August 2019

151 - The Waterfall

One morning, as Josh Crayton was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed, he had been changed into a towering, gushing waterfall.

Welcome to Night Vale.

The alarm had been going off for a while, but Josh hadn’t heard it. Now he was going to be late. More upsetting than that, his bed was soaking wet. Josh was mortified until he realized that he had changed into the shape of a waterfall at some point during the night. Josh was used to changing shapes, he had been born a shapeshifter, after all. But he rarely changed into something he hadn’t intended to, never in his sleep, and he could always change back easily.
Now, no matter how hard he tried, he just kept pouring and cascading and splashing over rocks, and being super annoyingly loud.
Something had gone very wrong.

Lately, Josh had been staying in the form of a human teenage boy. He had grown to like his human shape, at times he even thought he was handsome in an understated kind of way. Last night at a party was the first time he had used his abilities in forever.
He normally didn’t like to use shapeshifting as a party trick, but last night had been different. He wanted to impress the boy. Josh changed into all the shapes the boy requested, including a bunch he had never thought to try, like mochi ice cream, primordial jungle flora, a bad idea, a hasty plan, and the gearshift knob from a Nash Rembler.

He’d seen the boy in class before, but had barely noticed him, to be honest. Once they started talking, the boy had become very noticeable. He was laid back, yet keenly alert, like a hawk. Soft spoken yet hilarious, also like a hawk. Teasing, yet kind. Like a very - attractive - hawk.

At the end of the night, Josh wrote his number on the boy’s red plastic cup in sharpie and walked home smiling, even though it was late and he had to get up early the next morning to retake his driving test for the fifth time. He was 18 and still without a license. Every time he had taken the test before, he got nervous and turned into a shape that was utterly unfit to drive. A rhinoceros. A warm hug from an old friend. A bookshelf filled with first edition Zadie Smiths. “Oh, I haven’t read Swing Time yet,” Shoshanna from the DMV had said, plucking the book off of him before failing him for not having eyes with which to check his mirrors.

The alarm sounded again. Josh tried to calm his rising panic, but it was difficult to do with the constant roaring of falling water in his ears and his distractingly chill body temperature. He closed his eyes and repeated a mantra he once heard on a Home Depot radio ad: “A triple thick roof of natural cedar shingles. A triple thick roof of natural. Cedar. Shingles.” It always helped him feel more grounded. But no matter how he felt or what he tried, he was still a water fall tumbling and plunging and rambling along, in picturesque tributaries against his will.

Josh knew he couldn’t drive a car in his condition. He probably couldn’t even open the door handle. And if, somehow, he managed to pass the exam, the thought of getting his picture taken like this was embarrassing at best. There was nothing he could do but sit in his room and froth and foam, and swirl, and wait.

By Monday, the situation still hadn’t cleared up. Josh wanted to stay home from class, but his mother Diane, whom he still lived it, made him go. She said that he was obsessing over his looks, and that no one would even notice, and that he was already nearly failing his history and English courses, and did he want to be put on academic probation his very first year in college? Josh couldn’t argue with this, mainly because there were too many different ideas all smashed together, and it was easier to just do as she said.

His friends on campus thought it was a joke at first. Josh tried to be casual about it. He told them that he was stuck like this at the moment. They were very understanding and treated him just the same as always. He actually started to feel better about the whole thing, and that maybe he was silly for having been stressed about it at all.

In his first class, however, he was sent to the Dean’s office for creating a distraction. He went without argument, and explained that this was a physical condition beyond his control and not some immature hazing prank. He received an apology and was sent back to class with an administrative note in case this became a recurring issue. The note had to be laminated and waterproofed, which took some time, and Josh missed an important quiz.

In the quad, an engineering student that Josh barely knew ran right through him on a dare from her friends. She didn’t even make eye contact with him, just ran away screaming, while her squad roared with laughter at the picnic tables. Josh left campus soon afterwards, not caring about flunking or vanity, or whatever else he was supposed to care about. He felt violated and angry, and also ashamed of himself. These were not sensations he was used to feeling, and on top of that, he had started to grow moss along his ledge, which felt slimy and gross and could not be ignored. His self-consciousness had become overwhelming.

