November 2014

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Bonus Episode 1 - Minutes

Minutes from the Community College Faculty Meeting, by Ashley Lierman.

The following are the minutes from the Night Vale Community College faculty meeting.

Meeting facilitator was Dr. Vidor Szabo.

Meeting secretary was Joshua White.

Item 1: Call to Order

Dr. Szabo called to order the regular meeting of the faculty of Night Vale Community College at 3:00pm on November 1st.

Item 2: Roll Call

Mr. White conducted a roll call; the following were present:

Item 3: Approval of Minutes from Last Meeting

Attendees were advised to insert earplugs. Mr. White then read the minutes from the September meeting. Professor Levine collapsed in a stiff heap, with severe bleeding at the eyes and mouth, due to an improperly formed plug seal in her left ear canal. She was removed for medical treatment. The minutes were approved as read.

Item 4: President’s Remarks

President Sultan greeted and thanked attendees, and congratulated all faculty on the successful fall semester. She described recent fundraising efforts for upcoming development projects. The most notable gift has been a generous, but ultimately detrimental donation of thousands of rabbits from proud alumna Mrs. Sylvia Wickersham, who has been replaced by a lizard – and which lizard is now in police custody.

President Sultan stopped mid-sentence, and was silent for several seconds. As the president is a smooth fist-sized river rock, faculty were initially confused as to why she was quiet. It turned out President Sultan was staring at a fixed point in midair. She suddenly began asking, “What is that? What is that thing? Why would anyone do that?” in a small, childlike voice.

Faculty began to shift and turn in their seats, but saw nothing.

This continued until it was decided that the president had nothing further to offer, and Dr. Szabo picked up the president and placed her back in her terrarium.

Item 5: Announcements, Issues, and Questions

(A): An Update on Freshman Seminar
Dr. Laredo, who took over the Freshman Seminar two years ago, because of Dr. Joel Eisneberg’s extended medical leave, described a number of revisions to the program, which she hopes to implement with the faculty’s support, including standardizing grading rubrics, working carefully with the library to develop some non-violent literacy programs, possibly reassessing the requirement of plague masks for all freshman, and increasing focus on real-world career skills like running, hiding, and covering their faces with their hands, moaning “Oh no! Oh no!” quietly.

(B): The Unending Hallway on the Second Floor of the Earth Sciences Building
Dr. Hernandez provided an update on facility’s progress with the unending hallway situation. Apparently the hallway is now fully finite in breadth. And while it still appears to be infinite in length, the fact that it no longer swallows light itself indicates that this is merely due to the limits of human perception, and the hallway does now possess and end. Somewhere.

However, according to the Director of Facilities Services, all available measuring equipment is still inadequate to chart the length of the hallway, and the readings that have been made indicate that it would take at least six human lifetimes to traverse the full length of the hallway. So, ultimately, the distinction is negligible.

Administrators and faculty are still advised not to schedule classes on the second floor of Earth Sciences until the situation is resolved, unless class size exceeds the available facilities, and students have been cautioned to bring enough food and water to last them the rest of their lives.

©: Standards Revision for Honors Courses
Dr. Hertzwell announced that as of registration for the spring semester, while the minimum grade point average of 3.0 and SAT score of 1100 have not been changed, students are now no longer required to be fully human to enroll in honors courses. Dr. Hertzwell applauded this progressive change, but lamented that it took so long to make it happen.

Faculty advisers of students who are arthropods, malevolent spirits, or tangible dream-people should recommend application to these advanced courses.

(D): Repeated Fires in the Computer Science Laboratory
Professor Gwozdecke reported that public safety officers have completed their preliminary investigation of the repeated and unexplained fires in the main computer lab. The officers suspect that cause to be arson but, as Professor Gwozdecke pointed out, they are liars. Filthy, disgusting, pestilential liars, who should be embarrassed to tell those kinds of lies where people can hear their crazy nonsense. And, at the very least, they should all be fired. Meaning, set on fire. But also meaning terminated. Meaning, an end brought to their lives. But also meaning fired from their jobs. “At the very least,” she added.

She then set a rug on fire with her thoughts.

Item 6: Welcome for Dr. Buqar

Dr. Szabo asked the assembled to welcome Dr. Mohini Buqar, who joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor of Secret English at the beginning of the spring semester. Dr. Buqar, sweating profusely with a fixed grin that showed far too many of her teeth, greeted the faculty and briefly introduced herself and her interests in a shaky, indistinct voice that gradually climbed in pitch toward a shriek.

