01/10/2013 17:20:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 32 - Yellow Helicopters

A lonely heart, a wandering eye, an empty stomach, a shoulder to cry on. This is what makes us, us.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Sad news, listeners.

Old Woman Josie says that the Angels who have been living with her – helping around the house and ultimately protecting her from all evils – have disappeared. It’s hard to say just how sad this news is, for two important reasons:

1. Angels are not real, and
2. we are not allowed to know about their existence or hierarchical structure.

Josie called this weekend and spoke to Vithia, our station intern. She said that the Angels often leave her for a few hours, or days, at a time…but they’ve never been gone for three straight weeks. She thinks that they are off fighting an important war for good, but she’s worried that maybe she just made them mad, or bored.

“Angels get bored very easily,” Josie said. Which is strange, because they are eternal, and there is a lot of down-time during immortality.

Vithia told Josie that Angels aren’t real, and that we cannot know such things about them. But this just made Vithia cry, because if you talk about Angels, and you are one who has been secretly chosen by Angels, for special Angelic purposes, you will start crying.

Vithia has been sobbing quite a bit this morning, as a matter of fact. I keep asking her, “Are you OK?”

But she just says, “Angels aren’t real,” and then buries her heaving face into her inner elbow and runs off.

Dear listeners, it appears the Angels, if they are real (and they are not), have left Night Vale. And none of us are allowed to know this, so…forget I said anything.

The Night Vale Medical Board wants to know, are you heart-healthy? How healthy is your heart? Have you ever checked? Doctors recommend checking your heart at least once a year. Simply separate the skin on your upper chest, and break open the ribs. Here’s a tip: If you don’t have a bone saw handy, just sterilize any old electric saw you might have in your work shed.

Right behind your ribs, kind of to the left, is a potato-shaped muscle lump filled with straw and maybe some insects. That’s your heart! Pull that out and sew your chest back up. Wash your heart in warm water, pat dry with a paper towel, and roll flat on a floured surface. Brown both sides in a sauté pan, and eat immediately.

Remember, a healthy heart is a healthy life!

This has been Community Health Tips.

Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve been getting reports that several Yellow Helicopters have been seen hovering above town. We are all aware of the Black Helicopters (which are World Government), and Blue Helicopters (which are Secret Police), and the Helicopters with Detailed Murals of Diving Birds of Prey (which are the helicopters that took all the children in Night Vale away a few months ago [we still don’t know what those helicopters are but…they did bring all the children back unharmed, and much more well-behaved than before, so they are deemed just as safe as the other helicopters])…but these new Yellow Helicopters, no one quite knows.

They tend to hover in packs of three or more, in fixed locations, for several minutes before moving on. The City Council has said that the helicopters are our guests, and they should be treated as such, but added that the helicopters, more specifically, are uninvited guests, and should be treated with fear, hatred, and uncontrolled panic.

If you have any more information on these Yellow Helicopters, keep it to yourself. There’s no question they can hear every move, every sentence, you make. Be quiet and stay inside. They already know.

Let’s go now to sports.

After a second straight loss this weekend, Night Vale High School football coach Nazr al-Mujaheed expressed some concern over senior quarterback Michael Sandero’s poor play.

Last season, the Scorpions won the division title under Sandero’s leadership…and special powers he had acquired from multiple lightning strikes. One such advantage was the second head he had grown, which helped him see rushing linebackers and get better reads on zone coverage.

But in the off-season, Sandero had one of his heads surgically removed, leaving him with only the head that speaks Russian.

Angry fans speculate that because Sandero no longer looks like his original self, and because he no longer speaks English nor Spanish, he does not have the same rapport with his teammates.

When asked whether or not Sandero was losing the respect of his team, Coach al-Mujaheed said, “Our boys play together. Our boys play good games. We want to…”

And here he paused, clearly upset with his star quarterback’s decision to get off-season surgery without consulting team trainers.

“We want to be good football boys,” he concluded.

The coach then reached his fingers into his mouth, pulling his tongue slowly out. Slowly, slowly, not stopping. He kept pulling his seemingly-endless tongue out, staring at the reporters the whole time. After he stretched it to about two feet, the last reporter left the room, clearly shaken.

