Episode 107 - The Missing Sky

The best strategy for a labyrinth is to put one hand on a wall and follow that hand until you reach the exit. The second best strategy is screaming.

Welcome to Night Vale.

We start with our lead story: the faint popping that people have been hearing under the Earth. It sounds like the mole people are making popcorn in huge numbers, but everyone knows that mole people are deathly allergic to corn, so maybe something else? City Council issued the same statement it does for all emergencies, explaining that everything’s fine, we shouldn’t be worried, and that if we are worried, it probably means we did something wrong and are guilty about it. “Just what did you do?” the statement asks hundreds of times and increasingly larger fonts.

Carlos is intrigued by the popping. He is taking a small task force of his top scientists, Lucia and Nilanjana, to investigate. He placed censors in a number of locations and is trying to track the epicenter of the sound. Meanwhile, reports of strange aberrations in reality continue, with large gashes appearing in the sky and on walls all over town. Plus, nearly daily reports of false or alternative memories, which City Council again would like to remind you is almost probably fine. “See, we even put out a press release that everything’s fine, so it’s true!” they said.

More soon, but first a word from our sponsors. Today’s show is brought to by Ace Hardware on Fifth and Shay Street. Which is a real hardware store, and not merely a camouflaged snake pit. Ace Hardware is here to fit all of your needs, and while it may look like a crude representation of a store created out of leaves and trash by hundreds of animals that had to work without the benefit of limbs. Trust us that we are a real store, that you can really enter, and will definitely leave again, alive and uneaten. Don’t worry, the near deafening hiss is the sound of [voice and music distort, static] hardware savings on everything including [ding] circular saws, reciprocating saws, [voice turns normal but the music still distorts] coping saws, and of course hand saws. All kinds of saws are 50 per cent off during this week’s “you saw it, you bought it” s<ale. Come by today. We also copy keys if you need that, so again, come on buy.
This has been a word from our sponsors.

City Council is still in conflict about the situation at Old Woman Josie’s house. Old Woman Josie passed away several years ago, and we all remember her fondly. I myself never got to know her well, but those close to me say that she was a generous, kind, and incredibly clever human being, and the world is poorer without her. But it has been poorer without her for a while, and City Council indicates it is time to move forward with the plan the demolition of her house for the new highway extension.

The lone voice of protest to this plan is Erika, who has been living in Old Woman Josie’s house a few years before Josie’s death. Erika has no relation to Josie, but says that Josie took her in decades ago. No one knows much about Erika. She is a middle-aged woman with short hair and a tattoo of an angel on her right forearm. She was visiting town when contact was cut off with the outside world, and of course now, she cannot leave. She argues that, given that she has no way to return to the family she left behind, it would be cruel to force her out of the home she has made for herself. We will monitor this situation as it continues.

Citizens, we enter the Great Weeks of Memorial, in which we remember the vicious and inexplicable attack that almost destroyed our city, and the fruitless years of war that followed. This will be observed in the usual manner with parades and military displays. Mayor Pamela Winchell will give a speech honoring those killed in battle, including intelligence officer Leann Hart, and John Peters, you know, the war hero. I would like to take this moment to thank a fallen warrior from my own family. He was a great man. I speak of course of my brother-in-law and best friend, Steve Carlsberg. Ever since the great change, which cut us off from the rest of the world, he devoted himself to understanding what had happened to us. He had never been interested in the strange or abnormal before, but threw himself into research and observation. He said that, contemplating the new sky above us, he could see lines and intersections, a great grid pattern across the heavens.

When the attack came, he was one of the first to enlist. We all tried to stop him. Steve was not naturally a fighter, but he said that he had to protect his wife Abby and his daughter Janice. And he joined those brave few who left our boundaries to explore… whatever is out there. And he never came home.

Steve, I love you. You know, sometimes I go out at night and try to see the same lines you did, the great grid pattern in the sky. But it’s hard to see through those tears, you know?

Mayor Winchell is preparing to speak now. She is standing in front of the brand new memorial statue, with the controversial design chosen by Harriet Ramone and Benjamin Gould of the City Council. The design that depicts a human foot, several stories tall. Let’s go to her speech.

Pamela Winchell: People of Night Vale. I come to you as I do every year, as a mere citizens. As another human being who lives in this town. Who has suffered losses of her own, who has fears of her own.

We are none of us alone, except when we think we are. We have all faced circumstances that can only be categorized as extraordinary. And that we are still here, that we come together today to remember, this is a sign that we, too, are extraordinary.