Josh sat behind the Desert Flower Bowling Alley drinking a blue slurpie and watching himself dabble all over the hard-packed sand. He felt some relief in being alone, and in being somewhere that his shape wouldn’t have any consequences. Unless, he supposed, he stayed there too long and formed a river or something like that.

He thought of going way out in the desert and becoming an oasis. That might be exciting. He could donate himself as a public service to the thirsty animals and exiled citizens and fearl toddlers that roamed the land. He could create a grove of green trees and lush plants, a refuse for new life. Maybe even new species of life, all springing forth from his gushing, messy body. He pictured a furry lizard with several blinking golden eyes. He pictured a one-legged bird with psychic abilities. He pictured the years melting away, the oasis growing. A green valley emerging. Then multiple valleys, a new civilization might form, rising around the ebb and flow of his waters, growing from mud huts to Ziggurats, to steel towers, and eventually again decaying, again to mud huts, before disappearing for good. And all the while Josh would be there, steadily supplying the lifeblood of their Earth-bound existence.

Suddenly his phone vibrated in the crevice of his rocky outcropping. There was a text from an unknown number. It read: “Hey Mochi”, followed by an emoji of a winking face. “Wanna do something later?” And that was followed by an emoji showing the entirety of possible human free time activities. This was obviously sent by the boy from the party. The surge of excitement ignited by these fix words was instantly extinguished by heavy, wet dread. Josh cringed at the thought of the boy seeing him like this, and of trying to explain it to him. They didn’t know each other that well and it was just too awkward. Josh tried to change shape again,  now with renewed effort. He wanted to see the boy later and in order to do that, he needed to not be a waterfall.

After an hour of intense concentration and no results, his phone vibrated again. “This is Monty, by the way, we met at the party”. Josh burbled in frustration. He thought of several texts he could send back, but none of them were the text he really wanted to send, which was “Yeah I know who you are LOL, let’s meet up”. After a moment of staring helplessly at his screen, he turned his phone on silent and put it back under his outcropping.

Josh stayed behind the bowling alley for a long time, churning and flowing and watching the sunset over the dumpsters. He noticed a thick vapor hanging in the sky above him, and wondered if he was affecting
the weather.

[“Always Right” by Anne Reburn]

Josh skipped class the rest of that week. He sometimes went to the movie theater during the day. Usually nothing was playing, but it was at least dark and empty and quiet. And the staff there seemed to appreciate how Josh inadvertently cleaned away the sticky soda and popcorn spills on the floor. They gave him free lifetime passes and encouraged him to return often. He missed the deadline for an essay, which meant that he would probably fail English for real. He ignored calls and texts. He couldn’t stand the thought of being around people. Instead of getting used to his new shape, he just became colder, wetter, slimier, and more uncomfortable by the day.

Finally on Friday around 5 PM, Josh was spotted by some friends who were cruising around town, bumping NPR’s “All Things Considered” on the subwoofer and looking for mischief. They called out to him and pulled over. They were excited to see him and asked all kinds of questions: was he sick? Where had he been? There were rumors going about on campus about him, what was the real story?
Josh didn’t know how to answer, so he just shrugged and bubbled and eddied around their tires. They were in an old pickup truck that they had just purchased real cheap from John Peters - you know, the farmer -and planned to take it out driving super fast through the sand wastes. Did Josh want to come?
Josh did want to. But he hesitated, eyeing the small cab that would definitely not fit his body. But, on an impulse, Josh jumped onto the track bed, ricocheting off the sides in big embarrassing splashes.
Everyone cheered, and Josh almost smiled, and off they went.

