01/08/2014 10:41:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 51 - Rumbling

Cecil: Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s a cloud! It’s a moon! Also, some stars! There are so many things in the sky!

Welcome to Night Vale.

New Night Vale mayor, and former intern at this very station, Dana Cardinal announced today that she wants to open the Dog Park for public use. Said Dana – or, I guess I should start saying Mayor Cardinal – “Dog parks should be used for dogs and owners to exercise and play. A dog park should be a fun gathering place for citizens to meet and socialize. Not a secretive patch of municipal darkness full of conspiracy warning signs.”

Only moments into her announcement, the City Council entered the Press Room, walking in synchronous steps, hips together, teeth apart, blocking the view of reporters and photographers, and unplugging the mayor’s microphone. The Council shuffled away to the Council Chambers, taking the mayor with them.

Twenty minutes later Mayor Cardinal reemerged, wearing several large ivory rings and a long cerulean cape. She announced that dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park. People are not allowed in the Dog Park. You may see hooded figures in the Dog Park – but not for long, as there are now plans to reinforce the fence around the Dog Park.

Oh, listeners! Guess who we’ve got on the phone line now? I’ll give you a hint: he saved Night Vale a few weeks ago by shutting out a great terror trying to invade us from another world.

Carlos: It wasn’t just me!

Cecil: Also, he’s my boyfriend. And a scientist. And I miss him.

Carlos: I miss you, too.

Cecil: That’s right! My boyfriend is a hero. Please welcome to our show, Carlos the Scientist.

Carlos: [chuckles] You’re too much!

Cecil: Listeners, Carlos had to stay behind in whatever strange desert Other World, which was very brave of him, even though he’s now very far away from people that love him. Any luck getting back through to Night Vale?

Carlos: Not yet. Oh! But, I’ve been exploring this strange rumbling noise here. It’s the same rumbling noise we heard when that terrible light was coming into Night Vale.

Cecil: Are you safe? Is everything OK?

Carlos: Actually, there it is again. When we shut the doors the rumbling and the unbearably bright light went away. This empty desert, with the mountain and the lighthouse and the large wandering army, all seemed so normal, you know? But last night the rumbling returned.

There it is again. I need to grab my instruments.

Cecil: I…I can’t hear it!

Carlos: I’ll call you back.

Cecil: No! No! Carlos, I…Ugh. Every time. I never know when you’ll call back.

Well, speaking of the town being safe, our neighboring town, Desert Bluffs, ran a full-page ad in the Sunday Extra-Large Imagination Edition of the Night Vale Daily Journal this week that said, I imagined, “Thank you for having us, Night Vale. Best of luck in your future‽”

I can’t tell if that’s an exclamation point or a question mark there. What a weird font! It’s like someone put paint, or some other thick liquid on the tip of a sharp finger and then hand wrote this ad. It’s just like that.

Then, at the bottom, it has a photo of your face, dear listener! And the same finger-painted lettering that reads, “Blessings from a Smiling God.”

Wow! Where did they get that photo of you? Although, honestly, it’s not a bad photo…I mean, you look just adorable when you’re sleeping!

I know this farewell ad may seem like a kind gesture, but…good riddance to those monsters! No one is happier than me to see us run Desert Bluffs out of town.

Meanwhile, there has been a lot of construction noise, like horns, see-saws, parrot shrieking, et cetera, from the old StrexCorp headquarters at the lip of Radon Canyon. Several tall beings with wings, who all introduce themselves as Erika, were seen hanging around outside while a Sheriff’s Secret Police representative ran frantically between onlookers, putting her hand over each person’s eyes and shouting, “You’re not seeing anything real!”

Well I, for one, am excited to learn what these…of course, completely non-existent angels plan to do with the huge malevolent corporation they purchased.

Oh! Also, I stopped by the office of station management. Seems like our community radio station was purchased back from StrexCorp by our original owners, whom I have never met – or seen – and who, until recently, had run this radio station for centuries. It’s nice to have all these familiar faces back! Or…not faces, more like muffled screams and chattering echoes and pulsing orange lights surrounding dark stone doors that are never in the same place you remember them being.

Just a quick stroll past the new old boss’ office brought me back to the good old days, as I crumbled to the floor, struck numb and blind with flashes of hideous daydreams, a history’s worth of deaths that were not my own. How great to be back to the way we were!

Ahh, the good old days! The fearful, terrible, deadly, good old days!

Oh, my phone’s buzzing! Carlos? Hello? Carlos, are you back on the line?

