Episode 53 - The September Monologues
Cecil: The wind out of the desert is changing. I feel it. You feel it. A shiver in the midday heat. A crackle in the television broadcast. A shift in your immune system.
It is September, and something is different.
It is September, and the days have gone sinister – from first eye’s open to last slow breathing.
It is September, and so, listeners – dear listeners – Night Vale Public Radio is proud to introduce The September Monologues.
Faceless Old Woman: Chad? Can you hear me? My mouth is half an inch from your left ear and I’m whispering. You will feel a heavy warmth there, like air from the swamp. That means I’m talking to you, Chad. I’m right behind you.
Listen, Chad…how long have we lived together? Your whole life, that’s the answer. Not that you’d know it, because I do it secretly. That’s my name: the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Though, also, I don’t have a face.
Chad, I am getting away from the point. You are the point.
Is this how you want to live your life? Shuffling from one trivial moment to the next, never letting anything add up to anything else?
Chad, it’s not my place to say, I know. My place is hiding behind the boring button-up shirts in your closet, my thin, gnarled fingers almost brushing your hand each time you reach for one of those milquetoast frocks on your way to another unsuccessful night trying to find someone who will make you more than you are.
Chad, do you know how many flies live in your apartment? I do. I know all of their names, and I tell them where to lay their eggs. So listen, Chad, do not get on my wrong side. My fury is vast, and murky, and expressed through a papier-mâché gape-mouthed that I left behind your cereal boxes this morning. Not that you’ll find it. You never eat breakfast. A good breakfast is the start of a good day, say the tablets we found in that ancient crater last year.
But I’m not here to lecture you, Chad. I’m here to understand. Like, what’s with all the candles? Your room is strewn with clothes like your dresser got sick from overeating, but suddenly you’re buying nicely-scented candles, and arranging them carefully in the living room? That doesn’t seem like you, Chad.
And the fabric. That rich, red fabric that you bought and…are you sewing that fabric, Chad? That doesn’t seem like you either. Your other hobbies involve watching or consuming and now, here you are, doing! What does it mean?
I’ve uncovered many secrets, Chad. Do not think that you are going to be able to keep anything from me. I know what is behind the old VHS copy of Cliffhanger in your media center. I know about the way you talk to your horse figurines.
Yes, I know about the horse figurines.
And I know about the dreams, Chad. I put my faceless head very close to your face at night as you sleep. If you opened your eyes, I’m sure it would upset you.
So fragile, and yet so certain – your belief in the sanctity and privacy of home.
Oh, what about the amulet you hid in the bag of lettuce deep in your fridge? Why the amulet, that ancient cracked painting of a screaming goat set upon gold and ebony? I couldn’t lift it, Chad. I tried with my bony, skin-taut arms that have a surprising animal strength. Those arms that have been so close to you so many times, but that you’ve never seen. I tried to lift it, Chad, and I couldn’t. Why wasn’t I able to lift it?
This is me, as a part of your life, trying to understand that life. And you, drinking beer with your friends, drinking beer by yourself, drinking beer before work by yourself, smiling with your friends and smiling at your work and sitting dead-eyed and silent for hours inside your living room, wearing a polo shirt and khaki shorts, crying without making a sound or moving. A silence of tears down your slack, boyish face.
Chad, this is you, and I’m trying to understand.
I’ve stopped googling bees and I’ve started googling your name over and over. I can’t find a trace of you anywhere. What are you, Chad? I thought I understood. I do not understand.
And now, you are rising from your easy chair, still weeping. You are putting on a long red robe and lighting the candles arranged through the room in a pattern or a shape that I do not recognize. You are raising up the amulet and you are speaking…no, shouting, no…intoning.
This is not a language I understand! I understand every language. Your very speech is outside of my reality.
What I saw next, Chad, was beyond me. I have seen death in its many heaving forms. I have seen the low-flying ships that hide on the horizon in front of the setting sun, and I have seen the misshapen silhouettes of their pilots. I have seen the websites you visit.
But Chad…what I saw in that moment, what you summoned in your living room, what you brought to us here in this little town, my town, the town I secretly live in, the town in which I am, at least in my view, presumptive mayor…what have you done?
Chad, this is all to say that I am the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, but…not your home, Chad. Not anymore. Because something else is living there now.
Oh, Chad. Something else is living there now.
Cecil: The air is different. Or…no. It is the way we are breathing that is different. The breathers, all of us, have changed. We’ve gone funny, you know, just…funny. Words can’t capture it. But I have only words.
So, up next, more words. After that, words. Words, and words, and words. Words that form The September Monologues.
Michelle Nguyen: Nobody’s made a good album in years! “Michelle,” you say, “Michelle Nguyen, that’s not true!”
Well, you’re right. Very little of what I have to say is true. Some of it is, though. Make of that what you will.
No, don’t. I don’t trust you to make anything good.
Hang on, there’s a customer.
Welcome to Dark Owl Records!
