171 - Go to the Mirror?
What makes you, you?
Welcome to Night Vale.
[Updated version with most of the backwards speech added - huge thanks to kurofae!]
[particularly scary version of the theme song]
Do you ever stare at yourself for so long in the mirror that you no longer understand what you look like?
[Are you losing consciousness?]
Is this the same effect as thinking about someone you miss so much that you forget the shape of their face?
Why would you do that? Why would you refuse to maintain order?
[Why would you refuse to maintain order?]
Are you refusing? Or are you a victim of your own mind?
Do brain cells dictate souls? Is thought matter?
Does thought matter?
Can the person looking back at you from the mirror tell you the answer?
Just because you can see a person, does it mean that person exists?
Is it you you are looking at?
Or is it someone else?
[(backwards) Does inscrutability scare you?]
How many hairs do I have?
How many did I have yesterday?
Are they the same color, the same length? Are these the same hairs I had when I was a child?
[(backwards) Their eyes expressing nothing]
Should I be high if I’m going to ask myself these questions? Can you get high by behaving high?
Are you a good person because you do good things?
Does a qualitative assessment mandate empirical evidence to support its truth?
If I point at something and declare it –good-, will I be cross-examined?
And if so, am I to be held in contempt for refusing to answer?
Narrative is everything, right?
[(backwards) Are you? Are you? Are you?]
Has anyone else been feeling this way, that you don’t recognize yourself?
Have you told anyone? Does it help?
Is it helping now, hearing me talk about it?
Basically, why do I know I am me?
How many times have I seen myself in the mirror?
[How many times have I seen myself in the mirror?]
Is it bad that the answer is “rarely”?
Shouldn’t we all be afraid of mirrors, or is it just me?
[(backwards) Strange… and scary]
How many times in a fit of disassociation do we see someone else-
[Or someone else?]
-behind us?
Are you, too, too afraid to turn around?
Do you really want to challenge the veracity of your eyes?
Do you think disbelief in death will make it disappear?
Are awareness and manifestation one and the same?
[(backwards) But isn’t it strange?]
So, what did I see in the mirror today?
[(backwards) If you look into the mirror that you just smashed do you see that the creature is gone?]
Don’t we all see the same thing, isn’t it a person who looks exactly like ourselves?
[(backwards) Mirror]
And weren’t they making the same physical gestures and behind that person in the reflection, [(backwards) Are you?] did you not also see just over your shoulder a pair of eyes, the curve of a head, and did you notice how that head was human in shape – but maybe only a third of the size?
And did you make the same mistake as I?
Thinking that because the head was so small, it must have been some distance away?
[(backwards) Are you? Are you? Are you?]
But you stared so long into those tiny eyes, didn’t you?
And then you saw it.
[And then you saw it.]
Right?
Did you see little spiny fingers reach up in front of its miniature, this passionate face, and [whispering] touch your shoulders?
[(backwards) Are you losing consciousness?]
Did you scream inside, when you understood?
Did you really truly understand that it was climbing, right there, on your back?
[(backwards) What do you want from me?]
Are you still screaming, like I’m still screaming?
How can you know how I feel?
What - do you want - from meee?
[long pause, music]
Where was I?
Who is behind you in the mirror?
[(backwards) What do you want from me?]
Or what is behind you?
Should I speak in present or past tense?
Is there a face there or is the face gone now?
Are you no longer at the mirror?
Do you feel safer?
Why do you assume that because you aren’t looking in the mirror right now, that the tiny face and spiny digits – are not still behind you?
Do you feel it?
[(backwards) Is this like when-]
Are you, reflexively, touching your shoulder right now?
[(backwards) Are you scared?]
Or are you too scared?
[(backwards) Are you, reflexively, touching your shoulder right now?]
Is this like when the ATM asks if you want to check your balance before withdrawing money and you decline, because you just don’t want to know?
It doesn’t change the fact of your bank balance, does it?
Again.
You think awareness and manifestation are one and the same, don’t you?
Don’t we all?
So what of that little face with its inexpressive eyes and flat, lipless mouth?
Didn’t it look like…
Didn’t it look oh so familiar?
Where have you seen that face before?
Is it a ghost, a monster
Or your own imagination?