Citizens, we will persist, no matter what. No matter how, no matter the [voice and music distort, static] the weight in our hearts, we will continue [ding] I like the tail and I like the flank, and I like the part where the fur goes up when they get excited, and I like the ears. And the tongue. And the face. And those are the parts of the dog that I enjoy. I wish there was a dog to pet right now. The question might be: would I give up on a regular life in order to pet a dog at all times forever? And the answer is yes of course instantly, without regret.

Thank you. I will not be taking any other questions. This has been my emergency press conference on the subject of the strange noises detected from below the Earth. I will now put myself into a canvas bag that will be chained shut and then will be, an instant later, revealed to be empty.

Cecil: Wise words from our Director of Emergency Press Conferences, Pamela Winchell.

Carlos is continuing his investigation into the subterranean popping. There are now also sounds that resemble singing, but not at a frequency that matches any possible human voice. He is trying to examine what alterations could make a human sound like that. One hypothesis is that it could be caused by severe mutations from genetic manipulation or exposure to massive radiation. He also has a chalk board full of numbers. These are his favorite numbers, and whenever he feels overwhelmed, he can look at the chalk board and feel like – he has more control over his situation.

In any case, as the City Council says it’s probably fine, don’t worry about it! Don’t worry about it.

And now, traffic. For that, we take you to ten uninterrupted minutes of farm sounds. [sheeps bleat, chicken noises, car engine, birds singing, cows mooing] [voices distort, static, ding] Things are looking pretty clear out on the roads, like most days.

[deep sigh] Listeners, why do I keep reporting the traffic? I don’t know. I’ve asked myself the same question. Muscle memory I guess? Habit? The reason we squint when leaving our homes, as though the sun might be there this time, but we all know the sun won’t be there. Nothing is in the sky anymore. And we don’t have gasoline. Not since the trucks stopped coming. No more deliveries.

Out on Route 800, Trish Hidge is taking a walk under the constant rolling thunder we’ve learned to live with. She likes to walk sometimes, in what she imagines must be the evenings, although others in town have taken those times to be the morning, and others still are asleep in the middle of their nights. She takes walks out to where the road ends and the great slopes rise up. She stands there at the edge of town, which is now the edge of everything, and she cries. Yeah, she really lets it out. No one hears her. She just puts her hands just beyond the end of the highway and holds them there for a moment, and then she turns and makes the loooong walk home. To a husband who is asleep, because she and her husband have agreed to live by different clocks, for reasons that are their own.

So that is the one bit of traffic in town I guess. If you see Trish, give her a hug. Ask first. You should always ask first before giving anyone a hug.

As the parade lines form, as we prepare to march out and remember the vicious attack against us, I am drawn, as I am every year, to my own memory of what happened that terrible day. We were starting to feel that we had reached a kind of acceptance of the great change years ago that took our sky and our connection to the rest of the world from us. And those years later, we were going about our business under that blank sky. Eating at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, studying at the public library. Helping John and Jim Peters in the fields so that our isolated community could continue to have food. We heard the usual loud rumblings, like a rock slide above us.

But then, there it was: a tower of destruction. An aberration. A terrible apparition. An abomination in our absent sky. And nothing would ever be the same. And afterwards, the years of war, only recently given up as lost.

What did we do to deserve all that is happened to us? First, the theft of our sky. Then, years later, the attack.

Listeners, do you ever think about the moon? I was sitting outside last night and I thought, does anyone actually know where that thing went? Have there been any studies on this? I’d ask a scientist, but I’ve never met one in person. I’ve only heard of the famous scientists like Rosalind Franklin and Lisa Meitner, and Hidetaka Miyazaki. I doubt a scientist would ever deign to come to such a small and isolate town as ours, especially now that it’s… so much more difficult to get here.

But the moon’s disappearance was weird, right? It was there and there and then suddenly it wasn’t. All the stars went too, replaced by a smooth blank.

Where. Did. The moon. Go? Is it somewhere hidden, watching us? If not, what is it watching instead? Is there something more interesting than us?
Hey, watch us, Moon! We may not always be the best show in the universe, but we try.
This has been today’s Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

And now the weather.
Clear skies tonight, although cloudy and windy tomorrow, [voice distorts, static] With gusts up to 45 [ding]

[“The Ends and the Means” by Robby Hecht]

Carlos and his team have found the source of the subterranean popping noise, but it is not a place we expected any more disturbance from, and it is not a place that – I’m comfortable with him going. They advanced on the area, nodding to each other to confirm that their suspicion was correct, and making hand signals to indicate that they should have worked out some hand signals before starting.

