in a loud, clear voice to the nearest hidden microphone in your home.

The new sheriff has spoken. They opened their press conference with the following statement:

“Citizens of Night Vale, we have a crisis on our hands, and that crisis is…”

Then the sheriff performed a ten-minute modern dance piece, set to music by Steve Reich (of course), that frantically yet lyrically conveyed a disdain for the fiscal irresponsibility of current mayor Dana Cardinal.

The press corps loved the piece, especially its subtle tribute to choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s sweeping repetitive style, even though the Sheriff’s muscular, longitudinal movements obviously indicated heavy training in Lester Horton’s methodology. They applauded politely, and the sheriff continued with their speech. Quote:

“Our Secret Police force has been secretly requesting budget increases to help cover overtime and new equipment. Maybe you didn’t know about it,” the sheriff said, “because it, you know, secret and all. But we were requesting it, secretly. Don’t print that! It’s a secret!”

The sheriff went on.

“Instead, the mayor has decided to use our money to help the citizens of our unfriendly neighboring town, Desert Bluffs. We will not only see a rise in crime, because we have a mayor who decided to disrupt our stable economy, but we will also face a lack of financial ability to effectively stop this crime.

“I will secretly undermine the mayor’s authority, with the help of the City Council and some lizard people I know, to keep Night Vale ’safe.’

“Hey! Don’t report my finger-quotes around the word ‘safe.’ They’re secret!

“This is my promise to you, as your new sheriff.”

One reporter then asked, “Umm, what happened to the old sheriff?”

The new sheriff responded by painting a canvas entirely blue.

More on this story, but first, an update on the trial of the century.

Judge Siobhan Azdaq has brought in a computer programmer named Melony Pennington to develop the first-ever all-A.I. Jury for the trial of Hiram McDaniels. Attorneys have had a difficult time finding a jury of peers for McDaniels, as he is literally a five-headed dragon and, outside of his family, seems to be the only one of his kind in the area. Not knowing how to find actual dragons to serve on the jury, and not willing to have a five-headed dragon unfairly juried by all humans, judge Azdaq called for science to solve this problem. Because, according to Azdaq, science has solved every other problem.

Both the prosecuting attorney, Troy Walsh, and the court-appointed defense attorney, also named Troy Walsh, agreed that this is a fair solution, “and artificial intelligence is probably a thing anyone with a Macbook and some Red Bull has already mastered, like, years ago,” they said in unison, with identical smiles and matching haircuts.

Pennington has been working with young computer prodigy, Meghan Wallaby, who is an 11-year-old girl who inhabits what once was the body of a Russian sailor, and also was only born three years ago. But then, the specifics of her identity and her manifestation within time are really none of your business.

Wallaby is helping Pennington engineer a sentient program that can think exactly like six different five-headed dragons. Meghan has had a real affinity for computers ever since the…uh, the incident in the school gym that one time.

The other members of the jury will be humans. Auditions for those jury slots will be conducted Wednesday at the Night Vale Community Theater.

Four of Hiram’s five heads are being brought up on charges of conspiracy and attempted murder of our mayor. The fifth head, the violet one, is being courted as a key witness by the prosecution, but they’re having a difficult time getting a private conversation with it.

The trial is scheduled for early next year.

Oh, by the way, listeners, I ran into former station intern Maureen! I actually didn’t notice her at first, as I was listening to an album I just got. It’s a new musical about Alexander Hamilton, who became our nation’s fourth president because he successfully killed former vice president Aaron Burr in a duel.

Anyway, the soundtrack is fantastic, and I was totally engrossed in my lip syncing and self-styled choreography when I saw Maureen waving to me from down the street. I saw she was with someone, but his baseball hat was pulled down over his face, so I didn’t get a good look at him.

Maureen then asked me for a letter stating she’d completed her internship, because she needed those two credits for college. I reminded her she spent most of her internship flickering in and out of existence, so…I couldn’t write the letter. But, I was really excited to see she was dating someone.

Then she said something about not assuming people are dating just because they’re hanging out, blah blah blah, I don’t even like boys, blah blah, but I kept staring at the boy in the ball cap, and I did not like him one bit. I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but I couldn’t put my finger on where.

Oh, well. I’m sure it won’t come up again.

I told Maureen it was a good thing she wasn’t into boys, because this one seemed like bad news.

“Really bad news,” I whispered, and Maureen groaned and rolled her eyes in what I assume was agreement.

Then I said, “Good seeing you!” and walked away.

She shouted, “Come back!” and “Where’s my credit letter?” while waving her fist and cussing, which is (I guess) how kids today say “goodbye.”

Oh, listeners! I need to make an apology. Earlier in today’s show, I mentioned giving some cookies to the agent from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, and in the process I revealed her full name as Monica Barnwell, and the location of her operation as in front of my home. Because of this security breach, Monica has apparently lost her job as a secret agent and had to go into hiding for the rest of her life, changing her looks and identity, and never seeing her family or friends again.

Really sorry about that one, Monica.

Let’s have a look at traffic. What do you say?

