Episode 103 - Ash Beach
We make money the old-fashioned way. We chemically convert lead into gold.
Welcome to Night Vale.
The Night Vale Tourism Board announced that after 12 years of super-fond site cleanup, Ash Beach reopened today to the public. The Tourism Board’s new brochure shows a young happy family having a picnic lunch and wearing respirator masks, building ash castles and flying kites against the blackened sky. We’re landlocked here in the desert with no body of water in sight, so back in the 1950’s, the city decided to create a public beach made entirely out of municipally burned books that were deemed too dangerous or too boring to reach.
Carlos and I are so excited about the reopening of the beach. We are already planning a trip in the next few weeks with the family. According to the Tourism Board, there will be a refurbished boardwalk there with food trucks and carnival games. Beachgoers can stroll down the pier and watch the surfers lie on their boards, as we all wait for the oceans to rise dramatically enough that Night Vale finally has a waterfront.
This Friday Night, Dark Owl Records will be hosting an album release party for Stevie Ray Vaughan’s new album called “Beyoncé”. Which is a collection of instrumental covers of Leonard Cohen’s greatest hits. Vaughan’s unique approach to music has always been to askew instruments altogether and simply read the name of each chord aloud. Vaughan will be at the store taking selfies with fans and asking everyone how he got here, and why he cannot hold tangible objects.
Sunday at the Rec Center is the annual gun show sponsored by the Night Vale chapter of the NRA. All patrons receive a free trucker hat that reads “Guns don’t kill people, unless you shoot those people with said gun and then they die. But other than that one specific situation, we’ve never known a gun to kill anybody.” Gun dealers from all over the United States will be at the show, selling handguns and hunting rifles and telling fantastical stories about a mythical government that would try, even in the slightest, to regulate gun ownership. The first 500 ticket buyers will have their government-implanted tracking chips surgically removed for free.
We’re getting reports that the grand re-opening of Ash Beach is going.. well, oh, not well as in good I mean well as in.. I’m not sure what to say next. So the beach, which is completely black and not at all connected to any body of water, is apparently really hot. And beachgoers are having a difficult time getting the dark ash stains off their burning skin. Also, there are reports of hazy humanoid figures emerging from the ash. They have long thin arms, gaping mouths with hundreds of tiny square teeth, round glowing eyes, and they shimmer in and out of visibility. Some witnesses reported hearing faint clicks and crunches, like someone rapidly chewing egg shells.
Amber Akinyi and Wilson Levy are celebrating their first wedding anniversary at Ash Beach today. They clam to have seen these ephemeral beings and moments later, experienced a flood of memories that never happened to them. Wilson remembered his wedding six years ago to his high school girlfriend Tanya. The memory was so clear, Tanya in her strapless white gown with ivory piping.. Ew. His best man Aiden accidentally dropping the ring and comically chasing it as it rolled into the third row. The string trio playing Pachelbel’s “Hey Ya” as ushers escorted guests into seats and pushed the safety bars down firmly over their shoulders. But Wilson claimed he never knew anyone named Tanya and was never married to anyone before Amber. Telling this story, he had tears in his eyes. The fond memory of the wedding he never had still fresh in his mind.
Amber remembered a vacation resort a few miles from Mount Kilimanjaro. She was only eight years old, she was standing outside the resort near her mother’s Toyota pickup truck. Her mother was speaking in Luau to an elderly couple. The couple said they wanted to ride to a camp checkpoint at the base of the mountain. Her mother offered them a ride as she was going to the same place. Amber, her mother, and the couple shared the cramped bench seat, as they rode toward the cloud-shrouded peak. The couple smelled like coffee and brand new sleeping bags. They offered Amber some kashata and told her about different types of birds.
Amber said that she had never been to Tanzania and that her mother passed away when Amber was only three. Nor does Amber believe in mountains, nor does she know what kashata is, and she doesn’t know a single word of Luau, so the memory could not be real. But she could understand the Luau in her memory, and could taste the soft coconut crunch of the kashata.
Wilson brushed Amber’s cheek and she kissed his wrist. They both cried quietly as they laid out some small shovels and buckets, rubbed UV protective lotion on their arms, unfolded beach chairs and elected a large umbrella.
More on this story as it develops.