Are you starting to forget exactly what it looks like?
Do you want to go to the mirror again?
Do you want to stare and stare at it, until you can comprehend what it is?
[(backwards) Do you want to go to the mirror again? Do you want to stare? And stare at it? Until you can comprehend what it is?]
Why? What will that accomplish?
Are you being honest what yourself? Isn’t the real danger your won face?
Could it be inferred that you invented the creature to distract yourself from the real horror?
And what if we went to the mirror together?
If we don’t feel alone in our feelings, could we conquer our fears?
Are we in agreement, you and I?
What are you even looking at?
Is your focus drifting to your shoulder?
Can you not do that?
Can you resist the urge?
What will staring directly into your terror accomplish?
You see the face again, don’t you?
Are you as scared as before, or have you steeled yourself for this?
Is your mind more free to think critically about what it is and what it – wants?
Is it attacking, or defending?
Is it friend or foe or – indifferent?
Why is it so familiar?
Is it something from childhood?
[Were you sad?]
Or was it a dream you once had?
If you think about a memory long enough, doesn’t that mutate the truth?
Isn’t every act of remembering another log on the fire of lies?
When was the last time you saw your mother?
It’s been since childhood, hasn’t it?
Didn’t she warn you – about mirrors?
Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise?
[(backwards) Didn’t she warn you – about mirrors? Didn’t she tell you they would be your demise?]
Or was that just a popular bedtime story?
Do you see a flickering behind the tiny face?
Is that sunlight oscillating behind swiftly moving clouds, or is that the creature creating that effect?
Is it getting closer?
Is the flickering less like a strobe effect and more like a hand-drawn flip book?
Now that we’re looking with clearer eyes, is it just me or does the creature look like – a drawing?
Do you suddenly remember a swing set? Why swing set?
You were on the swing set, weren’t you?
How high did you go? Was it possible to do a full loop?
Would you have fallen out at the top of the circle, or did you understand centripetal force without knowing the term?
And when you let go at the apex of your arc, did you predict correctly the pain of a broken leg when you landed?
Do you still remember the sound of the snap?
[backwards) Do you still remember the sound of the snap?]
Do you still shudder when ice cracks in warm water, or when someone pops a knuckle?
What did your mother tell you about swing sets?
What did she say to you when you yelled to her for help?
Did you lean over your sobbing face and ask you:
“Why are you crying when you don’t even exist?”
Did she tell you again about the mirror?
[Sad.]
Do you still see the flickering creature climbing up your back?
Is the little hand reaching up again?
Do you notice it wears black rings?
Are those talons?
And what is it opening its mouth to say?
Do you see how it rises up behind you, how long is its torso?
Is it some kind of snake, but with human skin?
Why does it have so many teeth?
How long can a tongue be?
What is it doing, why is it crying, is it a child?
What unholy monster cries like a child, what does it want,
Why won’t it stop?!
[music stops, eerie noises]
Is it gone for you too?
[whispers] Why did I not look away?
[Did I not look away?]
Did you?
How were you able to do that?
[long pause, music]
Did you figure it out?
Could you see past your own mental inventions?
[Who out there-]
Who out there looked beyond the long gape-jawed figure and its inexplicable whinesss?
Did you see the table?
There, in the mirror image-
[mirror image of your hou-]
-of your house, did you see the table?
You hadn’t noticed the table before, had you?
What of the table, of its chipped corners?
What of the mismatched wood stain on the tiny drawer at its center?
What of its tarnished, yet ornate brass bulb knob?
Did you turn around to see if the table was in your home too?
Were you sad when you realized it was not?
Or were you relieved?
Why was the table only in the mirror, why isn’t it real?
But isn’t it, though?
You didn’t ask for any of this, did you?
But what have you ever asked from the universe that you could not get yourself, and when has the universe ever obliged?
What’s inside the drawer of the rickety table in the mirror?
What other uncanny discoveries await you if you could just break through?
Is it as simple as breaking through?
Do you find that the simplest problems require the biggest efforts?
Have you ever decided you wanted a lightweight wool button-up coat, all black?
Did you go shopping for it and did you find one?
How disappointed were you to learn that this design was not available in any of the five stores you went to?
