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Condos (unofficial release - fan recording)

The following transcript is from a live performance of Welcome to Night Vale that took place on the 25th of September 2013 in San Francisco, California. This is NOT the version released on February 14, 2014, which was recorded in Brooklyn, New York on the 18th of December, 2013. That performance is transcribed as episode 40.5.

Video of the transcribed performance is on YouTube in four parts (part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4). There are a couple lines of dialogue missing between the first two parts, which I found in another video here. I have pieced all of the audio together into a single mp3 file which you can download here. [My 2shared account was shut down, so I’m afraid you’ll have to rely on the video links]

Welcome to Night Vale.

Thrilling news, listeners! It has come to our attention that there will be condos for sale right here in Night Vale! Details on them are a little hazy – for instance, we don’t know what these condos will look like, where they will be located, who is building them, and what they will cost. But in the official brochure for the development, it does say

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in a thick, all-caps, black scrawl.

One local realtor, speaking under the condition of anonymity, and from within the belly of a grazing deer, said that condos are a great investment.

“Invest your money in condos,” said the realtor. “Invest your time in condos. Invest your life. Invest emotions and hope. Invest your ideas about the future, invest your disappointment with your ongoing ‘now.’ Invest drops of blood. You lose blood all the time on frivolous accidents, now is your chance to imbue it with purpose and verve. Spill your blood before the condos!”

The realtor was then cut off when the deer was spooked by a passing car and ran away.

Well. Look, listeners. I don’t know much about condos. I don’t know much about anything at all, honestly. But I do know this: condos are coming to Night Vale. They will be for sale, and this is great and exciting news for us all!

And now for some more great and exciting news:

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies is proud to announce their new special exhibit: “A Startling and Highly Forbidden Piece of Technology Brought to Us by Time Travelers…or…Ancient Long-Dead Aliens…or…Russians…or Whatever.”

The technology will be kept in a locked vault, which itself will be wrapped in thick, black bandages, with a hand-written sign taped to one side, saying only:

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Your ticket includes a free audio guide, which will play a single piercing tone, designed to considerately remove you from the world of thought, and sound, and sentience.

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Bring your kids! Otherwise, something even worse might happen to them.

Well, it seems that just about half the town of Night Vale is lined up outside of the Condo Rental Office, which is located in the Abandoned Gas Station on Oxford Street, and everyone is there.

Janice Rio (from down the street), who was practically hopping up and down with excitement over owning a new condo, whatever a condo is, and whatever it looks like; Leann Hart, Publishing Editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal, who was holding a bloodied hatchet, in case she came across any bloggers or online journalists who might threaten her grip on the printed word; Carlos the Scientist…

Carlos the Scientist.

He was there, wearing a business-casual lab coat, and analyzing those around him with complicated devices he couldn’t explain, without eventually just shaking his head and muttering, “Uhh, science.”

Umm…I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this on this show, by the way, but…Carlos is totally my boyfriend! I just didn’t know if I had brought that up? I don’t…um. He’s– he’s very handsome, and– and into science, and he is learning to be better about calling when he needs to cancel dates to get some experiments done.

Where was I? Oh yes, OK.

Even the dreaded Glow Cloud was there, hurling dead animals down upon those in line and intoning, to all that would listen, THE SUN WILL NOT SET AGAIN ON YOUR LIVES! ALL THAT YOU ONCE WERE NOW BELONGS TO ME! BURY YOUR FACE INTO THE BREAST OF THE EARTH AND WORSHIP THAT WHICH YOU CANNOT UNDERSTAND!

You know, it makes total sense that the Glow Cloud would want one of these condos. I mean, after joining the School Board, and sending your kid to the local school, you need to have a nice place at which to raise…whatever strange and terrible creature it is that constitutes your family.

No one could see into the Abandoned Gas Station, so no one knew what the Condo Rental Office looked like. There was only a bubbling, dark movement, like a pot of boiling squid ink, and the occasional pinpoint of light, like distant, dying stars. People began to shove each other, trying to catch a glimpse of what the condos might be. There was shouting.

Roger Singh started to point at every object in his sight – blades of grass, the husked shell of a former gas pump, Janice Rio (from down the street) – asking, “Is that a condo? Is– is that a condo?” in a high, cracked voice.