Good news, listeners. Five-headed dragon Hadassah McDaniels and her legion of dragon lawyers, from whatever dragon world they’re from, have stopped crushing local businesses. And eating pets. And setting fire to public parks. The bad news is that we’re not certain what the dragons are doing right now. No one has seen them in over a week. It’s like when you see a spider and then you turn your head, and when you look back, that spider is gone. And that is the true definition of horror, because you don’t know where that spider is, and you miss it so much. It was a really cute spider!
The dragons were last seen visiting the Terrible Court of the Distant Prince. It was difficult to say for certain that it was the Distant Prince, because those who saw this visitation said it happened quite a long way away. Witnesses reported that they definitely saw the dragons talking with what looked like a young man wearing a crown, his form blurred as though moving quickly, even though he was standing still. But he was partially hidden by harbingers, as well as court shriekers and mangled servants. The witnesses did not mention seeing any hollow-eyed weepers, so it may not have been the Distant Prince at all. Maybe a Distant Viscount. At best, a Distant Earl. A Distant Countess, even?
Listeners. Old Woman Josie’s daughter Alondra wanted me to thank everyone for all of the good wishes and gifts to her and her dying mother. She asked that people please stop sending flowers though. She has nowhere to put them. And plus, flowers are sort of gross. “You realize that flowers are just water and manure and seeds and dirt,” Alondra Ortiz said. “They look and smell nice but just remember what the smell is made of. Gross! Stop it,” she said. Then she added, “I mean if you already sent flowers, they’re beautiful, thank you.” And then she rolled her eyes.
Carlos and I visited Josie last Saturday. We brought her and Alondra a framed photo of Josie breaking ground at the New Old Night Vale Opera House. For a picture that’s only a couple years old, Josie looks so young. It’s her smile, I think. Her smile never aged. In the photo, she’s wearing a hardhat, orange construction vest, tanned jodhpurs, and five-toed running shoes. She’s holding a shovel filled with dirt in front of a sign that says “Opera House: coming soon!” She was so proud of Night Vale that day. I showed the picture to Josie who was lying in her bed, eyes open. She didn’t respond. I wish I had visited sooner, but I was glad to have seen her again before she leaves us. Carlos patted her hand and I kissed her forehead. I said, “Josie, Carlos and I love you. As does Alondra. As do all of the angels.” And at this point, I heard the citywide “angels acknowledged” sirens go off, but I didn’t care. There were angels all over her house! There have been for years, and I’m sort of tired of pretending they’re not there. “The angels love you and will take care of you, Josie,” I said loudly over the sound of the blaring sirens, and I think I saw that young smile gently touch the corners of her dry pursed mouth.
In lieu of flowers, might I recommend donations to the Opera House in Josie’s name? Or any place that supports the arts. Nothing would make her happier.
We’re getting more updates from Ash Beach. Everyone at the beach today is covered in dark ashes, their skin burning, the sun muted by a cloud of char. They have all seen the waggling, hazy figures that fade in and out of sight. The figures open their long mouths and point their spindly arms at people, and those people in turn experience vibrant memories that never happened. Frances Donaldson, manager of the Antiques Mall, said she remembered winning a silver medal for figure skating in the Olympic games, but she’s never even seen ice in real life. Green Market Co-opt Board president, Tristan Cortez, said when the figures on the beach pointed at him, he remembered being lost in the wilderness with a Golden Retriever friend of his. They were soon joined by a Himalayan cat. They were all homeward bound, sharing an incredible journey together. But that never happened! Tristan said it was actually a Bullterrier and a Siamese cat, and that this new memory is false.
John Peters, you know, the farmer, said he had a striking memory of his brother, Jim. The memory was from only two days ago. Jim was cleaning out the tractor shed with John. John said it was unusually warm for late winter and they were both getting tired. It was almost noon, and John wanted to break for lunch but Jim said, “Hey Johnnie, look at what I found!” John said Jim held up an old football. “It’s from when we was kids, Johnnie!” Jim said of a memory instigated by a physical object inside John’s memory from today of something that didn’t happen earlier this week. John and Jim went out into their untilled fields of imaginary corn and tossed the ball around for nearly an hour. John said he wished this memory was real. His brother’s been off serving in the blood space war for nearly 40 years now. “He probably ain’t even arrived at whatever planet he’s supposed to fight yet. What with the, destructive limitations on matter as it approaches the speed of light,” John said, sadly reminiscing about his long-lost sibling. “I bet they gotta be in a kinda frozen space sleep or something like in that documentary, ‘Aliens’,” he added.