The wind ripped past him warm and fast. He joked with his friends through the window. It suddenly felt like any other carefree Friday afternoon. After parading around town for a while, they pulled into the gas station for snacks. Josh waited outside in the truck bed. He was thinking that he would probably go back to class on Monday, when a voice called to him.
“Josh, is that you?”
Josh knew the voice and it filled him with nervous electricity.
“I texted you a few times. Are you ghosting me or did you write down your number wrong?”
The boy’s playful forwardness hit Josh with some kind of feeling.
“I uh, I I don’t know I’m, I’m I’m bad at checking my texts,” Josh mumbled in a non-playful, unstraightforward way that no one could ever find attractive.
The boy named Monty nodded, still smiling.
“Gotcha. So ghosting then?”
Josh swallowed, and his throat would have been dry except that it was made of pure water.
“Nice waterfall,” Monty said, jumping up on the tailgate and letting Josh’s mist cool him off.
“Uh thanks,” said Josh, wishing the sun would evaporate him immediately.
“I’ve been wondering what you would look like as a bread crumb,” said Monty. The word “breadcrumb” sounded sexy the way Monty said it.
“Like maybe from a blueberry scone or something like that,” he elaborated.
Josh surged down violently at the ground and said, “I don’t really feel like it right now.”
Monty nodded a little sadly and jumped off the tailgate, getting the message.
“Sure. Maybe next time, I’ll see you around,” he said and then he was gone.
Josh’s friends came out of the gas station and they had bought him an ice cream bar, the kind of with a hard chocolate shell covering vanilla ice cream, with a candy tarantula in the middle, Josh’s favorite.
Josh ate it, but tasted nothing.

Josh did not go back to class on Monday. He said goodbye to his mother and walked to campus, and then walked past it, and then just kept on walking. He didn’t have a plan, but after he’d gone into the desert ways he circled back to his oasis idea. Though it started as a back alley blue Slurpie dream, it now presented itself as an actual life plan. Why not? He wasn’t going to graduate college, or get a driver’s license, or be socially functional ever again, he might as well create an abundance of life in an otherwise barren wasteland. Josh felt self-sacrificing and heroic upon arriving at this decision, and marched around all day looking for the perfect place to set up shop, i.e. his new life henceforth forever. 

He found an especially desolate location and settled in. But standing there for hours while nothing happened was tedious work. Josh decided to do something productive while he waited, like maybe compose a song or write a novel. He hummed for a while, but discovered he wasn’t talented at songwriting or humming, so he tried to write a novel, an espionage thriller about the college basketball team, but he found he didn’t know enough about basketballs or spies or how to properly craft suspense fiction. 

He thought maybe he should try writing something more personal, like a story about what had happened to him this past week. Maybe he could even write it in third person, he could pretend to be some other narrator altogether, some random omniscient God voice totally removed from his problematic body, and try to look at things through its eyes. Maybe doing this would help him get a new perspective on the situation. Maybe that would be useful somehow. Or maybe not. But it was worth a try anyway.

Josh went to work on this project while the rest of him spilled and whooshed, flooded against the sun baked earth. He wrote until he couldn’t feel his body anymore. For a long time, he was only aware of his words and thoughts, his self-consciousness was finally not unconscious. At the end of his story, Josh did feel better, though nothing had changed physically. He still didn’t know if he would ever regain control over his shapeshifting ability. He still had all the same problems he did before, but they didn’t seem quite as insurmountable as they had. That was pretty cool. Plus he made himself laugh by using words like “henceforth” and “insurmountable”. And it felt good to laugh.

He thought if he could get his story read over the air on the local radio station, maybe other people would hear it and understand his situation better too. Like maybe his family would hear it, and know that he was doing OK. And that he would probably come home soon, because there were no animals drinking from his oasis, and he was really just creating a whole lot of mud out here.
And maybe his English professor would hear it and let him use it as credit for his missing essay.

And maybe even the boy would hear it. Maybe if the boy was still interested, they could go to a movie sometime. If not, Josh would totally understand, because Josh acted like kind of a jerk the last time they saw each other, but Josh does get free lifetime passes at the theater now, and it would be a shame to waste them on just sitting alone in the dark.

