28/08/2013 14:12:00 ¶ ●

## Episode 19B - The Sandstorm (Desert Bluffs)

> The future is what you make of it! Just know that your supplies are limited.

> Welcome to Desert Bluffs.

> Good afternoon, Desert Bluffs! This is Kevin, bringing you all your news and good spirits for another gorgeous day in the Bluffs.

> But before we get too comfortable, there is some news about that gorgeous day. We’re getting word that a sandstorm is moving in toward us. Authorities are telling us that it is a doozy, and that we should all stay indoors.

> Nothing to worry about, just stay out of the way. It will pass. As with life, and as will all things, it will pass. The sun will be upon us again, and it will be like two mornings in a day. Yes! A two-morning day! A rebirth. A reawakening. What do you think of that, Desert Bluffs?

> Intern Vanessa did point out that sandstorms can do a lot of damage to cars, and if you have access to a garage, you should bring your car in.

> Also get those pets inside, Desert Bluffs! We don’t want all those cute little puppies and spiders and baby raccoons getting lost out in the sandy breeze. Bring those loved ones inside.

> A little factoid for you: Ted, our staff weatherman, says that no one really knows what causes sandstorms. God, he thinks. Or maybe they’re just big gusts of wind that carry big things of sand.

> How much sand do you think there is in the world? There’s got to be a lot. A lot of sand. Who even counts it all? Wow! Big questions today, Desert Bluffs. Big questions.

> So keep your radios tuned in here, as we’ll bring you all the latest reports from today’s sandstorm and how you can make up for all this lost time. Hiding from nature is taking away a lot of business productivity, Desert Bluffs, but I’m sure you’ll find time to get done what needs to get done. You won’t disappoint your town – your home. I believe in you. So mark down the time you spend cowering from the weather, okay? And we’ll work that time back into your schedule. Great!

> And listen! Get all that time in before the weekend, because this Saturday, it’s baseball season again! Desert Bluffs has just a great team this year. New manager Samantha Figgins is not only the first manager to get hired straight out of business school, but she also brings a powerful ethos of teamwork, fun, and responsibility.

> Last year’s Sunbeams team had some excellent games, but they spent a lot of time just sitting on the bench with nothing to do, because only one person gets to bat at a time. This season, Figgins plans to keep her boys active with customer orders and accounts receivable spreadsheets.

> Baseball is not an individual sport. They’re all in it together. As Figgins says, “It’s not about winning and losing or who you’re playing. It’s about building the strongest possible team brand.”

> The Sunbeams also welcome a new owner in 2013:

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

> Let’s have a peek at traffic!

> The highway department says all roads are running smoothly. Smooth roads. Smooth concrete. Smooth tires. The slow undulating buzz of cars over slight hills. Hardtop streets gently gliding us all to our jobs and back home. The beat beat beat of society’s healthy heart as we all play parts in its exquisite body.

> Oh! I’m getting one report that there are several stalled cars in the northbound lanes of Route 800, near Exit 66. Police are on the scene dealing with fistfights in the middle of the road!

> Now, I can’t imagine why, in a beautiful town with so many kinds of yogurt stores and pony-petting stations, anyone would want to fight his neighbor. So hopefully that gets cleared up soon with a song and a hug.

> I wanna thank all you listeners for your calls and emails. The sandstorm came to town more quickly than expected. Lawrence Lavine, out in the edge of town development, called in to say that the sand was like sand, but slightly different, that if you touched it, you could feel it…twice. Lawrence said took a scoop of sand into his soft right hand and it was if he had two right hands. He then held the sand with both soft palms and felt four hands, like one of those foreign gods, or radioactive four-armed deer that seem to be attracted to the new StrexCorp distribution center.

> Lawrence said he was making a sand angel, and then he saw himself. He said he just walked right up to himself and started making two sand angels. He said that there were two of him, just making sand angels, and that he would happily double his sand angel production today. He hung up the phone laughing like Vanessa had never heard him laugh.