Dr. Buqar’s doctoral dissertation compared Shakespeare’s unproduced and unpublished play, Mirth Forest, with elements of Chaucer’s unwritten childhood daydreams. And she enjoys ballroom dance and owns two Siberian huskies. She is teaching two sections of Survey of Secret British Literature, featuring Emily Bronte’s epic novel that no one has ever heard of, The Flippancy of Clouds.

Item 7: New Course Proposals for Fall 2015

  1. Humanities 375 – Hegel’s Philosophy in Context, taught by Dr. Szabo
  2. Computer Science 180 – FORTRAN Programming and Flame Resistance, taught by Professor Gwozdecke
  3. Bio 351 – Human Cloning and You and You, taught by Dr. Stone
  4. Tech 220 – Bloodstone Installation and Repair, taught by Professor Mzzzzrrnnnnwrrrnnnnn
  5. History 311 – History of Post-War Germany, taught by Dr. Brown
  6. Alternative History 311 – History of Underwater Germany, taught by Dr. Crawford-Rothwell
  7. Music 208 – Murder Ballads, taught by Professor Norman
  8. Unassigned Course – Oh God! Oh God, Why? Oh Dear God in Heaven, No! taught by Professor Escondo and some pliers
  9. Psych 150 – Peyote Psychology, taught by a wolf with six faces
  10. Business 215 – Laughing at Nonprofit Organizations, taught by Dr. Rosenberg.
  11. Econ 213 – Hatred, taught by Dr. Laredo

Item 8: Presentation Titled “Update From the Assessment Committee”

Presenter: James Crawford-Rothwell

Summary: Dr. Crawford-Rothwell detailed the resolutions made at the most recent meeting of the Assessment Committee. He reminded faculty that all instructors of general education courses must, at the end of the semester, submit a summary of work, one sample assignment, and detailed blood type information for each student, including a full flavor profile.

He distributed to the faculty the revised rubrics for critical thinking, pain endurance, global awareness, and seeing the unseen and unholy.

Discussion: Dr. Stein asked whether human test subjects could be submitted as a sample assignment. Further debate ensued, with some arguing that human subjects constitute laboratory equipment, and others pointing out the impracticality of being unable to submit them electronically.

Dr. Crawford-Rothwell promised that the committee would discuss the issue in their next meeting.

The green cabinet that shakes and whistles, having consumed – ahead of schedule – the full crate of live guinea pigs provided for it to eat during the meeting, emitted a bass hum, and then opened to loose a tendril of pure, pulsating, hate-filled darkness, which encircled and then devoured Dr. Richter, dragging her back into its unknowable depths on the hollow boom of its closing doors.

The meeting was suspended for the assembled to flee for their lives, and reconvened in furtive whispers in an unlit basement room.

Dr. Bell recommended that the “Conclusions and Outcomes” component of critical thinking be changed to end in priority order, rather than in order of priority. The motion was debated and passed with 19 for, 2 against, 2 abstaining, 3 absent and/or presumed dead.

Action Items: Form search committees for replacement full-time Professor of Nursing
Person responsible: Chandra Mabassa

Item 10: Five-Minute Break

Faculty and staff took a short break between presentations to assess the condition of the wounded. Some used the time to smoke a final cigarette while crying. Others gathered around the coffee maker to casually discuss the weather.

[“Home” by Theo Adler]

Item 11: Presentation Titled “First Look at Rebranding Efforts”

Presenter: Pamela Kingsworth

Summary: Ms. Kingsworth hastily set up a computer and attached projector, which were retrieved from the original meeting room at no small risk to life and sanity. She unveiled concepts for a new logo and slogans, developed in meetings with a marketing firm. The logo is a black and white but shockingly graphic woodcut of an ethnically diverse group of students devouring the entrails of a wild boar. Behind them is a map of the world with dozens of countries X’d out.

Slogan 1 reads: “There’s no excuse for not getting a quality education. You should feel ashamed, and so should your ancestors.”
Slogan 2 reads: “Find yourself here, with no memory of the previous week.”
Slogan 3 reads: “Ketamine hydrochloride.”

If the slogans are approved by the faculty, the college community will vote on them at the next open campus meeting, to be held on Monday, February 23rd.

