01/10/2018 22:11:32 ¶ ●

## 135 - The Mudstone Abyss, part 1

Kevin: The phrase “beautiful smile” is redundant.

Welcome to Desert Bluffs.

Hello, Desert Bluffs, it’s Kevin! I know, I love your smiling face too. It’s an other sunny day in our second incarnation of Desert Bluffs, here in our vast Otheworld. We’re all pleased to be under a benevolent sun who never leaves us, even at night. Just always in a fixed point in the sky like a father, dedicated to watching every move his children make, burning hotter at every mistake. And gently warming us with each moment of pure thought.

It seems like only months since I arrived here with the dream of re-establishing my true home. This is a metaphorical dream, not literally the shared dream we all have each and every night, where we’re standing in a reaped corn field as birds zig and zag across a blood red sky, recklessly turning and swirling in panicked fits until crunching into the rocky soil below, their wings bent and bodies broken. Every one of us in town has that dream every single night. What a true joy that we all share that unconscious narrative together.

But I’m speaking here of my figurative dream. The dream to rebuild Desert Bluffs, and oh, how beautiful it is to see that dream fulfilled! We have built homes, restaurants, a City Hall, public bike shares, public knife shares, an amusement park, and even a church! My church. The Desert Bluffs Temple of Joy. As you know, I have written many texts on the Smiling God through the years, detailing my visions and the many holy messages of our destroyer. One day, we shall all be devoured, eradicated by the beast. Swallowed and digested, our sinew peeled from bones like a barbecued rib. Our skin bubbling away from the creature’s digestive fluids, and our selves – completely purified. [cheerfully] Also, please know that we added Wednesday night children’s services starting this week. So bring those kiddos and let them know the good news!

Everything in our new Desert Bluffs is perfect. And by starting my show with that statement, I’m certain I have solidified this perfection in perpetuity.

Let’s have a look now at the Community Calendar. This Thursday night the Desert Bluffs Limestone Appreciation Society will get together in back of the Jewel Osco, to look at a piece of limestone that Gerardo Diaz found under his own tongue! Gerardo will show any member of the society and their guests the limestone nugget, but he will not remove it from his mouth. So if you wanna see it, you need to request a viewing by pinning Gerardo’s arms behind his back and then prying open his jaw.

Friday is of course the Smile Parade, as we do every Friday in Desert Bluffs. We will shut down all businesses and schools and come together on Pleasant Street, right in front of City Hall, that beautiful mound of mud we built last spring. And we will all stare deep into each other’s eye sockets and smile. Smile so hard we weep, as loud dance music plays and we all stand still. Tears streaming down our cheeks and onto our teeth. See you there!

And Sunday afternoon, the Desert Bluffs Community Players will be putting on Arthur Miller’s classic play “Death of a Salesman”, an immersive bit of theater where the audience gathers at the bedside of a gravely ill person who worked in sales. The crowd stands and watches the person until they die. I love this play! I was in it in high school. I played Happy.

I told you earlier how much it’s meant to me to have the town of Desert Bluffs back in my life. But really, it’s the people more than the buildings who make it so wonderful. Like Grandma Josephine O’Toole, who used to live in the far edge of old Desert Bluffs. Josephine had a lot of demons. They lived with her and helped out around the house by eating light bulbs and giving strangers ten dollar bills. When Night Vale annexed our city, Josephine and her demons came to live here in the Otherworld, and they’re just as happy as ever. There’s also Savannah Hernandez who used to live in Red Mesa. She heard about our fledgling city from a low-flying helicopter and thought it sounded like a great place to hide from US tax collectors. So last year, she moved to Desert Bluffs! And now she’s married to Jesse Pritchard and they’ve had four kids! Agnes, age 2. Armand, age 4, and twins Yolanda and Leon, ages 14 and 17 respectively.