And…all right, this is out of nowhere, I know, but…at what point in a relationship do certain people think about living together? Is…is this a…buying a condo a sign that you want to move to that stage? Is that what an action like that might hypothetically be indicating?

Oh, also, Roger was holding a freshly-separated spine of an unknown animal or possible person, waving it at the bubbling dark window and howling, “Give me a condo! What is a condo? Give me one! Will this buy me a condo?”

As of press time, no one had told him whether a spine would buy him a condo.

But, do you know what I mean? Like, could this be a sign that he wants to move things in that direction? You know, I just wish he would communicate more directly sometimes, but scientists do not communicate directly. Everybody knows that. They communicate using a series of obscure and arcane codes and signals. That is what is meant to be a scientist.

And Roger has started flailing at people with the detached spine, and several people have been trampled, and it is still not known whether he will be able to buy a condo with the spine. Probably not.

Let’s talk about your health for a moment. Let’s concentrate on your health. Let’s think about your health. Do you feel healthy? Pay close attention to your body and see if you feel as healthy as you thought.

Aah? Was that a slight twinge in the muscle of your arm? That is a bad sign. That’s a symptom of all sorts of diseases. Was that a slight sniffle as you breathed in? Sure, it could just be allergies or a mild cold, but it also could be the start of tuberculosis. Does tuberculosis even start with a sniffle? You don’t know. And so it might very well!

Listen to your heart beating. Hear that heart beat. Feel it. Feel the one thing keeping you alive. Feel your heart beat. Are you healthy?

Are you healthy?

This has been a public health announcement by the greater Night Vale medical community. Their lines are open for appointments now. Please have your credit cards ready.

And now–

Cecil? Cecil?

Listeners, there is a voice, but I can see no one in my studio. It is a familiar voice, also my coffee cup appears to be three inches to the left of where it was.

It’s me, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Also, I have put your coffee cup where it was supposed to be. For reasons of fate.

Ahh, I see. Well, um, while I have you here–

It is terrible what the condos will do to you. Not 'to you’ as in 'you,’ but 'to you’ as in 'all of us.’ Well, not to me. Nothing ever really happens to me. I am completely safe from harm, and this is a great burden.

Oh, and while you were out this morning, I made your dining room table a half inch shorter. I hope you like it, it took me an hour with a hacksaw and a level.

Well, I’m sure that lower meals means…faster digestion! Or…not sure, but I’m saying it. And in saying it, I am instantly believing it, and then I’m going from believing it to being violently certain about it, against all evidence to the contrary.

Thanks, that means a lot to me. Not 'to me,’ but your words hold a lot of meaning intrinsically. Almost everything you say does. If you looked at any word in the English language close enough, you would see within the great, moving coils of the universe unwinding.

Right!

In language, somebody holds the key to it – the key to the unraveling of all things. I think that one day, this world will simply talk itself to death, and I will be left to fill the vagile void. I will be the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives Nowhere, and No Time. Because time will also not exist.

Now, you mentioned the condos. Let me ask you, what do you think it means when Carlos says he’s looking at condos? Does he mean that he wanted us both to look at condos together? Or was he communicating independence, like, “You stay here, I’m going off to look at condos alone.”

“Beware the condos, Cecil.”

Do you think he’s looking to just buy one for himself? Is that what he’s saying?

“Beware the unraveling of all things.”

Or…or is he looking for a shared condo?

…Hello? Hello?

I can no longer see a fleeting image of someone just over my shoulder, no flicker of movement from the corner of my eye…I guess she is gone.

Also, there are three slow walking gray roaches climbing out of my coffee cup.

And also, I am out of coffee.

Ladies and gentlemen, the condos are here! They have arrived, silently, in the night. They are thoroughly modern in their design. They are so modern, it is postulated they may actually be from a few centuries in the future, which is the most modern a thing can be.

The condos are featureless black cubes. They are standing, perfect, dark forms, where the ramshackle homes and dust-worn strip malls of Night Vale once stood. There are…so many of them! They are a majestic cityscape. They are a nightmare. And they are beautiful.

Carlos has hauled out his science equipment (of course), and is testing the cubes. The cubes emit a low level of radiation, and some sort of strange, pulsing energy. This energy is difficult to describe in scientific terms but, if he had to give it language, he would probably use the scientific terms “pulsing” and “strange.”