> Well, thank you, Lawrence. That was a useful report. Intern Vanessa also tells me she’s keeping an eye on Facebook to see if our other neighbors have news of the storm. I see Grandma Josephine posted a photo of a lovely bouquet of white lilies outside her door. Very pretty! Oh, and look at this video, Vanessa! This cat just jumps in and out of boxes! That is adorable! Vanessa, can you tweet that to me?

> Let’s have a look at financial news.

> The markets are jumping today, really jumping. The markets are up and down, but then back up again, like gravity and our fight to break it. The violent force of impact, ground to heel, heel to shin, shin to knee, and then back up again. Muscular might and the threat of flight.

> A young boy heals his wounds as quickly as they form, jumping and pounding and hitting and soaring. He reaches skyward. The drift of the body disconnected from its earth gives the flutter of wings, not just on the back, but in the belly.

> The moment between knowing you’re mortal and bound to the ground, and then dreaming you have awakened a great power to fly, like those hollowed-out rodents that clog our skies with feathers and fluids – it’s in that moment of knowing and unknowing, consciousness and bliss, that the boy sees all that can never be.

> Upon his return to the flat hard truth, he sees things. Himself. Others, as they should be seen. As his equals.

> He gives the jumping one more go, but the magic is gone. Another. Still none. One more, for old time’s sake. No. It will never be the same. Well, maybe. One more. Still another. He jumps and jumps and jumps! The jumping makes a sound, like thunder, like drums, like steps.

> Soon he is old. The ups and the downs lack even the memory of the magic. They have replaced nostalgia with creaking, painful bones. He is old now.

> Still jumping.

> This has been financial news.

> This just in, Desert Bluffs: Mayor Pablo Mitchell has declared today Sandstorm Day. This massive sandstorm has already damaged several apartments and malls in the northwest part of town, and it seems to be on course for even more costly wreckage, so Mayor Mitchell announced that we can all take today off of work. Today is a citywide holiday!

> A second announcement, coming from a man that looked and dressed like the mayor, said that we can make up some of our lost hours by teaming up with our doubles! The two joined together for an inspirational call to work together with these magical doppelgangers.

> Is this true, Desert Bluffs? If so, what a blessed and wonderful event, to bring us doubles of ourselves! I am stuck inside – doing a job I very much love, of course – but if I were you, I would run outside into the sandy afternoon air and try to meet your other. How exciting!

> So make friends with your mirrored colleague, Desert Bluffs! Think of what we could accomplish if there were two of all of us!

> Oh dear. What was that noise? Vanessa? Is everything okay in there, Vanessa? Who are you talking to? Vanessa! Oh! There are two of you! What are you– …oh, you’re building a new shelving unit. Lemme help you with that! I’m coming in there.

> Let’s go to an important message from our parent company.

> Got something to say? Need to say it? Unfulfilled? Never made sense of what you are, who you were, who you will be?

> Unfulfilled?

> Do you forget sometimes about your own skin, your own hair, or other people’s hair and skin? Can you make more hair, more skin? Do you need more hair and/or skin?

> Unfulfilled?

> Are you satisfied with it all? Do you see it all? What room are you in? What room do you want to be in? How big is your room?

> Unfulfilled?

> Have you ever said a thing inside your brain, and then sent it to your hand to move a pencil to write it into symbols onto a paper, which used to be a tree, and then used your eyes to translate those symbols back into the thing you just said inches away in your brain, and then re-said it with your mouth into an ear? Whose ear was it?

> Unfulfilled?

> Ever eaten things that made you think differently? Breathed things?

> Unfulfilled?

> Feel things? Felt things?

> We are you. StrexCorp.

> Welcome back! Listeners, I have some bad news and some good news. Vanessa and her other Vanessa broke one of the parts of the new shelving unit and I don’t think we have anything to replace it. One of the Vanessas cut her head pretty badly. When I went in, Vanessa – I think our original Vanessa – was standing over her with a staple gun and a clean wet rag.

> She also handed me a printout of an email from one of our listeners. Well, I presume he’s a listener. I’ve never heard of him. He claims to live in Night Vale. I had no idea those folks down in Night Vale could get our tiny little radio station, Vanessa. How wonderful!