Some people even came to Desert Bluffs as refugees of the Blood Space War. Like Olin Hayworth, Chantal James and Krotshk, a small but dense neutron orb from the Horsehead Nebula. I even know of one person, Ryan Nichols, who didn’t know Desert Bluffs existed or how he got here. He told me he used to live in a place called Ala-bam.. Ala-bah, All.. Allahbamaa? Allahbama. He was in his fraternity house at school, and when he walked out the front door, thinking he was going to go join his friends at a party, he walked straight into this desert and the door behind him was gone! [solemnly] Ryan’s first few months here were tough. He missed his friends and family. But everyone here in Desert Bluffs convinced him that we were all his friends and family now. “Just look at our smiles!” we shouted, as we surrounded him. That’s the kind of warmth and kindness only a true small town can give.

And of course there is that new man. He came into town today. Who is he? What does he want from us? Why his perfect and beautiful smile? Why his perfect and beautiful teeth? Teeth like a Steinway. He says he’s a theologists. Well, we have all been theologists at one point or another in our lives, but why now? Why here? And just what does he plan to do with all those religious text books in that house he’s renting, over by Little Rick’s salad stand? Anyone could make a salad at Little Rick’s. Anyone.

Well, as far as this new citizen, my rhetorical questions are simple wants to answer. His name – is Charles! He’s originally from Cactus Park and spent the last few years living in Pine Cliff, doing a study on why everyone who lives there is a ghost. Charles said he simply wanted to live in Desert Bluffs. He said this Desert Otherworld is the most theologically interesting place in the US, after Pine Cliff. A town where everyone is a ghost is pretty hard to beat interest wise, he said.

Charles is 41 years old and wants to settle down, become a teacher, and raise a family. Charles is a welcome addition to Desert Bluffs. He’s someone I’d really love to keep my eyes on. So to speak.

Right now at City Hall, Mayor Lauren Mallard is now announcing her plans to build a public library in Desert Bluffs. She’s talking about the joy of learning and the comfort of books! People seem quite happy about our new mayor and her ideas to improve this town. A large gathering of smiling people have amassed in downtown to hear about Mayor Mallard’s budget for this new project.

Libraries certainly are helpful municipal resources. They have miles of shelves filled with novels, periodicals and reference books, which have been carefully curated to make readers happy. There is no bad news in a library. I think this is a good idea that Lauren has here but – I’d love to see a great idea. Hang on, let me text her. [talks while texting] “What about a monument, a tower” – no. “A chasm, a deep sculpted pit showing our dedication to the Smiling God. Announce that instead. Love, Kevin.” OK, it looks like Mayor Mallard has stepped back her support of the library, and is now pitching her incredible idea to build a great monument to Smiling God, one to rival Night Vale’s Brown Stone Spire. Of course, none of us agree with the religious beliefs of the Brown Stone Spire, but we all certainly respect its towering beauty. Broadcasting its dogma across the desert through the medium of colossal architect. Mayor Mallard announced that the Desert Bluffs monument will be a great pit called the Mudstone Abyss. A one-mile wide, four-mile deep inverted cone chiseled with sacred symbols and texts, dedicated to the Smiling God. It will take a year to build and will require everyone in town to work on it. The crowd is now shouting at the Mayor in obvious support. Lauren has always been good with people, a real motivator. I’m excited about her great plan.

Let’s have a look now at traffic.
There’s a single car, a maroon Honda CRV, one tail light out, driving along State Street. Inside is a man listening to his radio. He’s new in town and he wants to hear all of the important news of his new home. Perhaps he even wants to hear my voice. A voice first heard earlier today when he arrived in town and I was standing at the sign that says “You are entering Desert Bluffs, population: all smiles”. The man’s name is Charles, and when he looked at me, he smiled. He shook my hand, lingering a bit. I told him how welcome he was, how winsome his jaw looked, how I’d love to show him around town. And Charles, who is now turning his CRV onto Lighthouse Pass toward the house he rented, listens as I say on the radio: few people have ever looked at me with equivalent kindness. You did not turn from my face. You did not wince. You looked straight into me and knew I was the same as you. You saw me, Charles. Thank you.
There’s road work to fix a rip in space-time along Havana Drive. So expect delays, Charles. You have my number.
This has been traffic.