Carlos: Yes. So…there’s a lighthouse here in the desert. It’s on top of a tall mountain, and there’s a blinking red light on the top of this lighthouse, and this blinking red light always blinks, OK? That’s what it does. But now that the rumbling has returned…can– can you hear the rumbling from your end, Cecil?

Cecil: No.

Carlos: It’s very loud! But when the rumbling happens, the blinking red light stops blinking. It just stays on.

Cecil: What do you think that means?

Carlos: I don’t know! I’ve talked with some of the army of men and women and others who roam about this desert, and they look frightened. They have never seen the blinking light stop blinking! It is what a blinking light is supposed to do, and fear is what happens when a thing that has always behaved one way does not behave that way at all. They run and hide now when they hear the rumbling and see the static red light up on the mountain. I, too, am starting to feel scared.

Cecil: Carlos? Remember how you got into that desert in the first place. You went through a door in a house that did not seem to exist. Have you found any of those doors yet?

Carlos: Not yet, no.

Cecil: Carlos? Look for those doors. There must be at least one left somewhere!

Carlos: I’ll start looking very soon, OK? But listen, Cecil? I’d really like to figure out this rumbling/red light thing. I’m a scientist. I need to discover/understand things. It’s what I do!

Cecil: But…couldn’t you look for the door while you figure it out?

Carlos: I’ll look for the door some tomorrow. For sure I will.

Cecil: Well, that’s not what I was going to…

Carlos: The rumbling’s gone! Did you hear that?

Carlos: I’ve got to run. I need to find Doug.

Cecil: Who’s Doug? Wait, Carlos, who’s Doug? Carlos?

OK.

Well, I guess let’s just have a look at today’s horoscopes.

Leo: Need a penny, take a penny. Have a penny? Take another penny! Pennies are worthless, but go ahead and take them all. Build a great fortune only to have its great copper weight crush your lifeless pauper body.

Virgo: Don’t shoot the messenger, Virgo! It’s noisy, and will alert others of your crime. Lure the messenger inside. Make sure no one saw him come in. Choose something quieter than a gun. Perhaps suffocation, or an accidental fall. Really plan these things out. Stop being so trigger happy, Virgo!

Libra: Do you believe in ghosts? You don’t? Well, won’t you be surprised when you wake up in the middle of the night tonight! Scream loud enough so the neighbors can hear you.

Scorpio: You are respected by your peers. You are a great thinker and leader. You…wait, what is this? This is definitely not the right reading for a Scorpio, it must be a typo. I bet the stars meant to say: You should hear what they’re saying about you. Very funny things, Scorpio! They’re saying very funny things at your expense, you jerk! Yep, that’s definitely what the stars meant to say.

Sagittarius: The best revenge is living well. The second-best is tasteless slow-acting poison. Maybe it’s more of a tie. Either way, you got wronged, and you need to set things right, Sagittarius!

Capricorn: ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, which is better than to have never loved at all, but also somehow lost a love, thus creating a paradox. Paradoxes are bad, Capricorn. Be careful, or logic will destroy you.

Aquarius: Your boyfriend is trapped in an alternate desert dimension. It is difficult to say when he will return. Perhaps take up drinking while crying in a quiet room.

Wow! That’s a very specific and…painful horoscope. Thanks for nothing, stars!

Pisces: A train leaves a station traveling west at 40 miles per hour. Another train leaves a station traveling east at 60 miles per hour. These two trains left on different days, in different years, in different countries. How long until the passengers acknowledge their own impermanence?

Aries: I think they saw you, Aries. Hold still. They cannot see you if you do not move. Shhhhhh! Don’t move! Don’t move! Don't– Nope, they saw you. So long, Aries!

Taurus: Someone misses you a lot, Taurus. And even though you have nothing but endless time trapped out in a nightmarish desert hellscape, you have a hard time making a phone call longer than ten minutes. Maybe call a bit more than you do, Taurus!

Yep, that’s just some astrological advice from the stars.

Gemini: You know those eight spiders a year you eat in your sleep? Well, they add up. They are all organizing a pretty dramatic escape. Very soon, Gemini! Very soon!

Cancer: “The ocean is vast,” you convince yourself, walking alone between the trees. “The sky is endless,” you mutter repeatedly, trying to finally lull yourself to sleep. “Matter can neither be created nor destroyed,” you contemplate, despite not understanding the first part of the statement. “What’s on the Food Network tonight?” you say aloud to a stranger you have known for years.

This has been today’s horoscopes.

Ah! He’s calling in again! Carlos?

Carlos: Cecil, the rumbling has started again. The mountain is moving up and down, like…breathing. There are creaks and groans in the earth, in the stones, that together sound like a growl, an undulating snarl of something much bigger than anything that should ever be able to snarl.