Signed,
Josh Crayton.

OK, Josh. Happy to help. Please tell Diane I said hi.

Stay tuned, listeners. No one knows what the future holds. Sometimes all you can do is stay tuned.

Good night,
Night Vale,
good night.

Today’s proverb: All is not lost. Some of it is intentionally hidden.

152 - The Great Golden Hand

Here it comes.
Here it comes!
The Great Golden Hand!
Hurrah, rejoice! It nears, it nears!

Welcome to Night Vale.

Wonderful news, residents. City officials report that within the next few hours, we should expect the arrival of the Great Golden Hand. This will mark the first visit from the Great Golden Hand in nearly 80 years. Older residents and those who up until recently did not age will remember the last visit fondly. Those were the days, when the air felt crisper somehow, as though growing older does not cause a degradation of self, but rather a degradation of everything outside of self. We project our own decline upon the world and complain that everything was righter and better at the time that we coincidentally were at our physical and mental peak.

But I digress. Because everything was better during the Great Golden Hand, that’s just objective. We will update you on the Hand as it approaches. But in the meantime, make sure that you are stocked up on a supply of clean water, adequate canned goods for five to eight years, and copious amounts of human hair for the offering. If you do not have hair, please make sure to stop by the hair bank this morning to pick up hair generously donated by your neighbors, for those who crave human hair by the fistful.

But first, today’s forecast. Rain later, or no rain. Or sun, or snow, or none of those things. There will be some light clouds along the horizon, or it will be clear and you will stand out on a lawn gone prickly with the conservation of water. And you will see that you can see all the way across the world, even though you know that you can only see about three miles to to curvature of the Earth, but it’s metaphorical, this distance, and with the clarity of the sky, it will seem much further than that. Or there will be clouds, so none of that will happen and you will l only sit in your kitchen, eating leftovers and not thinking even a little about everything you’ve never done and you will never get to do.
Or you won’t wake up today. There will come a day where you don’t, you know, and then none of this will matter. And the sky will be a perfect blue and you won’t see it. Or it will rain. Or no rain. Or sun. Or snow. Or none of those things.
All of that later today, or tomorrow, or never.
This has been today’s forecast.

We continue to track the Great Golden Hand, as it takes over much of the western horizon. Larry Leroy out on the edge town reported that flowers have begun growing and dying in bursts all morning. Cycles of life that passes quickly as air through his lungs. “These plants are speeding up,” he said, or else we are slowing down. Maybe thousands of years have passed and the only ones that know are the flowers.” [laughs] Larry, what a joker!

City government tells us we have nothing to fear from the Great Golden Hand, although city government is in a bit of disarray, as of course we do not have a mayor, and city council has announced that they forgot it was their sister’s wedding this weekend in Tulsa, and they need to leave town immediately. So city government currently consists of Claire Scott at the hall of public records. Claire is a woman-shaped apparition that haunts the dark hallways of the building and is responsible for at least ten deaths. It’s not an ideal situation leaving her in charge, but at least someone is there, as the Great Golden Hand draws ever closer.

Let’s take a quick look at the headlines.
Controversy has erupted over a new McDonald’s commercial, as many say that the victims offered on the altar weren’t properly consecrated. Lenny Butler, who has no official (–) [0:05:47] on religion or ceremony, but who considers himself something of a sacrifice aficionado and self-taught expert, dismissed the commercial as, quote, “more hack co-opting by corporate culture.” He shook his head in disbelief as he showed reporters a copy of the commercial.
“Look at this, he said. “Does that axe look like it has been buried for 100 days in a graveyard? I bet some underpaid PA bought that axe at an Ace Hardware the day of the shoot. And look at how the subsequent bone and blood slurry is just kind of spilling everywhere! There’s no thought at all to proper aesthetic flow to the sacrifice!” Lenny concluded.
Executives at national McDonald’s headquarters expressed horror and disbelief when asked about the commercial, saying they had nothing to do with this and why are we making them watch this traumatizing footage. “Why?” the executives repeated over and over, in smaller and smaller voices. “Why?”
Well, that’s it for the headlines.