You! You! Why are you here? What do you want from me, you–
Never mind, they left.
We sold a pretty decent record the other day. It was a Beach Boys album. Everyone thinks the Beach Boys are the best. And fine, fine, they contributed a lot to American music. You can hear their influence on people like Cole Porter, and Joni Mitchell, and Mozart, but I’m so sick of everybody thinking they know music just because they buy a Beach Boys album!
I begged the guy not to buy it. It was, of course, the one with most of their big hits on it, like “The People Under the Floor,” and “I’m Being Followed,” and “Tracking Device Inside My Skin,” and no doubt the Beach Boys’ most famous song, “Hand Me That Hammer, Madame Dentist.”
He bought the album anyway, but I broke it into pieces as I handed it to him, and then I told him the store was closed and he wasn’t allowed to leave. He’s still somewhere in the basement. A couple people came looking for him, but I covered my eyes with my hand and sat silently so they couldn’t see me.
Point being, there are still a few good albums in the world, but not many.
Oh! You know what I ordered for the store last week? It should arrive any day. If you’re a true lover of folk music, you’ll be just as excited as I am for this. I ordered 25 copies of Woody Guthrie. They’re scale replicas of his body in his most recognizable pose: holding a guitar in one hand and an aquarium full of mice in his other two hands. These replicas are 3:1 scale, so there’s no room with our low ceilings. I’ll have to keep them outside of the store in people’s lawns and next to highway overpasses and such. But they’re just great!
Oh, wait. Never mind. Folk music is over. It’s done, came and went. Stop listening to folk music! The Guthrie replicas are now 70% off. Please don’t buy them, though. Folk music is dead.
You want to know what music I’m listening to right now? Joy Division. Not “Unknown Pleasures.” Everyone’s listened to that album. That album will never be talked about by me again. No. I’m listening to a different Joy Division album. It’s a pretty recent album that was never actually released, because they never wrote it or recorded it or produced it. But I managed to get a copy of this album, and I listen to it almost daily. In private, so it’s not ruined by other people having heard it or talked to me about it. It’s a good album. I cry when I hear it. I cry when I think about it. I’m crying now.
I’m sure it doesn’t sound to you like I’m crying, because you can’t comprehend my crying. You can’t see me or hear me crying because you don’t know me. You don’t truly know me. This Joy Division album truly knows me in a way no other human ever has.
And so, that’s a complete list of music I like.
Looks like the coroner is here again.
Hello, Linda! We got the new Panic! at the Disco album in!
[whispers] I’ve been selling her blank CDs for years now and telling her that’s Panic! at the Disco’s aesthetic, that they just release completely silent songs with no titles on albums with no tracks or cover art and no name. It’s really funny, except for, their new album really did come out and it’s called “Quit Fabricating Our Musical Career, Michelle,” so I’m a little freaked out by that. But also, I think I’m really impacting the future of music. [end whispering]
We here at Dark Owl Records pride ourselves on that: impacting the future of music. Also, the past. We impact the past in music.
I’m wearing a hat right now! So, know that.
I hate Panic! at the Disco. I’ve never actually heard their music, so I don’t actually hate them so much as resent them. Or rather, resent what they stand for. Or rather, resent what I believe that they stand for. Or rather, resent my perception of other people’s projections of what they stand for. Or rather, myself.
I hate myself, is what I’m trying to say.
We have that in common, I think!
Panic! at the Disco is probably fine if you were to ever listen to their music. Lots of people buy lots of their music. Of course, lots of people buy lots of ridiculous things: overpriced coffee, minivans, dogs, furniture, towels, medicine…you name it, and some idiot will buy it.
Linda! Is that a Public Enemy cassette? Don’t touch that! You do not have hip hop access here!
We have a pretty good hip hop collection. Mmmm…that’s not true. It’s just that one cassette. And it’s broken.
Anyway, t-shirts and posters and trance music are all 50% off this weekend at Dark Owl, so come visit the store.
Wait…never mind. We’re closed until further notice.
You’re not allowed in here anyway. Not with that tattoo. Who has a Woody Guthrie tattoo these days?
Cecil: It will all be over soon. And then, something else will take its place.
“Like waves,” says the common metaphor.
“From dust to dust,” says a simplified version of a complicated philosophy.
“Mmmmmmmm, zmmmmmmm,” says the big bang, still echoing quietly through everything it created.
Let us return, one last time – before it, you, or anything else ends – to The September Monologues.
Steve Carlsberg: There are glowing arrows in the sky. You can’t see them. I do.
There are dotted lines and arrows and circles. The sky is a chart that explains the entire world. But you can’t see it. I know that.
The world makes sense. I– I believe that. I– I do. It has to. Otherwise…it wouldn’t make sense! And that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen.
No one listens when I talk. They hear, but…they don’t listen. Even now, maybe your attention is drifting. Why pay attention to me? Why pay attention to Steve Carlsberg? “There he goes again, with his theories and explanations.” But I see them! I see the arrows in the sky. I understand what is happening.
