February 2015

Episode 61 - BRINY DEPTHS

There’s nothing under your bed. Nothing in your closet. Nothing waiting in the hall. You are surrounded by nothing. You cannot escape it.

Welcome to Night Vale.

I have received several urgent Facebook messages and Twitter DMs from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, asking me to deliver the following message:

BRINY DEPTHS

They said that there was nothing secret or important about the message, and it was certainly not related to any ongoing deep undercover operations, that they can only communicate with using code words subtly buried in local radio broadcasts.

“It wasn’t anything crazy like that,” they just think it would be “cool” to hear me say:

BRINY DEPTHS

“Do your deepest, smoothest voice,” they said. “Really sell it. Really give it your all. It would make us so happy! Please, it’s our birthday! Oh! Did we not mention it’s totally our birthday? All right, in your best voice, say it.”

BRINY DEPTHS

Well, there you go, Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency! Happy birthday!

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, and Hiram McDaniels, who is literally a five-headed dragon – both former candidates for the mayoral role now filled by Dana Cardinal – were seen muttering together in a booth at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner.

Or, Hiram was seen. No one has ever actually seen the Faceless Old Woman, but we all know that she is there.

When reached for comment, by a nosy person sitting in the booth next to them, Hiram explained that they were just chatting, and were not involved in any sort of plans or schemes at all. He then held a conversation with himself about this matter, each head providing a different viewpoint in five different voices, the gist of which was that no, they were not planning anything.

“Definitely not,” the Faceless Old Woman scratched with what seemed to be a long, jagged fingernail into the sole of my shoe this morning. “That’s ludicrous,” she suggested, with a flickering shadow in the corner of my eye as I walked to work. “We would never,” she whispered from behind me, just now.

Moving on, another installment of what I imagine is our listeners’ favorite segment: Cooking Stuff with Earl Harlan.

As the name implies, we have my childhood friend and current sous chef at Night Vale’s hottest restaurant, Tourniquet, with us here in the studio. Earl?

Earl: That’s me, yes.

Cecil: Well, Earl, just a few months ago you shows us how to cook tiramisu. And that was delightful.

Earl: Oh, please don’t cook that recipe. It is extraordinarily poisonous.

Cecil: Ha-ha-ha! Oh, Earl. You’re very funny.

Earl: It will kill you, Cecil. It is actually poisonous. Don’t cook that.

Cecil: So, tell our listeners (and me, of course) what you’ve been up to since we last spoke.

Earl: Oh, mostly, um, I’ve been working. Mostly living. I’ve been spending time with my son. Trying to remember when I had a son. I’ve been trying to understand the flow of my life, and how I don’t remember going from being 19 to the middle-aged adult I am now. I was 19 for so long!

Cecil: Well, sure! That sounds like fun. I’ll tell you, lately I’ve been getting into crosswords. Just can’t stop doing them. Doesn’t even feel like it’s me doing them, like it’s someone else compelling me to do them. Sometimes I pick up a crossword I’ve never seen before, only to find it’s been completely filled in with my own handwriting.

Ha – well, I’m glad we’ve both been up to such fun things.

Earl: Cecil, think. What year were you born?

Cecil: So, what are we cooking up today, Earl?

Earl: Oh, OK. Well, today we are making pulled pork.

Cecil: Oooh, that sounds yummy!

Earl: It is! Pulled pork could not be simpler to make. To start off with, you will need to kill a pig. You will need to find a living pig, and kill that pig. You will probably need to hold down the pig. The pig will struggle. There will be blood, and pain. Some of that pain will be physical. The pig will want to live, but you will need to make it die. That pig will need to die.

Cecil: Sure.

Earl: Then, you will need to dismember the pig. The pig will be a whole being, but you will not be able to eat it like that. So you will need to take it apart. There will be knives, and hacking. The skin will have to go. Peel back that skin and take the muscles and subcutaneous fat which is the part you will consume. Leave the bones and skin behind to rot.