And now traffic.
There is a crack in the wall.
There is a twinge in your heart.
There is someone coming, but don’t worry, there is also someone going.
There is a lamp in an alcove in a house on a mountain.
There is a hand that reaches out and turns on the lamp.
There is an eye that squints thru the dim light, trying to see what isn’t there.
There is a name.
Yes, there is a name, but we will never know what it is.
There is a dusty foot scooting along rough wood. There is a tree outside, and it moans through the fierce wind off the peaks. There is a small flower in a pot and it is three days from dying.
There is a lamp in an alcove in a house on a mountain and a hand that reaches out and turns it off.
There is a car on a road to the mountain.
There is a mind dreaming that this time, the reunion will go differently.
There is a hand on a steering wheel and it trembles.
There is a foot upon a gas pedal, and it wants to ease up, to turn around, to accelerate toward anything but a house on a mountain.
There is an eyelash upon an eyelid, upon an eye, upon a skull, upon a lifetime of doubt.
There is a tree across part of the road, and maybe that could be an excuse, but no. The hand upon the wheel turns, and finds the narrow way thru, and continues on, toward the house on a mountain.
There is a crack in the wall.
There is a twinge in your heart.
There is someone coming. But don’t worry, there is also someone going.
This has been traffic.

I’m being told by a multitude of disembodied mouths, that appeared in my office and began worbling in a singsongy chant, that the Great Golden Hand is only minutes away from covering the entire area. If you have not already sought shelter, now would be the time to regret screwing up so badly on such an important day. Remember to not look directly at the Great Golden Hand. The Great Golden Hand should not be mixed with alcohol or other medications without advice from your doctor. Unfortunately, the Great Golden Hand has taken all the doctors. Also all life insurance adjusters and all dog walkers. If you notice sparks, that is part of the process. If you feel a fission, that is also part of the process. If you see the color green, that is not part of the process and you should panic.
The process will protect us. The Great Golden Hand will protect us. Long live the Hand.

Meanwhile, just a brief notice before we are overtaken by the Hand. It seesm that, oh this is interesting, that the family of Frank Chen has filed a missing persons report with the sheriff’s secret police. Now, you might remember that Frank Chen’s dead body was found several years ago, covered in claw marks and burns, and we all assumed he was dead. But then he was seen around town driving his pickup truck, and now he looked like a five-headed dragon. Sure, he looks completely different, but the dragon had a New Jersey driver’s license that indicated that he indeed was Frank Chen. And so that was the day it was proven to us that the dead can come back to life looking completely different. Anyway, the Chen family says that Frank was driving out from the east coast to see his brother, and disappeared somewhere between Oklahoma and Los Angeles. It took him several years to find Night Vale, although our recent change back to a normal timeline has at least put us a little more in sync with the rest of the country. The Chen family is unsure what a sheriff’s secret police is, nor what is so secret about them if they drive around in clearly labeled cars, but they would appreciate any help at all in finding their long lost Frank.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen rank since the day that Hiram McDaniels, the five- oh sorry, four-headed dragon, left Night Vale. Where did Frank go? If you have any information, tell a bird. Birds are real loudmouths and the info will be all over town in no time.

And now for the community calendar.
This Friday, Martin McCaffrey is presenting an art show in the grain silo out back from the old Cooper farm. The silo will be kept in absolute darkness, and each (-) [0:12:40] will be shoved into the abandoned tower all along. They will not be able to see anything except the dancing light that lives in their eyelids. But they will know that they are with art, that art is indeed there, just beyond their fingertips in the darkness watching them. Suggested donation is five dollars, as in Martin suggests you donate that or you won’t be able to get in.
Saturday morning, we’re getting towards the end of the summer softball league, and once again we have the annual grudge match between Steve Carlsberg’s Happy Hyenas, and Susan Willman’s Bad at Softball Losers. Not their real team name, but the name was kind of forgettable, and I think this one is more catchy. Ugh, Susan Willman! [mumbles] Tooling around in that Prius she bought after her Mini Cooper was filled with jellyfish and then towed. [cheerfully] See you on Saturday morning! Where we will, I assume, be cheering on my wonderful brother-in-law Steve. 