Did you ponder the idea that such a coat was so basic, [angrily] so unassuming, so without frill or feature that no one had ever thought to create it?
[angrily, scarily] Do you want to know what’s in the drawer below the table?
Shouldn’t it be as easy to obtain as a lightweight wool button-up coat all black?
But nothing, nothing easy ever is, is it?
How do you get to a table that’s right in front of you but only visible innn a mirror?
Shouldn’t you take a break from this?
Wouldn’t some – fresh air – be good for you?
What’s the weather like outside?
[“Flower Lane” by Funbearable https://funbearable.bandcamp.com/]
[anxiously] What are you not getting?
Besides the creature and the table, what are you not noticing?
Do you see yourself?
[very fast] What is different about the you you are and the you you see before you?
Are you paying close attention to the color of your eyes?
Are you watching for any deviation in the movement of your reaction?
[(backwards) Now that we’re looking with clearer eyes-]
Are you able to ignore the creature over your shoulder?
Now that it has revealed itself, do you find it less frightening?
[(backwards) -ignore the creature over your shoulder? Now that it has revealed itself do you find it less frightening?]
Do-do-does it, does its cry kind of sound now like the high-pitched howl of a Siberian Husky puppy vocalizing its hunger, isn’t it less scary and – more just weird?
Did you see the movie “Signs”?
Did you feel less creeped out once the aliens were shown on screen?
[(backwards) Are you? Are you?]
Isn’t all fear fear of the unknown?
Are you concentrating on the table now?
And you’re sure it only exists in the mirror?
Double checked?
Do you want to know what’s inside the drawer of the front of the table?
[softly] Are you willing to break something?
[Are you-]
Are you willing to break the mirror, yes but so much more?
[(backwards) Do you feel the pain? -your flesh - is that why you’re screaming?]
Are you willing to go-
[Are you?]
-to a place from which you cannot return?
Are you willing to learn things you cannot unlearn?
Do you have a hammer?
Or if not, can you find something heavy that you can lift?
[(backwards) What is different about the you you are?]
Will you smash the mirror?
Will you do it quickly?
Why are you hesitating?
Have you let your comfortability lapse into carelessness?
Why did you take your eyes off the creature on your neck?
Did you see the blood, or feel the pain first?
Is it tearing into your flesh, is that why you’re screaming?
Can you still break the mirror?
[(backwards) Are you?]
Are you losing consciousness?
Are you?
[(backwards) Are you willing to break something?]
Are you?
Are you?
[Scary]
Are you OK?
Did you do it?
Huh.
If you look into the mirror you just smashed,
Do you see that the creature is gone?
[quietly] Cool, right?
But isn’t it strange that all about you on the floor are shards of the mirror you shattered, yet in front of you, the mirror remains, fully intact?
[Scary]
Strange. [echoes]
Or scary. [swallows, echoes]
Wouldn’t you think that the mirror being simultaneously broken-
[broken and unbroken is strange while the fact that you have no reflection-]
broken and unbroken is strange while the fact that you have no reflection is scary?
Is that true though?
Do you have a reflection?
Do you see yourself on the floor of the mirror’s world?
[Are you losing consciousness? Are you?]
Is your body crumpled on the floor like a wet towel?
Is your lower jaw hanging open because you died screaming?
Or because of gravity?
Do you have a blanket of some sort?
Why don’t you cover that mirror up?
Why don’t you cover all the mirrors, in fact?
While you are walking about your home, do you notice the antique table by the door with its tarnished, yet ornate brass bulb knob?
Was that table always there?
Did you –
Enter the mirror world?
Or were you always in the mirror world?
What else is different around you?
Do you remember why you never opened that door?
You do, don’t you?
What was it about the book inside that frightened you so?
Was it – the handwriting that matched no known language?
Was it the drawings of serpents with human faces, but innn-numerable teeth?
Was it the disorientation you felt from seeing these faces contorted into a scream, yet their eyes expressing nothing?
Does inscrutability scare you?
What was it your mother said before she left home when you were a teenager?
Did she tell you she was an oracle?
Did she tell you to read the book til you understood its alphabet?
Did she make you promise to never tell another soul, and did you keep that promise by burying it so deep, so so deep?