The cubes do not appear to have any entrance, or windows…so they are similar to many of the old tract homes built around here in the 1950s, but they also do not appear to have any roof or foundation, or yard, or terrace, or patio, or any other vestige of a home.

They only have their steep lines, their contours, their corners, their sheerness of their featureless walls.

We do not yet know if these condos mean us harm, or well.

We only know of their presence. And so, let us know that. Let us all hold on to that knowledge. The condos, black cubes of enormous size, are here…and we know it.

And now, the traffic.

Picture a car.

Nope! You are picturing it wrong. Try again.

Picture a car.

…Really? That’s what you picture when you picture a car?

All right, look…we’ll go with that. I’m not happy about it, but we’ll go with your idea of a car for now. So.

Picture that car. And now, picture a road. Are you picturing it? No, close your eyes if you have to. If you need to, gently remove your eyes and slip them into your bag.

Do you see the car driving down the road? Good.

Now picture a destination. Any destination you want.

Nope! That was incorrect. The correct destination was a clear and placid lake.

So all of you, out there, picture the car. Picture the road. Picture the clear and placid lake.

And what I want you to do now is put the car in the lake.

It’s very simple. Just imagine the car leaving the road, and now entering the lake.

Leaving the road, entering the lake.

Great.

Are we all picturing the car in the lake? OK.

City Council is notifying me that the test worked, and that we successfully murdered a lone driver somewhere, completely with the power of our minds. Wow! Wow! The human mind is a powerful thing!

This has been traffic.

Reports are in that the first condo buyers nervously approached their acquisitions, those black cubes, giants where once stood other places, the buyers edged toward them and they reached out their hands, trembling, they touched the smooth, cold walls of the cubes, and they saw. They saw.

Janice Rio (from down the street) saw a city. A lost city. A dead city, nestled in a jungle – the kind of jungle that only ever existed in books written by people who had never seen a jungle. The city stood, and Janice stood. A perfect dread, its doors were open jaws. Its windows were open jaws. Its roads and avenues were gaping mouths and open jaws. That dead city teetered. It rotted in its jungle tomb, but it was not empty. And she started to run. Run through the thick foliage of that absurd place, she shouted and ran.

And then her hand slipped away from the condo, and it was all gone. And she fell to her knees weeping, as though she had lost something, although of course, she’d never had anything at all.

Roger Singh (who had been able to buy a condo with the spine) saw a cave, underwater, in an ocean far to the north. The water around him was dark – so dark! – that he wasn’t sure even which way led to the surface, to life…and which led down only to the deep silent. He gasped, but found he had no breath…and no need to breathe. And there was this cave that smoldered with a light, a light that was charged and alive. Shadows moved against the light, cast by – what? – within the cave. And then he swam toward it, uncertain whether he was guest, or sacrifice, or invulnerable dreamer. He heard a song from the cave, and he knew it, and it was perfect. And he sang along. But at the same time, he had never heard that song before in his life. And what was his life? What made it his? It all seemed so small, part of the world that didn’t exist anymore. Then he went backwards from the face of the condo, and the ocean and the cave vanished, and he stared up at the blue sky, as awash with light as the water around him had been dark.

“Was that a condo?” he asked. “Was that what…what was?”

Another, Samantha Guzman, only screamed – eyes bulging wider and wider, her hand clamped to the surface of the cube.

So…it seems that move-in day is going smoothly!

Today’s show is brought to you by the generous support of the following sponsors:

Please help our show by supporting these sponsors, using chants and simple offerings.

More, now, on the condo story.

Those people who have been given terrible visions by the condos are saying that they feel they must go back, go back to their condo, that something felt unfinished about what they saw. And that, even as they feel terrified, they must go back to see what it is will happen next.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police are attempting to stop the condo owners by sending passive-aggressive messages via helicopter-borne loudspeaker.

“Sure,” they are saying. “Go ahead. Touch the cube again. I guess. I mean, if you don’t care about your community, or your fellow citizens, then I guess you probably should. We won’t miss you anyway! Like, no big deal. Touch the cube…if you want.”

And they are.

Roger, Samantha, Janice Rio (from down the street) – they are touching the great black walls of the condo cubes, and the walls are rippling and bubbling as though liquid, like a pot of boiling squid ink, with dirty lights, like distant dying stars. The hands of the people are pushing through into the space within, whatever that space is, and they are – one by one, and with varying degrees of hesitancy – entering their condos.