Sunday, Leopold Tuesdale has called for a community meeting. Leopold is the former CEO of the former cereal company Flaky-O’s, until both were acquired in a hostile takeover by Kellogg’s. Leopold was last seen being pulled into a van by Kellogg’s executives, but he has returned. His face is gaunt and it appears he has aged several decades, or perhaps a few very stressful years. He wears a cape and one big leather glove. The topic of the community meeting is the labyrinth that lays just beyond human sight, and the harbingers of that labyrinth, who drive vans full of wooden grates. He also want to discuss parking for the antiques fair, which he feels has gotten out of hand on Grub Street.
Monday is a fun dinosaur presentation from local dinosaur expert Joel Eisenberg. This is part of the Applebee’s visiting experts program that invites local scholars to share their knowledge, and also prices jalapeno poppers at in irresistible 3,99 for 12. Wow! With a deal like that, I can’t wait to learn more about those big spitty lizards, or whatever they were.

Tuesday – is the day you’ve been waiting for. Yes, you could have achieved your dreams earlier, but it always seemed easier to plan to do them some day. Well, Tuesday is that day, and now it’s time to finally buckle down and get those dreams going. I wouldn’t delay, because it seems that Wednesday is the day – you die. So stay positive, and get it done quickly.
And finally, next Thursday the Night Vale municipal fire authority is holding a mandatory fire drill. When you hear the siren, burn as many things as you can.

This has been the community calend- oh! Oh, I see it! I see it, it is here! Aaaaaaah, it is above me! The [booming sound] the [booming sound]

[“Drones” by Epicenter
https://epicentermetal.bandcamp.com]

Part 1. In which the rabbits get their way.
Before there were buildings, there were hills. In the hills, there were rabbits. All they wanted from life was food, a bit of sunshine, and to multiply across the land. And so they did. Most stories are happy if you end them at the right time.

Part 2. In which we approach.
Aah, to see us then, when we were moving – toward the west, or else toward the east, or else south or north, but it wasn’t the direction. It was the momentum of it. We put ourselves out there, made ourselves available for new opportunities. Never mind the drawbacks, and never mind who gets hurt. That’s a problem for who comes next. We are here, so we can get there. And there’s just nothing else to worry about, but the getting.

Part 3. In which comes the kingdom.
Great towers and great halls. A crowd looking upwards and a king looking downwards. What a time to be alive! What a terrible time to be dead! How much the dead are missing out on. Death is stupid, and we must only celebrate life. Those who are gone are gone, and it’s probably their fault anyway. We are alive because of our wits, and because we are naturally inclined to be alive. “How good we are,” we murmur, “and how beautiful our king is.”

Part 4. In which all is thought lost.
But then – time came for us too. We weren’t who we used to be, but we also weren’t who we would be next either. There was this awful in-between, and we had to stay in it for so long. A king grew tired on his throne. We all grew so tired.

Part the last. In which we are each born anew.
After – there were the buildings. There were the hills. In the hills lived rabbits. And we lived there too. All we wanted was food, a bit of sunshine, and to multiply across the land, and so we did. Most stories are happy if you wait long enough. The [booming sound effect] gives, the [booming sound effect] takes.

Stay tuned next for a slow drifting toward what we’ve always wanted, interrupted by the constant distraction of what seems easiest, and from one discipline of the [booming sound] to another:
Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: The universe contains, among other things, black holes, vast clouds of gas and light, endless void, a diamond planet, and your tiny body.