Cecil: Mmmmmmmm!

Earl: Then…you slow-cook it with some vinegar, some sugar, and some chili. Put it on a bun, and there ya go! Pulled pork!

Cecil: Oh, I just can’t wait to try that. It seems so easy! I’ll just use one of the pigs I have at home.

Earl: I’m sorry if I seem down at all, Cecil. I’ve been going through a lot.

Cecil: Oh. Well, I understand. This has been a difficult time for me too. Carlos is away, and…we talk regularly, but it’s not the same as the physical presence of someone you love, you know?

Earl: I know. I know. But that’s what we do when we have someone special enough to merit special effort. I’m proud of you for working through this.

Cecil: And I’m proud of you for dealing with how weird time is. Oh! And for raising a son…somehow. Uh, what is your son’s name?

Earl: I…… I wish I knew.

Cecil: Well…it’s been great catching up, we’ll see you again soon, Earl!

I received another flurry of messages from a Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency, saying that…well, “thanks for saying those words for us, that was great of you, but it looks like maybe it didn’t work.”

“What didn’t work?” they rhetorically asked. “Not important,” they replied to themselves.

“As we said, that was certainly not a code word for an undercover agent, who apparently wasn’t listening to the radio when they were supposed to be, which is (by the way) their only job, and their duty, and their life’s mission to be listening to instructions from headquarters, so…no biggie. But maybe, just do something as simple as listen to the radio at the time we tell you to.”

“Anyway, none of that is important,” the Agency continued, “and there is no particular reason we’re asking you, but…could you say “BRINY DEPTHS” again? It’s for a friend’s birthday. It’s also our friend’s birthday, we forgot to mention that. Please say it again.”

So…OK. Here goes.

BRINY DEPTHS

Happy birthday to your friend! I hope you enjoyed that, but…I really can’t keep interrupting my broadcast with this stuff.

Little League coach Betty Lucero is reporting that there are strange goings-on near the haunted baseball diamond her team uses for practices and league games. “No, no no, no, I know, it’s haunted,” she said. “I get that. You don’t have to explain that to me. I’m saying that there is other weird stuff going on beside the usual ghosts.”

She went on to describe anguished howls coming from a neighborhood nearby, and a red glow at night that made her skin feel loose and itchy when she looked directly at it. She also said that the baseball diamond has started to smell of rotten eggs, which is a detriment to her team’s performance.

As we spoke, an apparition of a gray-skinned young woman in a tattered dress appeared hovering on the baseline between second and third. I may have yelped a little…maybe scrambled backwards a bit, but Coach Lucero laughed and said, “Oh, that’s just Lucia, our third base coach. She died in 1843. Say hi, Lucia!”

The young woman flickered out of view, then reappeared suddenly inches from my face, her pupil-less eyes staring directly into mine. I responded in a professional and calm manner, and Coach Lucero laughed for unrelated reasons, not anything to do with how I may have reacted, and said, “That’s our Lucia!”

She then went on to say that she had a bad feeling about the weird goings-on near the baseball field, and she probably said some other things, but I was running away, so I didn’t hear her super well.

Oh, listeners! This is exciting. I received mail today! I didn’t think mail was still being delivered – not after what happened at the Post Office – but here it is! An envelope addressed to one Cecil Palmer in neat handwriting, with the address of the station right underneath. If you want to send us any mail, since apparently that is a thing which exists and is working now, our address is

[Perhaps the sound of ocean waves and birds played at 8kbps, followed by what sounds to me like three blows on a party horn, then a few moments of ambient crowd noise]

Night Vale,

[Possibly the sound of an RC car being driven around at high speed on bumpy ground and played back at 4kbps? Is 4kbps even a thing?]

Please do send stuff in. It’s always nice to hear from fans.