Bystanders say that once inside, the human forms are going limp, and floating out into the center of the cubes where they stay, paralyzed. Faces, slack. Eyes, glazed.

A small sign has appeared outside of each cube that contains a person. The sign is red, and it says in simple white lettering:

image

Listeners, I cannot advise getting yours today. Not until we fully understand what these condos are. And, given our track record, we will likely never fully understand what they are, so best just stay away.

More on this as it develops. But first, a look at the Community Calendar.

This Friday, the staff of Dark Owl Records will be putting on a live concert. They will be scratching madly at the sides of a deep pit in a rarely-traveled part of the desert. They will also be screaming, and starving. They will be crying and clawing – no one will hear them for days. They will be found, but they will not be the same.

Tickets are not available and they never were.

Saturday afternoon is Amnesty Day at the Night Vale Public Library. Librarians request that if you have overdue books, or have committed any high-level international crime, or domestic treason, or space-travel felony, you should just come to the library, and all will be forgiven.

The Librarians say that they will not harm you. In fact, they add, “It doesn’t hurt at all. Amnesty is actually quite freeing, quite delicious!” the Librarians explained. “You will never have to worry about anything else. Just come to the library and let us see you. Let us see you!” they added for emphasis, and a long string of spittle flew sideways from their great yellow and gnarled teeth.

And, on Sunday night…

Aaaah, OK, I can’t read this here. Uh, listeners, it looks like someone printed a very ancient prophecy here? Umm, right here in our station’s Community Calendar. Uh, for fear of a curse of misfortune I shall not read it aloud, just know that the prophecy is complete on Sunday night…

OK, OK OK…I’ll give you a hint. Umm, let’s just say…comets, burning rain, animal uprising…

OK, Cecil, OK, enough, enough enough enough! You’ve told them too much, let them have their surprise!

Monday was never meant to be, but it will be anyway. We will wander within its moonlit beginning, and end wondering how such a thing could happen, how anything could happen. We will be appreciative, but a little bit frightened, completely ignoring the persistence of time and the limitations of our own understanding.

Tuesday is a joke. A terrible, terrible joke.

Let me take this moment, also, to apologize for that lengthy monologue a few moments ago by the Man in the Tan Jacket carrying deerskin suitcase. He ran in here, and began ranting into the microphone, and then left quite suddenly. I…I don’t remember what it was he said. It was only just…minutes ago.

Oh, and I think I remember that it sounded really urgent. I can barely remember speaking with him at all, and I don’t even remember what the man was wearing, or carrying with him, or that it was even a 'he,’ or that any time passed at all.

And I guess that concludes whatever I was just saying just before this sentence.

[phone rings]

Hello?

“Hello, Cecil. Are you there?”

Carlos? Yeah, hi. Umm, I’m on the air? Umm, yeah, I’m doing a show right now.

“Right, no, I know, it’s just…I got a condo. For us. I was thinking that maybe we could—”

Wait, wait, for us? You mean, we could—

"It wasn’t what I thought it would be. It’s a giant black cube, featureless, where the vacant lot behind the Ralph’s used to be? I touched it, and I saw. I saw endless rows of Erlenmeyer flasks. And they were filled with liquid, and all of the liquids were bubbling, and before each one was a notebook of numbers, and up above was a dial with more numbers. I saw all of this, and I understood—”

You touched the condo? No, no no no! Don’t touch the condo! Don’t— don’t touch it again! Hold on, I will…I’ll be right there!

"I need to get to those flasks. Each liquid was bubbling. There were numbers. I’m going to go into the condo.”

No, Carlos, no! Don’t go in there! Carlos! Carlos!

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very sorry, I have to— Listen, I’m going to be back as soon as I can.

But before I go, let me take you now to the weather.

[Double Feature by Satellite High]

Hello again, listeners. Cecil is still gone. I guess it’s just you and me now. You have no idea how often it’s just you and me. I’ve learned this new thing where I can silently skitter along your ceiling. It’s an interesting perspective. I’d show you, but…you can’t see me. And anyway, I think maybe it would upset you to see a Faceless Old Woman skittering along your ceiling.