Feet apart, toes together. Right foot turned 45 degrees. No need for mathematical precision, but if you have a protractor, break it into pieces and swallow it. Absorb its numbers like nutrients. Bend your knees. Bend other things that allow for bending. Do not force malleability.

That right foot, though? What’s it doing? Did you move your foot?

Memories aren’t real.

Do you control your self? Not if you don’t remember being in control. Maybe we pretend to have experienced things so we don’t have to actually understand why they happened.

Your foot is flexing now. Why? What silent siren’s song calls your right foot?

You are sitting. You are passive, still.

Your left foot idles in the dark, complacent and obedient.

Your right foot serves a greater god. It flexes for its idol, all plastic and steel, and full of fire and fumes. Your right foot wishes for you to pray with a clear mind, and open eyes.

This has been traffic.

And now an update on the new sheriff’s press conference.

The sheriff announced that while they couldn’t do anything about the money the mayor has already wasted on neighboring towns, the Secret Police would certainly make it clear to anyone from Desert Bluffs who might be trying to enter Night Vale that they would not be wanted.

The sheriff announced a plan to tag all Desert Bluffs citizens with bright orange hats that have the word “UNWANTED” written in blinking L.E.D. lights across the front.

As the sheriff said this, several journalists shifted uncomfortably in their seats. This is because their seats were uncomfortable, but they still nodded excitedly about the sheriff’s cool new idea.

One journalist pointed out, though, that the orange hat thing would be an added expense, what with having to print up hats and design the L.E.D.s and all that. “And this whole press conference seems to be about our city’s lack of funding for new projects,” the journalist said.

In the tense silence that followed, the journalist added, “Plus, everyone from Desert Bluffs is pretty easy to identify, what with all the blood on their sh–”

But then the reporter was helpfully tackled and muzzled by the other reporters who did not want to get off on the wrong foot with the new sheriff.

As the great television news man Edward R. Murrow once said, “Hey, don’t rock the boat, okay?”

In the commotion, no one seemed to notice the appearance of several strangers, standing around the perimeter of the conference room. Our new station intern Kareem was there, and claimed the strangers really didn’t appear so much as seemed to have always been there, even though he was positive they were not there at the start.

They were completely still, except for their breathing. They were definitely breathing. And everyone heard it.

No one knew what the strangers wanted, but they were certain it wasn’t good.

The members of the press stepped backward into the middle of the room. They waited. And from the silence came a noise. There came a sudden…

Oh. It’s almost 20 past the hour, listeners. I had better get to the weather report. Here you go.

[“She Knows” by John Fullbright]

Where was I? Ah, a-ha.

They waited. From the silence came a noise. Then there came a sudden…

OK, yeah. Basically, everyone was quiet until a reporter asked the sheriff, “Who are these people? Will the Secret Police protect us?”

The sheriff did not respond. It was quiet, save for the strangers’ breathing for about three minutes.

Then the questions and cries came in increasing volume and pace, “Who are these people? Sheriff, why aren’t the moving? What do they want? Has anyone seen my phone? We’re going to die!” Et cetera.

Eventually the room devolved into panic, members of the press shoving to get out, but in a way that suggested that the exit was through each other.

Then the sheriff raised their hand, and announced into the microphone, “Everything’s fine.”

No one believed the sheriff, and the sheriff, knowing this, rephrased the statement.

“Some things are not fine, but other things are fine! This,” and here, the sheriff indicated the whole room, “is probably fine.”

The panicked reporters were now filled with both fear and doubt. The sheriff stood, stupefied, as a single bead of sweat rolled down their brow, along the nose, forming a thin wet crack across their entire face. No one breathed. Except the strangers, of course, who, by the time the droplet had completed its erratic journey, were somehow several feet closer to the press corps – despite never having visibly moved an inch.

Everyone in the room, including the sheriff, knew that death was upon them. None of them were afraid of death. They were, instead, terrified of what would come immediately before, and immediately after, death.

Listeners, like I said earlier, our own intern Kareem was part of that press corps today. So, to the family of intern Kareem, he’s a good intern. And is doing great work. He got back from the press conference a little bit ago saying he had a great time, and he also provided some excellent reporting.

According to Kareem, the strangers encroached slowly on the remaining journalists, moving without seeming to move. No one could look the strangers in the eye. They did not know what the strangers wanted of them, just that their lives were likely over. Kareem said he heard someone crying, another person frantically chanting, and he was trying to take it all in.

But then he heard a flapping of wings, like a pteranodon or a librarian. And, looking up, he saw a flash of blackness and long feathered creatures descending from a dark sky. And the next thing he knew, he was back at the radio station, safely interning once again.

Kareem called the creatures that saved everyone “angels,” but I reminded him that there is no such thing, and according to the A.P. Style Guide, it is illegal to acknowledge the existence of angels, so this is what…

Oh.

[Cecil clears his throat]

Uh, Kareem is now trying to argue with me about the fluidity of vernacular and the constant evolution of language.

Ugh. Okay.

All right, listeners, I need to deal with this.

Stay tuned next for the real life actualization of that dream you had last Tuesday. You’ll make a cute couple, so congratulations!

And as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: There are hot singles in your area, and they all died exactly 20 years ago, on a night just like tonight.