But, back to this envelope. Maybe this is silly, but I waited to open it until I was on the air. It seemed more fun if we could find out together what was inside. I’m, um, I’m opening it now…

[Sound of envelope being torn open]

And here we go. It’s…oh.

Huh.

It’s a greeting card! It says, “Thanks so much” on the front, and it has a picture of a cat playing with a ball of yarn, well that’s just the cutest! Although, I can’t imagine why someone sent me this card. I’m…I’m opening it…

Oh! Oh… oh. A photo fell out. Oh…dang it! It fell behind the desk. Um, the inside of the card just has the words “Thank you for what you did” printed, and then it’s signed “Erika,” over and over in multiple handwritings. Huh. Let me…let me try to grab that photo.

Ummmmm, I’m going to have to crawl under the desk. While I do that, here’s a word from our sponsors.

[Sounds of Cecil rustling around]

Today’s’ broadcast is sponsored by Kobe beef.

Kobe beef!
[Chime]
The beef that makes you fresh!

All right, listeners, I got the photo. And it’s…it’s a photo of…me, at City Hall…I’m fighting off a pack of antiques in front of the mayor’s door, but…that wasn’t me! Intern Hector did that, last month. He came back with that bite? I don’t remember ever leaving my desk when the antiques attacked our mayor. What…what is this photo? It must be fake.

It doesn’t look fake.

No. It must be fake. Right? Why would I not remember saving the mayor?

More on this later, as I face my fragile self and try to understand my own reality.

OK, now. This is getting out of hand. The Vague, Yet Menacing, Government Agency sent me a Snapchat and several anonymous asks on Tumblr, saying that they were happy about me doing that whole “broadcasting their secret codeword” thing before, but that the message didn’t seem to be getting through.

Or, it’s not a message, that was poor phrasing on their part, sorry, they’re just flustered talking to their favorite radio host.

Awwww!

They meant to say that they haven’t had the best birthday ever yet. And neither has their friend. Plus, they forgot to mention, millions and millions of people have the same birthday as them, think of how many people have their birthday today and all of them, the Agency is sure, “just want you to say that little thing again. Just once more, in your smoothest, deepest voice.”

They say that they’ve made it so our station is currently broadcasting on every single radio frequency, so no one could possibly miss these special birthday greetings, and it will finally be the “best birthday ever.”

This is the last time. OK? I’m doing it just once more, here I go. And really try to enjoy this, because I am not doing it again.

BRINY DEPTHS

[Momentary static]

Oh.

[More momentary static]

Whats’ going on? There’s shouting coming from the break room it’s, uh…it sounds like a scuffle, and…

[More momentary static, Cecil comes back at lower audio quality]

There’s also shouting coming from outside. Uhh, a lot of shouting.

[Yet more static]

A roar of voices, the stomping feet of a crowd.

[More static, Cecil’s voice again lowers in audio quality]

These birthday greetings were apparently very special. I need to go see what this commotion is about.

[Yet even more static, audio quality of Cecil’s voice degrades even more, static gets more persistent ]

I’ll be back soon. In the meantime, those with birthdays and those who were never born, I take you to the weather.

[“The Bends” by Doomtree]

Whoo! I’ll tell you! That was quite a scene.

I will tell you, right now.

It seems that “BRINY DEPTHS” was, in fact, a code word (wish they had warned me about that) for an undercover agent in the field. Unfortunately, it seems that it was the code world for every secret agent in the field, the signal for all of them to do every nefarious action that they had been planted years ago to perform. All over town, people we thought of as friends and family revealed themselves to be carefully planted agents.

Adam Bayer, weekday shift manager at the Ralph’s, grabbed a discount soup display and carried it to an unmarked van that had been sitting in the parking lot as long as anyone could remember, and then drove wildly away.

Hundreds of bushes and trees leapt into action, revealing themselves to be suit-and-sunglass wearing agents in disguise, using clever costumes that fooled all of us for years – such as holding a hand-written sign that says “I am a tree.”

Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, lit his refrigerator on fire, but he said that wasn’t because of any secret agent stuff, he just wanted to do that. Someone had suggested it to him once, although he could not remember who.

In fact, it seems that every single person in Night Vale was actually a secret agent waiting to be activated. We had all been implanted with the exact same code phrase, which is the kind of sloppy organization that is just what our government is coming to.

Or…whatever.

And such.

[Exasperated sigh]

You know, look. Honestly, my heart isn’t in this reporting. Blah, blah, everyone we’ve ever known is secretly an agent. But…here I am, listeners, secretly a hero. Secret even from myself! It was not Hector who saved Dana, but me. Me, acting without memory or agency. What…what is happening to me? How do I not remember something so huge?

I…I need to talk to Carlos. Perhaps science can help me. Science so rarely applies to the real world, but once in a while it provides a nice metaphor or turn of phrase that makes you think about real things differently. I’m…I’m hoping Carlos can do that for me.

Now that everyone has been activated as a secret agent, and did the one thing they were secretly supposed to do for years, everyone has just gone right back to doing what they had been doing before. Everything is back to normal, except that we all know we are all secretly undercover planted agents here to spy on each other and since we all know it, we are no longer secret agents. We are just ourselves, secretly.

Listen, I know it’s confusing. But I didn’t invent logic. Our extraterrestrial ancestors did.

Stay tuned next for all the air being sucked out of the room you’re in, we’re sorry, we’re so sorry, but this is the only way.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: I let my haters be my motivators. Mostly they tell me I suck, and then I get sad. This was a terrible idea.

Episode 62 - Hatchets

Dare to dream. Do it. We dare you. Go ahead, dream.

It’ll be fine. We promise.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Leann Hart, publishing editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal, announced today that, for a limited time, the Daily Journal will print actual newspapers again. No longer will subscribers have only the Imagination Edition of the daily paper, a compulsory and automatic $60 monthly charge to imagine whatever news you want. They will, once again, have the tyranny of a printed daily edition – where all of the stories are immovable declarations of recent history, told by a biased and underpaid third party.

“It’s an exciting time to work in print journalism!” Hart shouted after a news blogger who was sprinting away from the hatchet-wielding veteran of the printed word.

Hart then hurled another hatchet at the terrified representative of the Daily Journal’s digital competition. She hit her target just behind the knee, felling him as he made a sharp cry and a dull asphalt thud.

“Very exciting,” Hart shouted. She added, “These printed versions of the daily paper are collector’s items. We’ve deliberately inserted a bunch of errors into them because, true collectors know, that makes them worth a bunch more.”

Listeners, I for one think a resurgence in the newspaper industry would be great. This could mean even more jobs here in Night Vale.

“This will create lots of new jobs for Night Vale,” Hart will certainly have said by this time tomorrow. “Lots of real awesome jobs,” I am sure she will have reiterated.

And now, a look at traffic.

There’s an accident at the corner of Hollows Road and Great Hills Drive. It’s a pretty bad accident. It is likely neither party saw an accident of this magnitude coming. Each driver stands, staring, dumbfounded at their two twisted cars, which look like one. One…what? Not a car. A spiteful burning beast borne of mundane haste and arrogant industrial progress.

The two drivers cannot comprehend what to do. They are still, mostly. Fidgeting, sometimes. Thinking, not at all.

A neighbor who came out of her house upon hearing the hard smash of hard metal can’t seem to process what is happening, either. She’s slowly leaning away as if wanting to leave, wanting to forget she ever witnessed this, but she cannot move. She cannot take that first step. Her eyes, growing wide, wild, as her mouth opens, slack at first, and then slowly recoils into an unheard scream.

The two drivers feel the neighbor there, but they do not turn. They do not ask for help, or aid. Too scared to move, they stand and gaze into the crumpled slits along the sides of the pressed cars, that damnable block of hot machinery and its black smoke swirls.