Discussion: Dr. Long began vomiting and shuddering uncontrollably near the end of Ms. Kingsworth’s presentation, although this was found to be unrelated.

Dr. Szabo remarked on the exceptional artistry of the logo, and insisted on taking a picture with his mobile phone on behalf of Professor Galen in the Art Department, who was unable to attend today’s meeting. The phone produced a small cloud of foul-smelling crystals from its camera lens, and then imploded.

Dr. Bell questioned whether the reference to “ancestors” in Slogan 1 was culturally insensitive. Ms. Kingsworth assured the faculty that the advertising firm understood the importance of diversity to the college community, and the inclusivity of the slogans as well as their market impact had been thoroughly researched.

Drs. Crawford-Rothwell and Szabo debated the issue. No conclusion was reached, although Ms. Kingsworth agreed to raise the issue with the firm as the process continued.

Dr. Bell asked Ms. Kingsworth for the name of the advertising firm the college is consulting. Ms. Kingsworth was silent for seven full minutes, and then proceeded to giggle for the remainder of the meeting.

Dr. Szabo distributed ballots for approval or disapproval of the slogans. Additional copies will be mailed to each department to be filled out by faculty members who were unable to attend today’s meeting. No one will actually mail them – it will just happen, quietly, while no one is looking.

The ballots should be completed and returned to the Office of College Relations, where they will be discarded unread.

Action Items: Complete and return slogan approval ballot
Person responsible: All faculty

Item 12: Presentation Titled “Blood”

Presenter: Blood

Summary: Blood

Discussion: Blood

Distant screeches, perhaps a crow of some kind.

Blood

Action Items: Cost/benefit analysis for expansion of Student Center
Person responsible: Blood

Item 13: Presentation Titled “Tax Information Online”

Presenter: Robert Hernandez

Summary: Dr. Hernandez announced that tax information and forms for college employees for this year’s tax season will be available online, through the Employee Self-Service area of the college website.

He demonstrated, via projector, the location of the forms by navigating the website. From the college homepage, employees should go to the Faculty and Staff Portal, then to the Employee Self-Service link under the Human Resources header, then scroll down the page to the section marked Payroll, and click on the link reading Tax Forms.

Users will be shown a picture of a face. It will be a familiar face, but not one they will be able to comprehend or remember. They must maintain silent eye contact with this face. Do not blink. Do not speak. Breathe, but slowly, and without purpose. After several seconds, perhaps minutes, the face will contort into a terrifying grimace as a cacophonous scream fills the room, echoing down the halls, freezing you in terror.

Then, you can download the appropriate form.

Discussion: Dr. al-Anizi asked whether the forms would still be distributed in paper form. Dr. Hernandez confirmed that they would, and the online and paper forms would be identical.

Mr. Long mentioned that he thought computers might be illegal – but even if they’re not, they require licenses. He asked if anyone had up-to-date computer licenses for the college. Everyone else urgently shushed him, their eyes dashing left and right, fingers to their tight lips.

Dr. Mills asked if any help was available for faculty and staff members who had forgotten their login information for the Employee Self-Service area. Dr. Hernandez advised him to direct his query to the Help Desk, or to click on the link below the login form and answer the security question.

“You get one attempt,” Dr. Hernandez said. “One,” he said again. “One. You get one attempt.”

He repeated this for several minutes, the register of his voice growing lower and lower.

Action items: Bury an owl feather, six human finger bones, and a mirror in a shallow hole at the base of the largest rock in the mountains, beneath the light of a quarter-full moon. Tell no one. Not even your family. The same night, place a stone under your tongue and wind a ribbon around your mouth until you can make no sound. Sleep. You will dream of a tall, worried man, holding a rope. He will not speak to you, but he will point toward a doorway you do not recognize. It will be very very dark, and a faint cool breeze will blow forth, smelling faintly of copper and water.
Person responsible: Robert Hernandez

Item 14: Adjournment

The faculty met eyes, placed hands upon arms upon shoulders. Dr. Szabo, weeping, adjourned the meeting at an unknown time, as time is subjective and confusing.

In the flickering candlelight, their synchronous breath were a breezy metronome, marking the only time any of them could possibly understand.

The light went out. And in the darkness, there was a discomforting silence, followed by even more discomforting scratching sounds.

Minutes submitted by: Joshua White
Minutes approved by: The Survivors, presumably

Today’s proverb: If you’re worried your writing isn’t good, just remember: the earth is warming and soon, good and bad writing alike will all be underwater.