Now what?
Will you cover the mirrors and sweep the floor and pretend it never happened?
Will this prevent it from happening again?
Are awareness and manifestation one and the same?
Who can say?
Will you stay tuned next for sound of a muffled… crack!
Presented without context or commercial interruption.
Could that be an egg, or a twig, or a leg?
Narrative is everything, isn’t it?
Won’t you
Have a good night,
Night Vale?
Won’t you have a good – night?
Today’s proverb: Call me old fashioned, but I believe dance is the only true language.
172 - Return of the Obelisk
“Nothing lasts forever”
is a phrase with two meanings,
and they’re both true.
Welcome to Night Vale.
All of Night Vale is aglow. There is music in the air. You know what that means, listeners: the Obelisk has returned.
It’s been nearly 8 years since the Obelisk last appeared, but it’s right back where it always shows up, in Mission Grove Park over on the east side, right next to the Wailing Pit. But a little bit south of the Memorial Debris Heap.
The Obelisk returns every 5 to 10 years, sometimes as long as 50, and it brings with it joy, anticipation, and a deep fear. A terror so deep in the gut that it feels like you’ve eaten too much ice cream, but in all reality, your body is simply bracing itself for death.
The Obelisk has always behaved benevolently, but so hast he sun, and we don’t trust that thing fully either, so I dunno. Past performance is not an indicator of future results. Unlike the sun, the Obelisk radiates a soft blue light, but like the sun, the Obelisk makes a lot of noise. In particular, music. The obelisk sounds like a Bach concerto played like a French horn and a theramine from inside a refrigerator.
Everyone in town is gathering at Mission Grove Park to see the Obelisk in person, to pay homage to this rare visit, and to confront their fears head on. Hopefully everything works out fine, because there are some cool events I want to get to this weekend, and it would be terrible to have to cancel them over a rogue obelisk.
Let’s take a look at the community calendar, shall we?
This Friday night is opening night of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Tony-winning musical “Sunset Boulevard” at the Night Vale Community Theatre. I’m very excited to finally see this show, it’s supposed to be a really lavish production, too. And it’s based on one my all time favorite Billy Wilder films about an aging silent movie star who finds an amulet that lets her travel in time, but whenever she moves through time, she enters someone else’s body and can’t leave until she saves her life. This staging of “Sunset Boulevard” is directed and produced by… oh my god, Susan Willman?? Really?
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrhooonestly, this has been a pretty long week and Iiii might need to just rest at home on Friday. I mean I’m not trying to be rude here, but Susan Willman is the worst! Did you know she once judged the chili cook-off, and I came in third? Third! Behind Joel Eisenberg, which is fine, Joel’s an OK cook, but also behind who else? Susan Willman! You can’t be a judge and win first place. I’m also pretty sure Susan used a prepackaged spice mix in that chili. [laughs oddly] I don’t have that verified through a secondary source, but I can confirm, it was oversalted, again.
I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
Anyway, go see “Sunset Boulevard” on Friday if you want to watch uninspired actors and muddled blocking.
Saturday afternoon is the PTA bake sale fundraiser to send our Academic Decathlon team to a tournament in our state’s capital. The PTA secretary… [sighs] Susan WiIlman, says this money will go toward hotel and bus travel for our brilliant and talented Ac-Dec squad. “Academic Decathlon is about intelligence and perseverance,” says Willman in this overwrought press release. “Ac-Dec is about freedom and fastidiousness. It is a celebration of hard work, and we want Night Vale to show the rest of the state that blah blah blah blah blah,” God she just runs on! I mean yes, Ac-Dec is very cool and I wish our kids well. But chill with the grandstanding!
Anyway, go buy a cake to support those amazing students, even though I’m sure Susan will still manage to mess up a box mix.
Sunday is Youth Reprogramming Day at the Night Vale Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Does your child love learning about new gadgets and advancements in technology? Well, come on down to the Museum of Forbidden Technologies on Sunday for a day-long reprogramming event. Docents and curators will engage those curious kids through hands-on unlearning. They’ll take their patented mindwipe beam and point it right at each child’s forehead until all interest in forbidden technology has been removed. Kids love the mindwipe beam, because it smells like grapes, and they don’t feel any pain for weeks after.