The coach remained in his office quietly, and with wide eyes, pulling out his enormous tongue.

Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, says that just this morning he was visited by a Man in a Tan Jacket, who carried a deerskin suitcase. Larry said the man approached his farm and asked about how much sunshine he had been getting.

“I told him, John Peters – you know, the farmer? – his imaginary corn crop had been good this summer, and the sun seemed to be doing just fine,” Larry said. “Although some days there’s no sunrise at all, and on other days the sunrise is extremely loud.”

Larry added that this was a pretty strange question – asking about how much sunshine he’d been getting – as the sun comes up every day, save those two or three sunless days last week.

Larry said he was a nice enough fellow, though, named Emmett. Larry said he couldn’t remember exactly what Everett looked like, nor what his last name was.

When asked who Everett was, Larry replied, “The Fellow in the Tan Jacket.”

When told he just said the man’s name was Emmett, Larry replied, “Yes, Ernest. I said that. Don’t bog me down, son!”

Then he slapped the reporter’s tape recorder, making the following loud, thumping noise:

[loud thumping noise]

Larry said that after the man left his home, he saw a dark black line in the sky, coming from the heavens down to near where Old Woman Josie lives, down by the old car lot. He said he thinks it was probably something to do with “those weird, tall friends of hers that fly around and make loud trumpet noises and will not stop smiling all the time.”

When asked if he meant Angels, Larry replied, “Don’t bog me down, son!” and then started weeping.

“Angels aren’t real,” Larry said, through quick breaths and incomprehensible tears.

As part of our service to our town, Night Vale Community Radio is taking another moment to allow one of the candidates for mayor to make a brief statement. The following is from Hiram McDaniels:

Hi, I’m Hiram McDaniels. You’ve heard a lot of things from my opponent about how the night sky is beautiful but sad, and how sagebrush is a very important smell. You’ve also heard that I am literally a five-headed dragon. All of that is completely correct.

But what you haven’t heard is that I’m literally a five-headed dragon…who cares.

This is also my campaign slogan: “I’m literally a five-headed dragon. Who cares!”

And what you haven’t heard is that I care about small business owners. What you haven’t heard is that I care about the future of our children. What you haven’t heard is that I care about the future of our small children business owners. Have you ever heard the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home say that? No, you haven’t. Really, you shouldn’t be able to hear her say anything at all. She doesn’t have a mouth. I have five mouths.

What you haven’t heard is–

Do you hear the beating of my terrible wings? Do you feel the flames lick at the corners of a life you once thought belonged to you?

Sorry about that, my green head got excited. We all have human foibles. I don’t, I’m literally a five-headed dragon.

What you haven’t heard is my new plan for an expanded parks system, and more youth sports programs.

AND YOU WILL NEVER HEAR IT! IT’S A SECRET! AND BURIED IN A SECRET PLACE!

That’s a good point, purple head!

So vote for me, Hiram McDaniels. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home is all about politics as usual. Also, she doesn’t have a mouth, and that’s…weird.

A stillness touches the most frantic heart as we all look up in awe and terror! A sudden shout of fire, and all is forgiven. A gentle touch of flame, and all is as if it never was.

Hiram McDaniels. Whatever you haven’t heard, can’t hurt you.

Listeners, we’ve received word from Old Woman Josie that half a dozen Yellow Helicopters are circling her home at this moment. She also said that she’s receiving no sunlight. She says all of her clocks tell her it’s the middle of the day, but that she is receiving no sunlight.

And, yes, I’m looking at our own station clocks, including the wristwatch Carlos gave me for our one-month anniversary, the watch he said is the one true timepiece in all of Night Vale, and it is indeed the middle of the day. I have only been on the air a few minutes, and before I arrived in this studio, the sun was definitely out – no clouds in the sky,

Josie also told us that she used her old opera glasses to look more closely at the helicopters.

Just an aside for our younger listeners, Josie was the Chairwoman of the Night Vale Opera for many years, until it folded in the early 1990s when a massive puppy infestation destroyed the theater’s infrastructure.