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Bonus Episode 2 - What of the Sea?

What of the Sea? by Marta Rainer

This happened, then this happened, then this happened.

She got a potential invitation. It was stuck in between the mesh and tin brace of her screen door, with her name boxily hand-written on the front of the envelope. Across the seam of the back of the envelope was written the acronym S.W.A.C., and no reference was made to its sender.

Sticky, wet letters.

She stood at the entrance of her bungalow, plastic bags of recently-purchased groceries at her feet, and pondered, turning the envelope in her hands, and occasionally meeting her nose to it to sniff for clues, as to its origins. The air was too chilled to glean much information from it that way. It deadened the senses. It was meant to.

Sealed with a kiss, she knew, signing something S.W.A.K.

But S.W.A.C.? What did this C portend? Once a thing is opened, it cannot be closed again, not really. Hasn’t that been proven time and time again in this town?

Today’s delivery flummoxed her, and she wondered if this letter reception was being stealthily observed. Had the Man in the Tan Jacket been accounted for lately? Sometimes he was everywhere. But no one could remember for certain what he looked like, except he had a tan jacket, and a deerskin suitcase – which was full of flies.

Had a librarian escaped? Sometimes they tried to lure prey by sending library cards to potential book lovers. In fact, there were periods this year where a librarian seemed to be escaping nearly every day.

Sealed with a card? No.

Perhaps a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency! Or another political flier from the five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels, or the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lived in Her Home. It couldn’t be the former, as there were no scorch marks, and definitely not the latter, as the Faceless Old Woman mostly scrawled her messages on the insides of closet doors, and in the margins of her municipally-required dream journal.

It could have been innumerable letter writers. There were three hollow trees just on her block that someone could be hiding in. A blimp careening overhead. An overturned car down the way.

She ceased her conjecture. She had to get all the black garlic ice cream pints and paper towels into the freezer. She should put all these sundries into the fridge and secure all her glassware before today’s scheduled earthquakes.

She swiftly checked if other mail was waiting for her in its proper receptacle – none yet, but the postman Angus may have been lollygagging or gagging full-stop en route – and ventured inside.

The letter was most assuredly hand delivered. The door chased her backside with a uproarious schoomp!, caught itself at the last minute, and politely bopped closed.

Sealed with a…

It might have been a misspelling, of course. Perhaps the sender did in fact kiss it just after it was sealed.

Perhaps the sender took pleasure in imagining her gussied up in her aubergine dress and kitten heels, tights with line designs, a crocheted shawl, her froofy hat, and wielding a mottled cane – which she didn’t need, but enjoyed the feeling of swagger that it provided – and also, glasses framing her green eyes. Contact lenses always seemed to rebel against their function in her eyeballs, like fire. Fire. But, specifically, her bedazzled cat-eye frames, rather than her everyday browns. And also, eye makeup.

She smiled at that image of herself in her brain, which was much more acceptable than the untrustworthy image of herself in the mirror.

She hoped the content of the envelope would be revealed to be an invitation to a party, where such a getup would be appropriate. It had been three weeks on a rigid diet of black garlic ice cream and sundries: apples, deli mustard, goat’s eggs, et cetera. You know it. And she was seeing results. Trendy diets be darned! If a thing works, a thing works. And this thing works. Sometimes things are trendy for a reason, she justified.

S.W.A.C.

Perhaps the sender meant K, for kiss, because the act of their lips meeting with the paper had already taken place, but then they were so overwhelmed by their vision of her that their hand briefly didn’t work?

But…it could have been from an unfriendly rival. Or a vindictive ex. It could have been from a genetically overachieving wombat, with orthographic training and questionable spelling.

What did that C portend? Sealed with a compliment? A consonant? A carton of glue? A cartouche? A carat, as in gold? A carrot, as in vegetable? A century’s worth of spite?

Sealed with a charm.

Aaah, a charm! And if so, should she open this at all? Fool me once, she thought, as she filled the freezer with the packed pints, reserving one out on the counter for immediate attention, from which she coaxed the plastic top and found a tin spoon where it should be, in the silverware drawer – which is always directly above the hot milk drawer.

She had a series of bites and thoughts, pressing the ice cream about her mouth.

What if, in the opening, something…horrendous would get unleashed, and all the fleeting thoughts that flashed in her brain that day would come to fruition? As an example.

And so, what did she think today?