And on the concrete, there is glass. And above the glass are arms, and hair, and drying blood. And the drivers stare at their own wretched bodies inside the mangled contraptions, and they do not think about anything other than what they once were. They watch their bodies, hoping for a twitch, a breath, any kind of movement. Hoping for another chance in life.

So, it’s backed up pretty bad near the Best Buy. Choose some alternate routes today.

This has been traffic.

You know me, listeners. I’m a pretty straight and narrow radio professional. I am all about objectivity and impartiality. But it’s time for a Cecil Palmer Editorial.

Given the growing prevalence of the internet – not just on computers, but also phones and watches and owls and certain trees – our private information is just out there, waiting to be taken and exploited by the wrong kinds of people. Of course, it’s vitally important that Vague, Yet Menacing Government Agencies have access to our personal data – like income, dream journals, phone logs, embarrassing thoughts, and slash fiction archives. Ooh, also, the police and the world government. Oh, and the mayor, and the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in All of Our Homes. Yes, those people should all have access to our private data.

But now, there are things called “scripts” and “algorithms” that can just scan our emails and our purchase history and all those photos of cats wearing baseball mitts we like to share with each other, and these scripts and algorithms are sometimes called “bots.”

These bots are large cyborgs that break into our homes and look through our stuff, and then feed these secrets to corporations and then, these corporations make more bots, and soon, we will have to fight bot armies. But with what? Knives and guns are completely internet-based now. They will turn against us in that war. We are not safe from the impending bot wars.

So, stop having personal data is what I’m trying to say. No more emails, no more job histories, Night Vale, no more cat pictures, or erotic fan fic, or text messages.

I know, I know this is difficult. On the one hand, we enjoy having personal information like careers and friends and hobbies. On the other hand, we’re talking about war. And on the third eleven-fingered hand, nothing is to say that bots wouldn’t be benevolent leaders, but I do not wish to find this out.

I’m sure the naysayers will tell me that I’m overreacting – which I am, but…it’s my opinion, OK? You don’t get to tell me whose overreacting. You’re underreacting, I’ll say! Yeah, I’ll totally say that. I’ll say it right to their face, that–

What? What’s that?

Oh. Oh, OK.

Uh, listeners? Intern Maureen just handed me a note explaining that the City Council has just declared all information totally public. And that since no information is private anymore, the giant corporations and their bots cannot harm us by mining private data. The city will keep all our information safely out in the open, and available to anyone wearing sunglasses and a sidearm.

Hey, thanks Maureen!

Moments ago, the Sheriff’s Secret Police held a secret press conference reminding us that all murder is illegal. Also, attempted murder.

“Like, let’s say you try to kill a person, but you don’t actually succeed,” a Secret Police spokesperson whispered from behind a concrete pillar in the underground garage of the disused East Night Vale Mall. “Then, that’s still illegal, even if you didn’t kill that person.”

“But, what if you just think about killing a person but don’t actually do it?” came one question from the batch of reporters, who were also whispering and hiding.

“Well, that’s not illegal, then” the spokesperson whispered in reply.

“But, I have it all planned out and everything!” the reporter continued. “I just haven’t done it yet. Is that illegal?”

“Well, that’s just mean, and kind of weird,” said the Secret Police spokesperson before walking out into the open and saying, “Leann, is that you?”

“Umm, no! No. Noo. NOOOO!” came a comically deep voice that was obviously fake. “Not me at all! I’m just an old bagel wrapper someone left on the ground! I’m inanimate garbage!”

“Leann, we know it’s you,” said the spokesperson. “Stop attacking bloggers with hatchets! We found a dozen more wounded bloggers in Mission Grove Park this morning! They all had hatchets in their backs, and were very upset. It’s not nice, Leann! It’s also illegal, OK?”

“I’m a bagel wrapper, you…jerk!” Hart replied, still whispering and hiding.

And now, a word from our sponsor.