Cecil, this is a strange place, and considering where I’ve lived for the past couple years, that says a lot. I know Dana used to be trapped here and she has told you about it. I mean, I used to wonder how she could call and text you from this place for an entire year with no cell towers or power outlets, but I’ve been here for weeks and I have three bars (only 4G, but still), and 97% battery, which was the charge I had when I came through the door in the House that Doesn’t Exist.

In a temporary peace between the rumblings, I walked with some of the desert army toward a small patch of discolored sand. We found a swath of damp dirt, just a handful of red mud, and in that mud were several tiny white bones. Looked like long legs and short wings of a creature I can’t even imagine! I look forward to figuring out exactly what this is. I’ll be able to imagine it then!

Cecil: Carlos, I don’t think it’s safe there! Listen, I want you to find a way to–

Carlos: Cecil? Nothing and nowhere is safe. But there are things greater than us. Greater than all of this (so, you can’t see it, but I just made a big sweeping hand gesture to indicate everything in the universe), and there are people who must learn about it all. How it all works, and why. This is what we call science!

Cecil: Yes, I know what science is.

Carlos: And I am a scientist.

Cecil: OK, I understand. Ugh. It’s just…it’s just that I miss you, and–

[rumbling sound in the background]

Cecil: Oh! Oh my! The building is shaking!

Carlos: You can feel it? You can feel the rumbling? Ooh, this is exciting! Wait, this is new! The ground is moving very quickly. There is a large lump churning the sound up and down, I’m leaning out over this ledge to get a better view of this fantastic event, and….ow!

Cecil: Carlos! What happened?

Carlos: I got hit. What is that? Is that a rock? Oww!

Cecil: Carlos!

Carlos: Cecil, the rocks are coming down. They’re coming down the side of this hill. I need to take cover, I need to find a–

Cecil: Carlos. Carlos?

Listeners, while the earth still shakes, take shelter. This does not feel like one of our government-scheduled earthquakes, but if I were you I would still do as the earthquake safety mascot, Duncan the Brown Recluse Spider, always says: “I’m small, and I hide a lot, so it’s easy to be safe.”

And with that, I take you now to the weather.

[“Echo in the Hills” by Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt]

Cecil: Carlos, are you there? Carlos?

Carlos: I’m here.

Cecil: Are you OK?

Carlos: I’m fine. A scientist is always fine. Doug was really helpful!

Cecil: Who is Doug?

Carlos: He’s one of the members of this great masked army. He must be a captain of some sort, given his size and the respect he appears to garner. As the rocks and boulders came down, Doug picked up a large, flat stone and held it above us. The rocks bounced off his makeshift shield.

Unfortunately, I dropped my phone. I smashed the phone something good. I thought I lost you for a while there, Cecil. I was despairing that my one way to reach you would be lost for who knows how long. But then, you know what? Something really amazing happened! Something tremendous! The phone healed itself!

Cecil: Oh! That’s…that’s great!

Carlos: It is great! But phones don’t just heal themselves. This is another scientific mystery I can’t wait to get to the bottom of.

Cecil: Where is Doug now?

Carlos: Oh, I don’t know. He’s probably back at the encampment. They’re a nomadic army. Sometimes they are here, sometimes not. I don’t really have time to make new friends. They’re nice people, but there is a lot of work for me to do here. And…the only person I truly care about isn’t in this desert anyway.

I do not know what the rumbling is. I do not know why some doors work and others do not. I do not know why my phone never loses battery power and can heal itself. I do not know how long it will take me to pursue this knowledge.

But I do know two things.

Cecil: What is that?

Carlos: I love you.

Cecil: I love you, too. What’s the other thing?

Carlos: You just said it.

Cecil? I have to go. Be patient with me. We have our phones. We have our voices, and you have the best voice of them all.

Cecil: Thanks for being on the air with me. We did almost the entire show together!

Carlos: We can still do things together, even in absence. I’ll be back again soon.

Cecil: Find that door, Carlos!

Carlos: I will. But first I need to see if the red light is blinking again or not.

Cecil: OK. Bye, Carlos.

Listeners, I wish I could tell you where the rumbling came from, and that we are safe from it. The Sheriff’s Secret Seismology Team announced that today’s rumbling, which caused quite a bit of structural damage and knocked out power for one third of the town, did not register at all on the Richter scale, which is a thing seismologists use to assign two-dimensional numbers to complex multidimensional physical events.

But the upshot is we are all alive for however many two-dimensional numbers we have left.

Stay tuned next for the sound of future becoming the present – becoming the past – in no time at all.

And as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Everything that happens, happens for a reason. Except ostriches. What the hell, man?