There always seems to be something upsetting you. You should relax more. It’s not that there’ s nothing coming to get you, there’s everything coming to get you…but relax anyway, just on principle. Just lie down and look up at the ceiling – a ceiling on which you can see nothing skittering, even though there is something skittering, there are so many skittering creatures on your ceiling, but forget that.

Lie down and look up at the ceiling and breathe with those curiously fragile lungs of yours and remind yourself: Don’t worry. Don’t worry. All is as it was meant to be. It was meant to be lonely and terrifying and unfair and fleeting. Don’t worry.

Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time there was a young woman who had a face, and did not live in secret. She had a home of her own, and she always thought that her life had some great purpose. “This is not my life as it should be,” she said, indicating her life as it was. “My life is different from this. This is not it at all!”

And so, she sought out changes in her life. She changed careers, and romantic relationships. She changed houses and hair colors and still, her life was not what she was sure it should be. She changed more; she became more secretive. She watched how other people lived. Maybe one of them have a life that should belong to her.

Soon, there was less and less of her. She was not living her own life, and so she was not living any life. It was harder and harder for people to see her, because there was less and less of her to see.

And then she died.

Oh, that wasn’t me. I see the confusion here. No, that was a young woman I watched. I secretly lived in her home. I just found her story interesting, as I find so many stories interesting.

Cecil should be back soon. I know you are hoping he is safe, and that the scientist is safe. I know. I’m watching them right now, even as I speak to you. But I won’t tell you what’s happening. That is because I’m also slightly malicious. Sorry about that.

I should go now. I don’t mean 'go,’ I am always with you. But I am going to stop talking now, let you forget about me. Let you find some reason to dismiss that movement in the corner of your eye. After all, it’s probably nothing, after all.

I’m– I’m sorry, listeners, I’m really sorry, I just– listen.

By the time I got there, Carlos was floating in the cube, and there was that sign, “a perfect kind of human, a perfect kind of life,” well…I didn’t hesitate, I jumped into that black cube after him, and instantly I saw. I saw great distances. I saw…ugh. I saw jagged mountains.

I saw a dark planet lit by no sun. I saw shrouded figures standing on a beach in a circle, gently swaying into each other against the backdrop of a roiling, bottomless ocean.

I saw all of this and I understood!

And there was a moment. There was a moment, dear listeners, when I considered it. I considered joining Carlos and becoming perfect. But I’ve come to know something after these months together with dear Carlos.

Perfection is not real. Perfection is not human. Carlos is not perfect, no. Even better — he is imperfect.

Everything about him, and us, and all of this, is imperfect! And those imperfections in our reality are the seams and cracks into which our out-sized love can seep and pool. And sometimes we are annoyed, and disappointed, and that too is part of how love works. It is not a perfect system, but oh!

Oh, well.

And so I resisted.

I fought off the vision of the shrouded figures and the dark planet and all that was perfect and I held close to imperfection.

To my own imperfection.

To my imperfect Carlos.

I took him, and I carried him out of the cube. I came up, heaving, into this world that will disappoint us.

Finally, free.

And he said to me, “I just thought that maybe it was…it was time for us, maybe, to make a home. Together.”

And I said “Yes! Please! That would be, well, that would be neat!”

“But somewhere else, OK? A duplex, an apartment…I don’t think a condo.”

“No,” he said, “Not a condo.”

And then he said, “Listen—”

Mmmmmmm……he thinks I shouldn’t tell you everything.

That’s…I should leave a little something there that belongs just to us.

So.

The cubes were slowly fading into the earth, taking those who are frozen inside within them. The Sheriff’s Secret Police report that those within the cubes are becoming another thing entirely. They have become the sound that a certain type of sand makes under your feet, the tone of light at a certain time of day.

Walking through where the condos once stood, you can still hear their voices — but distantly, and faintly. And if you reach out when you hear that voice, if you reach out and feel for them, you too will get a vision of some far-off place, a place that is, in its own way, in a way perhaps that can never be explained, perfect.

A perfect place that you will never visit. That is the best news of all!

Listeners, I must send you out into the night. And it is dangerous out there. It is lonely, and it is not perfect. So.

Stay tuned next for a round of applause followed by a round of silence and departure.

Goodnight, all of you here, goodnight, all of you listeners, and goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

Today’s proverb: Please keep all arms and legs inside the car at all times. Also, you are under arrest. Why is your car full of limbs? Whose are these?

[The Bus is Late by Satellite High]