You are thirsty. Of course you are. We are all metaphorically thirsty for better things, but you are literally thirsty. Literally thirsty for anything. You could feel your dry lips, swollen and sticking together, their crusted gray edges adorning the pink pain beneath. You lick your lips, felling better for a moment, but actually worsening the problem.

It’s hot, right? Pretty hot and dry, actually.

Are those flies? Yes. Those are flies.

Are those birds…vultures? Yes. Actual vultures in your home.

“How did these soaring scavengers get in my home?” you think.

Perhaps you could use some cool, pure, natural and refreshing Fiji Water. Yes, Fiji Water sounds sooo nice, doesn’t it?

But Fiji Water is not who is sponsoring this show. Fiji Water doesn’t even know about this show. Who is sponsoring this show? We cannot tell you. We’re not allowed.

Fiji Water is completely unaware of you, too.

So sorry, this will not end quickly. So very, very sorry.

This has been a word from our sponsor.

This afternoon, Night Vale High School and the armed militia that make up our Committee for Civic Pride are holding a ticker tape parade for local sports hero Michael Sandero, who became the first Night Vale High athlete to play in a college football national title game.

Unfortunately, Sandero’s team, the University of Michigan Wolverines [ed. note: Cecil still pronounces it “Mitchigan”], lost to copies of themselves in the title game. But Sandero did win the Heisman Trophy for the nation’s best college football player, and did his hometown proud.

Intern Maureen, who I sent to report on the parade…oh…is texting me that there’s a problem. Um, I’m getting word that Leann Hart has interrupted the festivities with an announcement.

Oh, wow. According to Maureen’s flurry of texts, Hart is claiming that Michigan did not play itself for the title. As proof of her claim, Hart passed out copies of a news article from the Michigan Daily from January 13, stating that at the end of the season, Michigan lost more games than they won, and that their quarterback’s name is Devin Gardner? Not Michael Sandero.

On the front page of that issue of the Daily is a headline strongly indicating that people at the University of Michigan can remember most things correctly. Pretty Much No Major Memory Problems Here, the headline reads.

She also claims that a school called Ohio State [ed. note: Cecil pronounces Ohio as Oh-hee-oh] won the national title over a school called Oregon [ed. note: Cecil pronounces it Or-ee-gone].

Maureen confirmed that while Ohio is, in fact, a U.S. state, Michigan and Oregon are neither states nor cities anyone seems to have heard of before. We’re still trying to figure out their languages of origin.

Maureen is texting me that Hart is now shouting “Blogger!” over and over. Maureen is texting me that Hart is hurling hatchets now, Maureen is texting me that everyone looks pretty scared, Maureen just texted me, “I’m hit.”

Um, let– let me…let me respond really quick.

Is…that…slang…or something…Maureen?

OK, she texted back, “I’m hit, she got me, I’m bleeding.”

Um, uh…[exasperated sigh]

I…I don’t understand young people and their weird text-speak at all. Who even knows what she’s trying to say? Well, whatever.

While I text Maureen back with a quick grammar lesson, let me take you to the weather.

[“Anarchy Date” by Queer Rocket]

Listeners, I have just learned that Maureen was struck with a hatchet thrown by Leann Hart.

So, then:

To the family of Intern Maureen, she was a good intern. A valiant intern. Brave, right up until the end. Sadly, she is with us no more. She will be missed.

For the hatchet attack on Maureen, as well as several other attacks at today’s parade, and more than five dozen similar hatchet-based assaults in the past several weeks, the Sheriff’s Secret Police arrested Leann Hart.

“We told you it was illegal to kill people, Leann!” the Sheriff himself said from his hover-office in the clouds. “And also, to try to kill people.”

“But they were news bloggers!” Hart replied. “I can’t stay in business and create jobs if news bloggers are putting me out of business and destroying those jobs!”