Josie said each helicopter has a large triangular logo with an orange “S” in the middle. She doesn’t know what that means, but she thinks the darkness enveloping her home is the Angels’ last act to try to protect her. Wherever they have gone, they have left behind a protective shade, keeping out the helicopters and all other dark forces.

I reminded her that Angels aren’t real, and she said – as if I hadn’t even interrupted – that if she falls, so does this town.

There was a long pause, and then she said, “We never go bowling anymore, Cecil, why is that?”

“I don’t know,” I reflected. “There has been a tiny underground army living under the bowling alley, and they’ve declared war on all of us…they injured my new boyfriend – also, I have a new boyfriend. Listen, we should totally get the team back together and go to League Night again, just like old times.”

“I would like that, Cecil,” she said.

But then her voice slowed, turning cold, as if we were strangers with wrong numbers. "I’m afraid the sunlight has come back.“

And the phone went silent.

Listeners, I do not know what is happening, or to whom these helicopters belong, but I do know that we must protect our town, Night Vale. Protect it from all outsiders, whether they are flying machines, or tiny war-mongering civilizations, or simply neighbors who don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance loudly enough.

I hope Josie is safe. I hope you are safe. I hope we all live to see tomorrow’s sunrise…or whatever day the next sunrise is.

But for now, I give you the weather.

[”Palabras de papel“ by Nelson Poblete]

Listeners, I just received word from Vithia, who went downtown to the City Records Office. She said she found several Emmetts, Everetts, and Ernests, but there was one particular file that stuck out to her, and she copied that file, and put that copy in her backpack, and then walked out into the street, ready to begin her investigation into the identity of the Man in the Tan Jacket.

But, according to witnesses, Vithia found herself caught up in what looked like a strong wind. She lifted slightly off the ground. Witnesses all agreed that she began to elongate. She began to glow a deep black – a dark, pulsing aura.

And amidst the sounds of bold trumpets, and melancholy cellos, and even the haunting call of a muted French horn, Vithia ascended to Heaven.

To the family of Vithia, let me say that she was a very good intern, and while Angels are not real, we are certain she is in a better place – whatever that place might be. She has become a better thing – whatever that thing might be. Know that your daughter did not die in vain, and perhaps, given the tenuous reality of existence, she may not have died at all – for it’s debatable whether any of us ever truly live.

The witnesses all agreed that Vithia was no longer real, and that we were no longer allowed to know anything about her.

"It was a lovely sight,” said one witness.

“I cannot even describe the beauty of her ascension,” said another.

“You kind of did, though,” said another witness, who was wearing a fedora. “By saying you cannot describe something, that is a sort of apotheosis, a paralipsis, if you will, which gives the object an implied description through non-description,” he continued. “Plus, the word ‘indescribable’ carries with it a universal connotation and is, itself, a description. Here, let me explain…”

But the other witnesses moved a little ways up the sidewalk, so they could no longer hear the man. They said nothing to one another. They just stood in a circle, sharing the knowledge that they had seen something they should never have seen. They looked one another in the eyes, they breathed in unison, they smiled politely, intimately, knowingly, until one of them – in fact, each of them, as individuals, decided that the moment had passed, and they parted ways. They will likely never see the others again, and if they do, they will be but unacquainted pedestrians.

But, before they left, the witnesses said that some low-flying Yellow Helicopters began dropping orange leaflets onto the city streets. The leaflets read:

StrexCorp Synernists, Inc.
Look around you: Strex
Look inside you: Strex
Go to sleep: Strex
Believe in a Smiling God: StrexCorp
It is EVERYTHING.

Oh…oh no. Uhh, dear listeners, we must issue an apology. Those helicopters are completely…safe. Even safer than safe. In fact, StrexCorp recently bought our little radio station from the mysterious, unseen forces who founded it centuries ago. Uhh, I’m glad to know that Josie will be OK, and that StrexCorp has come to Night Vale.

Rest easy, listeners, knowing that this was all just a simple misunderstanding. But now we fully understand everything that is happening, and we are not misunderstanding anything else at all. We are completely…safe.

Stay tuned next for the sound of slow, steady dripping, and occasional screams.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never quite describe the pain.