Listeners, if you’re at Ash Beach, try not to look at the thin beings coming up from the ashes. Hide from their pointing hands, and above all, do not trust the memories they fill your mind with. They are untrue, they are fever dreams. They. Are. Lies.
Wait, in fact I’m just now getting word from witnesses that large waves are crashing down on Ash Beach. There’s no indication where the water is coming from as Night Vale, again, is in a desert. Some beachgoers began tearing hoods off cars and using them as surf boards. Someone has spelled out “HELP LOST” in seaweed, but the crashing waves washed it all away. Many people are being dragged out into a nonexistent sea by a dangerous undertow. Where is this water coming from? Until we know for certain, stay away from ash beach.
More soon, but now the weather.
[“Faded” by P.O.S. feat Lady Midnight, doomtree.net/pos]
The tide has ebbed, the beach is clear. The ashes are gone, washed out to.. well. Oh, not well as in I don’t know what to say in next, I meant well as in an old well, that appeared in the same spot it had stood two summers ago, draining the water into it in a direct reversal of a well’s usual role and then vanishing again, as old well’s often do.
Well. Ash Beach is neither ash nor beach anymore. Simply a great expanse of sand and less and dry. Those who saw the shimmering apparitions said the memories they were given are as real as ever. They were not merely daydreams, nor vivid hallucinations, they are actual events that never happened.
Simone Rigideau, the transient who lives in the Earth Sciences Building of the Night Vale Community College and who recently began teaching courses there, much to the chagrin of the college administration, said she was at Ash Beach today and she saw the figures. She saw their pointing, wriggling translucent appendages, she saw their numerous flat teeth in their long gray mouths, she saw their bulbous white eyes, she heard the sound of crunching like chewing egg shells, and she had a memory. She remembered the college campus. She remembered it was 1983. She remembered students with boomboxes, Trans-Am muscle cars. She remembered the news anchors that day, Tim and Trin, with their feathered-hair double-Windsor neckties, shoulder pads, and deep maroon nail polish. She remembered the news of missiles already launched, apologies for a miscommunication, a mistake in a training drill. Apologies not accepted. Missiles launched to retaliate. She remembered the news anchors Tim and Trin trying not to cry, trying to report the news. She remembered students and faculty gathered around the television, trying not to cry, trying to receive the news. She remembered… the world ending. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with silence. The absence of thought and feeling. Everyone went missing all at once together – time, body, memory… gone.
Simone then said she remembered something else, from the new memory she received today. A woman with a deer mask had appeared on the television screen, her face flickering through the loud static and obscuring the faces of Tim and Trin. She spoke in a language unknown to Simone but… she recognized the name of the woman. Huntokar.
[cheerfully] “Oh, I know Huntokar,” I said. “She did this, Cecil,” Simone said. “Huntokar is super weird,” I said, “makes sense that she would be behind this whole ‘Ash Beach’ thing.” “I’m not talking about the beach,” Simone said. “Then what are you talking about?” I said. “She is the destroyer!” Simone said, shaking her head. Simone said she remembered the world ending, it was so clear, so vivid. But it did not end. She touched my arm and said that we are here. How are we here? I told Simone, “You always say the world ended in 1983, I don’t see how this is so special for you.” She said, “I knew it ended. I just couldn’t remember it ending. Now I do. The world ended, Cecil, I saw it on the news!” “Oh then it must be true,” I said. “Are you being sarcastic?” she asked. “Why would I do that?” I replied. “I still can’t tell if you are or not,” she said, eyeing me suspiciously. I don’t understand what she was getting at.
Whatever our truth, Night Vale, you can feel your body. Hear my voice. See the sunlight through dissipating ash clouds. I do not know if we are real. But we are alive. We are tangible, feeling, and whole.
Stay tuned next for the sound of something trying to dig its way out of your chest.
Good night, Night Vale, good night.
Today’s proverb: if you’re not wearing a denim vest, then this conversation is over.