Youth Reprogramming Day is a family friendly day of discovering that you know too much, and knowledge is treason.
Today’s appearance by the Obelisk is the 19th in recorded history. Little is known about what the Obelisk is, who controls it, or what it wants. Most scientists and historians agree that it was created by subterranean gods millennia ago, and they think its purpose is a type of census for life at ground level. The Obelisk is about 25 feet tall, it is oily and soft like a fresh brick of parmesan cheese, and when it appears, everyone in town carves their name into one of its four sides. We do not know why or when this practice began, it’s simply how it’s always been done. And to question tradition is to admit weakness.
When the Obelisk eventually disappears, perhaps today, perhaps several days from now, it will take our names with it. And when it returns, those names will be gone and we will begin the tradition anew. No one knows what happens to those names. Are they simply erased, or are they read and recorded? Is this data mining for some ancient technology startup, or does the Obelisk truly belong to the gods? We only know what happens to one of the names carved on the Obelisk, and for that person, we feel both envy and pity. For while the Obelisk has always behaved benevolently, past performance et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Let’s have a look now at traffic.
Route 800 is shut down until 4 PM today, as it has turned into a river. No cars are on Route 800, it’s just water. Rough and choppy, spiking white rapid caps atop nearly black rushing death. Highway officials are investigating the sudden appearance of this river, perfectly overlaying our main thoroughfare in and out of town. Beneath the quickly moving rush of the river, a single fish, probably a bass of some sort. Highway officials are uncertain because they don’t think about fish. Why would they? Highway officials are annoyed that you think so little of their awareness of fish species. They can tell a salmon from a marlin from a mackerel. “See what you made us do?” one highway official said. “We could have been repairing route 800, but you started picking on us for not knowing if that’s a bass or a mackerel or a whatnot. In fact,” the official continued, “we just looked it up on Wikipedia and it’s a bass. And fun fact,” they added, “did you know that bass can grow up to 25 pounds, have four rows of human teeth, and speak Spanish at a first grade level?”
The river is now branching out down sides of streets and into neighborhoods. Pavement everywhere is a network of fresh water capillaries through town. Expect delays of up to 10 or 20 minutes, as you try to get to Mission Grove Park.
This has been traffic.
The whole town feels like a carnival now with the flashing lights of the Obelisk and it’s crescendo of lively music filling the cool twilight air. We dance, we sing, we revel in togetherness and share our fears of what will happen next. What will the question be? And more importantly, what will be its answer?
When every name has been placed upon the Obelisk, then the blue glow of the towering monolith will die away. The entire structure will turn black. All except one name. One name will remain lit on the Obelisk, and that person shall be sent forth to ask their question. They may ask any question they choose and the Obelisk will tell them and only them the answer. No one else will hear this communication. If the receiver wishes to share what they now know, they are allowed to do so.
Many years back, this ritual was more organized. Early Night Vale townships planned a democratic approach to this opportunity: a committee of the Obelisk was formed to decide on the single most important question to ask. This approach came about in response to the super blunder of 1932, when a 6-year-old boy named Bartholomew Thomason was chosen to deliver the question. He asked the Obelisk if he was, quote, “gonna have corn for dinner”. The obelisk apparently said no, because little Bart started crying and the Obelisk quickly disappeared, not to return for almost 10 years.
By that time, the committee of the Obelisk was established and they chose the question: “how do you cure cancer?”
Ah, this is a good and noble question. But the citizen chosen by the Obelisk was a farmer named Barry McKenney, who tried his best to take careful notes, but a lot of the detailed medical jargon was just too complex for him. The committee tried this question again 6 years later, but the Obelisk refused to respond to any question it had already answered. So Sidney Laynord of Old Time Night Vale, not having a backup question from the committee, asked if his wife Jessica was cheating on him with Gerald Framingham, and the Obelisk said no, but it only said that because Gerald’s actual last name was Framington, so Sidney just messed up.
Over the decades, the committee of the Obelisk asked: “Is God real”? And the Obelisk said yes, but nothing more. After that, they tried to ask questions that would elicit more detailed response. Um, one year they asked: “who planned the assassination of JFK?” and were disappointed to learn that it was a CIA - Fidel Castro – Frank Sinatra triumvirate that conspired to murder our 35th president. This was the most boring answer, but at least it verified what everyone already knew.