And the Sheriff agreed, saying it’s the Secret Police’s job to protect business interests, as well as citizen interests. The City Council also agreed. So did the Vague, Yet Menacing Government Agency, nodding quietly from inside their long, black sedans with tinted windows, while snapping photos of everything they saw.

The mayor did not agree. Mayor Dana Cardinal went against the City Council and said that she, for one, did not think people or businesses should be allowed to use physical violence against their competition or anyone, for that matter.

The City Council bristled, and then they all squawked and few away.

It is unclear whether or not news bloggers agree, as many of them have gone silent on this issue, replacing their investigative reports and think pieces with pictures of cats wearing baseball gloves and top-rated recipes for invisible pie.

The Sheriff then announced that all charges against Hart would be dropped, except for the assault on Intern Maureen.

“Maureen, after all, was not a news blogger, but a radio intern who posed no direct threat to Hart’s newspaper,” the Sheriff said.

And I agreed.

The Sheriff then played the entirety of Domenico Galli’s Sonata Quinta on his gold cello.

“But…but she looked like a blogger,” Hart insisted. “She was typing into her phone. All those bloggers do that! Bloggers love typing on their phones.”

“But she worked in radio, Leann,” the Sheriff said, as he ended a series of lilting high notes with a single discordant bass tone. He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry, but that is attempted murder. You have to go to jail now.”

“Oh! But I didn’t attempt to kill her! You said murder and attempted murder were illegal. Murder wasn’t my intent!” Leann said.

“Then what was your intent?” the Sheriff asked.

“Oh, just…throwing a hatchet at her.. Nothing more, nothing less,” Hart said. “I meant nothing by it,” she added, brushing her hands together, and then holding them out, empty and clean. Her open palms signified “case closed.” And the Sheriff, held to the higher law of gestures, had no choice but to acquiesce.

So Hart was set free, turned back into the world to print more news, to keep the industry alive.

Before she left, she paused and said, “I think something’s wrong in Michigan” [ed. note: quoting Leann, Cecil pronounces it as it is normally pronounced outside of Night Vale – when not quoting her, he continues to pronounce it “Mitchigan”] – and, listeners, that’s how she said it. I don’t know why, it’s very clear how it’s actually pronounced if you see it written out – and she held up her copy of the Michigan Daily from January 13 with an article that said, “Michigan, Sandero, Lose Close One To Themselves.” And the front page of the Michigan Daily now showed a bold headline, “We Have Forgotten So Many Things,” and in several blank columns with no story, merely pictures of normal things like shoes and birds and ghosts, all captioned with a series of frantic question marks.

“I guess I was wrong earlier. I don’t know. Weird, right?” Hart said with a shrug.

“That is crazy weird,” the Sheriff agreed, finishing out the sonata before disappearing in a soft breeze.

“I…agree!” said a nearby news blogger who was coughing up blood and clutching tightly to the hatchet lodged in her abdomen. “I…can’t…wait…to blog…about it!” the blogger said through gritted teeth.

Leann tightened her grip on the hatchet in her left hand, raising it slightly. There was a tense pause that was eventually broken by a light smirk from Leann Hart. Then, the two of them laughed and laughed. They are both still laughing now.

Because of the hatchet attack she survived today, Intern Maureen has resigned from radio – as I clearly,  and without any other possible interpretation, explained earlier.

Oh, she wasn’t hurt that badly, but Maureen went on and on about radio being a “dangerous job” and “totally not worth the constant risk of death.” I told her she makes it harder than it needs to be. She rolled her eyes, and packed up her desk.

I miss her already. She had a good sense of humor.

Stay tuned next for something clawing at your window. It will also be sniffing. Sniffing and clawing at your window. Occasionally, it will wail. Occasionally, you will hear nothing. So, to recap: sniffing and clawing at your window over and over, with the occasional piercing wail, and then long silences. All that, next.

And as always, goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Ask your doctor just who he thinks he is. Say it just like that. Say, “Who do you think you are?” See if he starts crying. I know I would.