She thought about postman Angus, lollygagging or gagging. That was a fairly recent thought. And, once remembered, it lingered. In her mind, he had spotted a wildflower blooming on, say, the old Bandera lot, and became consumed with picking it for his tinctures. He would fish his wire cutters from his mail bag, clip an Angus-sized hole in the wire fence, and squeeze himself through to gain his treasure.

She thought about how her letters would often come stained with pollen, as they increasingly shared the postal bag with this roving apothecary in the making. And how, once, an inchworm sat up from its self-claimed letter bed when she opened a bill from her podiatrist, as if she had disturbed its slumber.

She thought about the last letter she got from her sister, who lived a block over, but had impulse-purchased reams of Victorian-inspired stationary from a door-to-door salesdeer, and now wrote anyone about anything, just to regain her living room space. The letter was sticky with tree sap, and her sister had scribbled “Wait, what did you say?” And what she had said, on a previous day, in a previous month, sitting across from her sister as they shared an afternoon cocoa and rye toast (pre wheat ban), was “A green-blue ring.”

Her sister’s letters were confusing, because they were written in immediate response to a conversation, but posted in a big batch at the end of each day, and since the time of the post office’s vacuum portal, which demotivated its swallowed staff, were received sporadically, out of order, and in poor condition. The letters were therefore work to comprehend, and sometimes she thought about not reading them, then worried that she might miss one that truly was a complete letter, thoughtfully crafted by her sister about an intimate issue, and not a rhetorical “What?” or “Excuse me?” or a query about what song or brand of tea this is, or an unsupported rebuttal point long lost to chronological context. She would not want to miss the rare, real letter.

They were close, the two sisters. They took a trip together last year to a glacial lake, and didn’t come home with stories or tans, but lots of digital pictures of birds. People asked them, “Wasn’t there any sunshine, or lovely scenery? Did you get out on a paddle boat once, at least?”

“Birds,” the sisters said. “We saw incredible birds.”

C.

S.W.A.C.

The letter took on more ominous importance with each spoonful. She brought the missive, now warmer and violently (violet-ly) more fragrant, and the ice cream pint, now warmer too, over to the sleeper sofa, and placed both on the adjacent coffee table.

She could feel a change in the weather. She felt it in her knees, and in her hair.

[“Ruins” by Mortheth]

The mystery of the envelope weighed on her chest and eyelids, and she felt burdened by the responsibility of the unknown consequences of investigating the epistle’s insides. Was any societal gathering worth the dark magic its acceptance could unfurl? Isn’t magic just a fiction? Isn’t society?

Did nice people need Cs? She did not appreciate it, nor did she want it.

She took the straight end of the spoon and slid it underneath the slight separation between gum-shut seal and folded corner. The spoon fit perfectly. She contemplated the slight lift of her elbow, the outward flick of her arm and carpal follow through, a gesture which would send the tin spoon through the paper’s protective. – or secretive – crease.

What C would be revealed?

Or released?

The spoon slid out carefully, the crease unharmed. Gathering all her gusto, she instead reached under the sofa bed and found her stash of writing utensils. They were illegal, yes, but everyone had them. Secret Police rarely wrote tickets for pencil possession. She was careful. And, more than careful, she was private. And, more than private, she was…discreet.

She touched the tip of her tongue, then to her block printed name on the envelope. She drew calligraphic swirls with thick serifs and ornate curves.

She wrote, “For postman Angus” on the front, in an architectural script meant to hide her own name and original intent of receipt.

She ran her first two fingers softly along the sealed flap, as if to seal it with her own S.W.A.C.

Carefully snaking her hand through the gap of her slightly-ajar screen door, so as not to alert the windowless surveillance van across the street, she returned the newly-fashioned envelope back to where she herself had discovered it, and shut herself back inside.

The ground began to tremble. She looked at the clock, surprised to note that the city started an earthquake on schedule for once.

She trusted that Angus knew more about these things than she ever could, or cared to. She trusted that should something bad happen, he would have the herbal remedy, or floral tincture on hand, to immediately set it, or something, right.

She stood at the front window, and peeked out the peach-colored Venetian slats, making herself gray in the darkening afternoon room.

She cracked a goat’s egg over the liquid remainder of her ice cream. She put the letter from her mind, and listened for the rumble of him.

Today’s proverb: Remember that all sentences must have a noun, a verb, and the phrase “foolish mortals.”