Night Vale is a weird place. No one else sees that, I guess. But I do. It’s not like other places. I’ve never been other places, but I know. I know what other places are like. I’ve read books. Don’t tell anyone, please. Don’t tell anyone that I’ve read books. I have to maintain my position and the respect of my peers. I’m a member in good standing of the PTA. I bring scones and they are always the first item in the pot luck to go. I take great pride in that.
My…uh, brother-in-law, step-brother, brother-outside-of-the-law…I can never get those terms straight. Well, he just brings store-made hummus and wheat-free pita chips. Every time! I make my scones with my own hands, from scratch. Sometimes, I put in the zest of orange, sometimes I don’t. They are not always the same.
Nothing is.
People pick at the chips and hummus. They want to be polite. Often, they are not. We all, all of us, so often fail at what we want to do. That’s OK, as long as we understand our failure. As long as we see it. I see my failure to help my community the way I would like to help it. I would like to guide it somewhere new, but the only person who listened to me was that man on the Desert Bluffs radio. And then…well, then all the rest happened.
The world would be better if more people saw the dotted lines and arrows in the sky. I can look out my window and see them! I’m doing that now.
Listen, I love my wife, and she loves her brother. And we both love our daughter, and my…brother-in-law? Half-brother? Double-brother? Hmm…Well, he loves his niece. So that counts for a lot. That counts for most of it. I don’t hate him the way he hates me. How could I? I understand him. He hates me because he doesn’t understand me at all. Cannot see the dotted lines. He cannot see the arrows.
I first met him at the wedding. He’s busy, or he says he is. He does always seem to be at the station. Or at least, he used to be. This last year’s been good for him, I think. It has softened him a little, in the right places. Although not at all toward me. But I never expect that.
He was very nice when I first met him. “Welcome to the wedding,” he said grandly. Which was odd, since he actually arrived after me. But it was a nice gesture anyway, and I accepted it with a handshake and a “Hello! It’s an exciting day, isn’t it?” I said. “Here, try a scone!” I had made scones. It seemed right, in the midst of a formal celebration like that, to have a little touch of home, to remind people of the lifetime of simple gestures that this grand celebration was meant to launch.
“Oh,” he said. “This is just scrumptious! This is the best scone I’ve ever had!”
He hasn’t said anything like that in some time.
We chatted for a while. I don’t remember what about. Maybe the weather.
No, definitely the weather. I remember it was the weather, because we had to stand in awkward silence for a bit as we waited for the music to stop playing.
But then, it all turned. “How ‘bout those secret agents?” I asked, indicating the black-suited women and men lining the back of the room, taking photos and writing down everything that everyone said.
“Aah,” he said. “Yes, well…” he said.
He was raised in the Night Vale tradition of silence. And with a belief in the power of hierarchy and bureaucracy. I had been raised that way too, but it didn’t stick. Because I could see the arrows, and the dotted lines, and the circles laid out across the world. I could clearly see how things were! The way that it was all organized, and for whose benefit.
“Well, sure,” I said. “Those agents from… Oh. Well, um, this next part is complicated. People always just refer to them from being from a Vague, Yet Menacing Agency and…while they are certainly menacing, there’s nothing vague about them.”
I explained to Cecil then exactly what branch they’re from, who specifically they report to, and whose desk those reports ultimately land on. People could die for knowing these things. But I’ve always known it. I could always just see it, how it all really was laid out.
And as I talked, Cecil’s face changed. It twisted into a grimace.
“I won’t have you teaching Janice lies like that,” he howled. And I’m sorry for using such a melodramatic verb, but he really did. He howled! And then he refused to speak to me again.
During the ceremony, he tried to object on the grounds that I knew and spoke aloud forbidden knowledge and dangerous truths. Which is actually a mandatory reason to cancel a wedding according to the laws of Night Vale, but his sister talked him down.
Since then, though, he’s never trusted me. It’s because of Janice. It’s because I want Janice to understand the world the way I do. I want her to see the arrows and dotted lines, to know the world, not just repeat what has been told to her.
My brother-in-law, as you might imaging, disagrees. “She will learn only what she is allowed to learn in schools!” he explains to me regularly, and loudly. “Don’t poison her with education!”
I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. It’s not like knowing has made my life easier. Quite the opposite.
Quite the opposite.
But every time I look up, I see them. Glowing arrows in the sky, dotted lines and circles, a great chart that explains it all, and I ask you, how can I know all of this? How can I understand, and not try to explain? How can I see the dotted lines so bright and tangible, and deny them?
I have to try, even if it means that everyone – even my wife, or even Janice – grows to hate me. The truth is more important than all that. It has to be.
Or else, why would it shine so clear above?
Cecil: Well, that’s it for The September Monologues. We’ve said so much. What more is there to say?
Today’s proverb: [static sounds]