I’m getting word that people are unhappy somewhere in Desert Bluffs, and this makes me unhappy. I do not like being unhappy. That’s not what this town is about. Apparently the unhappy people are at City Hall, complaining to Mayor Mallard about her new plan to build the Mudstone Abyss. They’re carrying signs with read “Separate church and state” and “Libraries, not forced labor”. They can’t be upset about the Mudstone Abyss! Perhaps they’re upset about the Mayor’s lackluster delivery of such good news. Was she not smiling enough? Sometimes people don’t smile enough when they bring good tidings, and that makes those tidings much less good. I will call the Mayor now to help her clarify her message.

In the meantime, let’s have a look at the weather.
Spoiler: it’s going to be cloudless and sunny with no wind. But still…

[“Living On Light” by Silo’s Choice, https://siloschoice.bandcamp.com]

OK, we’re all good. I went downtown and the Mayor and I talked. She brought in the City Council, which is made up entirely of my close friends Ken, Kelvin, Keegan and Kellen, who founded the Temple of Joy with me. We all walked back out to the gathered crowd, and Lauren called for calm, but no one reacted. Then I stepped to the microphone, and everyone stopped and went silent, save for a couple of gasps. And I said: “The Mayor wants to build the Mudstone Abyss, and support her efforts. The City Council supports her efforts. And I believe you support her efforts as well. I can see your smiling faces, but I want them to be smiling even more. And to help you with that, I will tell you my vision of this monument, of the Smiling God.

One night, after waking up in a cold sweat from that same dream about the frenetic and suicidal birds and the empty cornfield, I felt so invigorated by the permanence of this enjoyable dream that I went for a walk. I walked and walked until I came to the mountain, the single mountain that overlooks our town and upon which stands a lighthouse. I climbed to the top of the lighthouse, and I started up at the midnight sun and I asked for a sign, but none came. For hours, I waited, but none came. So I walked back down and I found an old oak door. I opened the door, and on the other side was a dusty park lined with tall obsidian walls and populated with hooded figures who were playing some game that involved kicking a Fresca can into an overturned trash bin. I asked them for a sign, but none came. They made a static hum and pretended I was not there.

So I shut that portal and I thought then about that famous scripture from the Book of Devouring. “When the Smiling God closes a door, it opens a great hole in the earth.” And so I grabbed my smile knife, which I always keep in a case on my belt, and I begun to dig. I scraped away mud and stone until I had no energy left, and I said please, give me a sign! And below me, the ground became translucent. I could see for miles down, a great pit below me, and crawling up the sides of the pit was an enormous creature with thousands of legs, scuttling joyously in an upward spiral until it finally devoured me in one gulp!

But rather than become pure in the holy maw of our Smiling God, I found I was standing once again atop the lighthouse, atop the mountain, atop all of Desert Bluffs. And below right here, next to our small but proud City Hall, I could see a conical abyss of awesome size, glowing with symbols of our God, interlocking triangles and multi-legged worms and just the most detailed geometry carved into mudstone. And I knew that this great construction was not merely our future, but our conscience, our very soul. This Mudstone Abyss will be not a monument to a god or a religion or a church, but to our happiness itself! [menacingly] So I tell you now that we will build it, and we will build it together!”

And as I finished my speech, I could see dozens of grinning faces. Several of our friends from the Temple of Joy had come to hear the speech and to help out by holding down the protesters and pulling their lips back into full smiles. The City Council immediately approved Mayor Mallard’s plan. She’s such a visionary and brilliant orator! Construction on the Mudstone Abyss begins at 7 AM tomorrow morning, so we’ll see all of you there, bright and early!

It was a joyous day, Desert Bluffs! A defining moment for our town. And to top it off, [giddily] I got a call from Charles! He said he heard my speech today and was impressed with my homiletic skills. [giggles] And also, he’d love to take me up on my offer to show me around town, and that maybe we could start with dinner. Well, I will let you know how that goes!

But as always,
Until next time, Desert Bluffs,
Until next time.

Today’s proverb: On second thought, a million dollars is pretty cool. Finger guns to you, million dollars!