Listeners, I am, I’m just, I’m sick with apprehension. Carlos.. [sighs] Just please be careful!

OK, he’s approaching the source. Ahem. The singing is louder than ever, strange and high-pitched. There are popping noises and a pulsing vibration, he reaches cautiously out of the edge and he looks and yes, yes, it is as we feared, it is the tiny city under lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. The tiny streets are teaming with tiny parades. There are the loud pops of tiny fireworks and the singing, which Carlos now confirms matches the unified sound of hundreds of tiny human voices. The last time Carlos approached the city, he entered it and was attacked and almost killed* by the residents. This led to years of war with the tiny people, which was mostly quite manageable because they are exceptionally small, but still, caution. Is. Warranted.

OK, hold on, I’m gonna uh, head over there to give him moral support, so let’s return to the farm sounds previously in progress.

[sheeps bleating] [static, ding] An aberration, a terrible apparition. An abomination in our absent sky. As we marched our memorial march and held aloft our portable shrines to our God, and set off our many fireworks, there appeared above us enormous face of the entity that tried to destroy our city, not four years ago.

Why this great being from beyond chose to return at this moment, I’m not sure but it leaves me unneeassyy, listeners. It leaves the feeling that history is bubbling back up. That perhaps another great shift is coming. Like that shift many years ago, when Huntkar destroyer – oh great God Huntokar – appeared to us and took our sky away. We’ve prayed every year to Huntokar, but She has never returned the world that we once lived in. Surely we will fade away, unable to get what we need from the outside world. Why did Huntokar do this to us? We may never know.

And then this creature attacking us from the world above, with the giant foot so controversially depicted in the new memorial statue. Looking into his rich, brown eyes today… he was beautiful. Much like us humans, but of course larger, with teeth like… a military cemetery, and absolutely perfect hair. No lowly mortal could ever achieve hair that perfect.

The last attack from this being led to a disastrous war with these giants, one that nearly ruined our city. I hope that these powerful beings look away from us, leave us forgotten and dying, leave us cut off from the world. Unless Huntokar undoes what She once did to us. Unless we finally are absolved of whatever crimes we are being punished for. Unless, at last, the sky is returned these many decades later. But until then, we will continue our Great Weeks of Memorial, and then this fall, enter into the Months of the Rememberance of the Change.

Stay tuned next for one of our most popular shows, Janelle Duarte’s advice show, “Hey Janelle, What Did I Personally Do to Contribute to Huntokar’s Anger Against us?”

And under whatever starless, moonless sky it is we have lived under since the day of the change,

Good night,
Night Vale,
Good night.

Today’s proverb: Top of the morning to you. The rest of the day to me. I never said this was fair. 

–

A great mystery. There is not a single person in Paris nor all the world, who can tell us the mysterious origin of France’s most beloved holiday classic, the Second Imaginary Symphony. Yes, decades ago discovered in a refuse pile, this audio recording was brought home by an enterprising trash collector on (Platypus Eve). The trash collector played the cassette he’d found, expecting music. There was instead a very strange story.

“This is nice neighborhood. [carnival music] Just over that hill, factories, soon to be full of busy grownups hard at work. And this is nice street, Telegraph Road.”

Bringing us to modern times, where there is not a single Platypus Eve celebration in all of Paris, of which the Second Imaginary Symphony is not a part.

“This is Mr Ackerman. Nice neighbor and friend. Mr Ackerman works at the big factory just over the hill, and I have begun to wonder just what it was that the big factory over the hill is making. [machine noises, music wells up] Having wiled away many a twilight admiring the great factory. And I had to come know each of its towering smoke stacks and flashing lights.”

It’s a secret, of course, and that’s what this whole thing’s about. We listened to the story, we found it a comforting way to pass the holiday eve, featuring-
[random noises]

“And this was the good one: things unfit for the ears of a little boy.”

Also featuring: “wild laughter that offered not a hint of happiness.”

And of course featuring: “Atomic hypnosis.” [weird voices, noises]

“Atomic hypnosis? It’s just like ordinary hypnosis, only much much smaller.”

There’s nothing the French desire more than to sit back, close one’s eyes, and listen to the Second Imaginary Symphony. It’s something that we enjoy every year, and we hope that you will too.

An Orbiting Human Circus Special: The Second Imaginary Symphony. Premiering on Wednesday, May 10, 2017 on Night Vale Presents, on the Orbiting Human Circus feed, with new episodes every other Wednesday through July 7.