> You know, in all my years, I have never gone to Night Vale! I bet it’s beautiful. Really, this whole desert is beautiful. I mean, when it comes right down to it, why would you ever leave Desert Bluffs? How can it get better, really? I wouldn’t risk it.

> So Steve writes, “This sandstorm is clearly a cover-up. I believe this was a government-created project. Our government has long been participating in cloud-seeding experiments, and–”

> Let me stop you right there, Steve Carlsberg!

> You have hit the nail on the head. Say no more! The government is indeed covering up their involvement –or should I say, lack of involvement in this sandstorm.

> Honestly, I don’t think the government even knows how to orchestrate a project of this magnitude, and of this quality. You need a well-run private business like, say, StrexCorp, that has not only the faculties and materials to execute a massive geologic and psychedelic storm, but to do so inexpensively, and without tax dollars.

> Why, without StrexCorp, and companies like it, we wouldn’t have trade schools, or regulated behaviors, or insurance, or helpful pandemics, or black helicopters!

> Thank you for your email, Steve. What a great guy!

> And with that, listeners, let’s go to– …oh my. Look at that.

> Listeners, there’s a white, almost pink, vortex that has formed along my studio wall.

> Listeners, words fail me. It is so beautiful!

> I can’t leave you, as our show is not yet over, but…there must be something beyond this something, Desert Bluffs. I must see what it is! I must go! I will try not to be long, listeners. I will try not to be long…

Hello? Hello? Night Vale? What is this studio? What is this damnable studio?

Night Vale? I do not know if you can hear me. This is Cecil, and I do not know where I am. It is clearly a radio studio, but the walls are covered in blood, and instead of dials and buttons on the soundboard, there is just animal viscera, glistening under the green LED lights. I hope this microphone works. Am I in hell?

Dana? Dana, can you hear me?

Listeners, if you can hear the sound of my voice, please contact the Sheriff’s Secret Police. There is so much blood, it is seeping into my shoes! There are – oh, masters of us all, no! – teeth scattered across the floor. The window into the control booth is shattered and there is a swath of skin and a fistful of long clumping hair hanging from a sharp glass point! I do not know if this is even Night Vale.

I know that I can hear the sandstorm raging outside. There is a low buzz and deep hum that might be my own heart ready to tear itself from my chest in horror or grief – I cannot know which.

There is a photo, a single photo of a man on the desk here. He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short, not thin or fat. His hair and nose are like mine, but his eyes…his eyes are black as obsidian and his smile–

No. It is not a smile!

He must be wicked, this man!

Dear Night Vale, please pray in your bloodstone circle for me and pray, too, that no one should ever have to meet this vicious wretch of a man.

I want to be home, Night Vale! Oh, Cecil, you fool! The vortex…the vortex is still there. But here, it is white.

Okay. Dear listeners, from this vile, vile place, I leave you to your prison, but before I go, because I am a radio professional and it is sitting right here on this blood-spattered desk, I give you the weather.

[“Eliezer’s Waltz” performed by Disparition]

> Hello there, Desert Bluffs! It is Kevin again. I told you I would be back.

> I don’t know where I went, but I think that I met my double.

> The vortex is gone now, but as I was returning, I passed a man. A man who looked just like me. I smiled and said, “Hello there, friend!” I hugged this man, and he hugged me back. We shared a moment in this other world.

> I am not sure to where that spiral of space and time took me, nor through where I traveled, but I am certain that there must be more to us than just us, and that there is another place, another time, where things could have been different. Better. Worse. But let’s not think on woulds, coulds, and shoulds.

> I am just happy I am alive.

> I am happy my other is alive.

> You are alive.

> We…we are alive.

> Outside, the winds are subsiding. Our doubles have left us as the sand has left us. The sun is rising again just as it is setting. Our second sunrise collides with the sunset. Let’s reflect on this.

> Let us reflect on our lives, and where we will be tomorrow. We lost our other selves, Desert Bluffs, but we gained new perspective. Tomorrow, we’ll wake again, work again, live again.

> We are home, all of us, together. My mouth, your ears. We have each other.

> And as always, until next time, Desert Bluffs. Until next time.

Today’s proverb: Step 1: Separate your lips. Step 2: Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth. Step 3: Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.