By the 1990’s, though, the committee of the Obelisk had kind of fallen out of fashion after years of corporate funding and corruption. See, this controversy exploded in 1997, when the question put forth by the committee, which at the time was headed by the CEO of Pepsico, was: “what’s the best tasting carbonated soft drink on the market today?” The Obelisk’s answer, to the chairman’s great disappointment, was Surge.
Today, whoever is called on by the Obelisk is given free reign to ask whatever they choose. However many news outlets regularly publish lists of recommended question, but there is always the risk that someone will ask something frivolous like “what’s Jason Mraz up to these days?” or “where is the body of my missing fahter?”
Please, God please, just don’t call on Susan Willman. She will blow it.
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Oooooooo listeners, the Obelisk has gone dark. The music has ceased. The whole town encircles the tower waiting for its declaration for who shall ask the question. In the quiet night, under few start peeking thru the purple sky, we can hear only the sounds of crickets. The Obelisk, so black as to appear cut out from reality, suddenly shines a small blue line. It is a name, it is on the south face and is it… Oh no! No no no, listeners, I don’t know if I can stop this but I will try. Uuuh, let’s go now to the weather.
[“Pros and Cons” by Sugar & the Mint https://www.sugarandthemint.com/]
Welllll it’s too late. She’s asked her question. I’m not sure how I could have stopped this disaster, even if I made it over there before she could ask it. OK, as you know by now, the Obelisk lit up with Susan Willman’s name, and she grinned smugly and did that fake like “who me? What, oh my god!” gesture and then walked on up to the Obelisk. The crowd was calling out questions to her like game show audience trying to help a contestant, no single phrase discernible above the others, and Susan just looked around, her big goofy eyes scanning the people around her, as if she would actually lower herself to listen to their questions. [scoffs] She thinks she’s so high and mighty with her PT officer status and her hit Broadway musical. No no no, Susan’s above us all, just as important as she can be. She waved her arms like wings for quiet, and the audience obeyed, she’s so self-important, so attention seeking.
And then she asked her question. The one question we as a town get only every decade or so, and Susan said: “Hey, so what’s your name?”
What’s your name?!! God! What a waste! Did she forget we only get one question? The crowd began to boo, or at least I did. I started booing and I am part of the crowd.
The obelisk began to speak only into Susan’s mind and Susan listened closely. She giggled at first, like a little girl hearing a silly joke from a grandfather, and then her tear-filled laughs turned into tear-filled breaths, which eventually became tear-filled sobs. After about three minutes, the Obalisk vanished, and Susan stood alone on the small hill between the Wailing Pit and the Memorial Debris Heap, and she told us what she heard. Or [scoffs] she told us some of what she heard.
Susan said, in an unusually booming authoritative voice: “Whosoever speaks aloud the name of the Obelisk shall become the Obelisk. Whosoever becomes the Obelisk shall live forever. Whosoever lives forever shall know all things. Whosoever knows all things shall be damned. And whosoever hears the name of the Obelisk spoken aloud shall perish.”
The crowd parted for Susan as she left the park. They mumbled their disappointment in both the question and its answer. Some spoke with pity, some with disdain, while some thought it was all pretty cool and now.
“Much better than last time, when Dave asked who would win the 2013 NBA championships,” said one person.
“Dave won a lot of money on that answer, though,” responded another. “He has a yacht now over at the Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area.”
But most everyone whispered their fear for Susan’s power itself. I mean, Susan received a gif today, a cursed cursed gifts. You know what? I think I might go see that “Sunset Boulevard” after all and I love it. I don’t get to tell Susan very often what a visionary theatrical director she is, but I, I, [chuckles] I might even put some stacks down on her cakes Saturday too. Really support that academic Decathlon team. And the spirit of American ingenuity and perseverance, and all that.
Good question, Susan. I’d like to never learn the answer, but good question nonetheless. You’re one of, if not the, best person I know. Thumbs up.
Stay tuned next for our newest game show, “Nothing will ever be the same”.
Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.
Today’s proverb: Bite your tongue. Fun, right?
