by Joseph Fink
There are no regular police in Night Vale. There used to be, but it was decided that a regular police force wasn’t secure enough. Everyone knew that the regular police existed; someone could use that information against Night Vale somehow. No one was sure how, but the threat was enough. There had been community meetings and then the police had vanished with no official explanation. A couple days later, the Sheriff’s Secret Police force appeared around town, driving dark red sedans with gold racing stripes and black seven-pointed stars on the sides that say SECRET POLICE on them, staffed by the exact same people who had previously been regular police officers. Everyone felt much safer after that.
Which is why it was so odd that the car that had pulled her over was an old-fashioned police cruiser, light bar on top and Crown Victoria body. The officer getting out of the vehicle was wearing just a regular police uniform without the cape or blowgun belt.
She dug around in her glove compartment for her insurance card and registration, and then in her pocket for her license. She pulled out Josh’s crumpled-up note.
She stared at the note. She must have stared at it for a while; she wasn’t sure.
There was a loud tapping in her left ear.
She looked up, confused. There was a knuckle rapping on the window a few inches from her face.
She screamed, but she wasn’t scared. Her body screamed before she could do anything about it. The knuckle stopped hitting the glass.
She held her hand to her chest. Her other hand pressed the window button.
“I’m sorry,” she said, exhaling, long, slow breaths.
“License and registration, please.”
The voice was vaguely familiar, but she was too in her own thoughts to care.
“Here you go.”
Silence. Diane saw khaki pants, khaki shirt, a black leather belt, and elbows as he read her documentation, and elbows as he wrote out a ticket.
This took several minutes because, by law, police are required to describe the nature of the sunlight at the time of the infraction in verse, although meter and rhyme are optional.
“Searing, yellow, and there’s a sort of purplish halo around it before it fades into the mundanity of sky. It is a reminder—this sun—of our near-infinite smallness in a near-infinite universe. But today, as I write this speeding ticket, I feel I could crush the sun like a grape underfoot, and that the universe is an umbrella that I may fold up and put away,” the officer wrote on Diane’s ticket.
Diane thanked the officer when he handed her the ticket, but her eyes were on Josh’s note on the passenger seat.
“Just be careful, umm . . . Diane,” he said, and her head cleared enough to recognize where she knew that voice from. She looked up.
He was blond and his teeth shone. They briefly made eye contact—or she assumed they made eye contact through his mirrored shades—and then he was gone, walking quickly back to his cruiser.
She tried to breathe in and missed.
It was Troy.
THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE
CECIL: “. . . ALL HAIL, ALL PLANT YOUR FACE INTO THE FALLOW EARTH AND WEEP IT INTO PROSPERITY,” it concluded, before cutting the ribbon to officially open the new downtown roller rink. A big thanks to the Glow Cloud for its speech, and, of course, all hail the mighty Glow Cloud.
A warning to our listeners: There have been reports of counterfeit police officers on the roads, who, instead of looking after our interests, work under arbitrary authority to unfairly target and extort those who are least able, societally, to fight back. If you see one of these FalsePolice, act right away by shrugging and thinking What am I gonna do? and then seeing if anything funny is on Twitter.
And now some sobering news. Station intern Jodi was asked to alphabetize everything in the station as part of the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s daily census of every single item in Night Vale. Unfortunately, Jodi was so assiduous in her work that she alphabetized herself as well, and what was once a helpful and hardworking intern is now a pile of limbs and organs, arranged part by gory part from A to Z.
To the family and friends of Intern Jodi: She will be missed. Especially since she alphabetized herself early in the process, and so most of the station still needs doing. If you need college credit or a place to hide from the dangerous world outside, come on down to the station today, and start a long and healthy life in radio.
In other news, a woman wearing a bulky trench coat and aviator goggles, speaking on behalf of Lenny’s Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, announced that there may have been some slight problems with a few of the things they sold.
“Some of the garden fountains we sold are actually motion-activated turrets,” she said. “Also it’s possible that we put stickers on armed explosives that said SNAIL POISON. And while we stand by the fact that they will, in fact, kill snails, it should be noted that they will also kill any living organism within several hundred feet of the snails. We probably should have put that on the label. So sue us.
“On second thought,” she said, “don’t sue us. You don’t even know what part of the government we work for. Who are you going to sue? And don’t you think we’ve already paid off all the judges? You don’t have a chance.”
She cackled, waving an absurdly long cigarette holder terminating in an unlit cigarette. This went on for several uncomfortable moments. Her laughter subsided into a labored snorting and then a few long, intentional sighs.
“Oh man,” she said. “I needed that. All right, I think that’s everything. Oh yes, I forgot. Absolutely do not touch the flamingos.”
She nodded to the few journalists in attendance and returned to her burrow near City Hall, where she was later driven out and ethically captured by the local Cage and Release Pest Control.
The Night Vale PTA released a statement today saying that if the School Board could not promise to prevent children from learning about dangerous activities like drug use and library science during recess periods, they would be blocking all school entrances with their bodies. They pulled hundreds of bodies out from trucks, saying, “We own all of these bodies and we will not hesitate to use them to create great flesh barricades if that is what it takes to prevent our children from learning.”
The School Board responded by criticizing the use of PTA funds to purchase so many bodies, but PTA treasurer Diane Crayton said that sadness is eternal, that weakness is another word for humanity, and that all will pass, all will pass. She was holding a cup of coffee close to her chest and murmuring that to herself. I am not sure if she was referring to this current controversy, or if she was even aware of our presence. More on this story, somewhere in the world, always happening, whether we report it or not.
And a big thank-you to local scientist, certified genius, and, oh yeah, my boyfriend, Carlos, who came by earlier to explain clouds. Need something explained in language that for all you know could be scientific? Feel free to drop by Carlos’s lab. Sometimes he’ll be there. Sometimes it’s date night, and he’s with me. I am his boyfriend. I don’t know if I mentioned that.
11
Jackie rolled open the car window (her car had manual everything except the transmission, which was some form one less than a manual, the works of which even her mechanic couldn’t understand. “This isn’t even a transmission. This is just a bag of rocks attached by string to your gear change. How does this car even drive?” he had said to her the last time she had gone in for an oil change. Her answer, as was her answer to everything that was outside the routine of her days, was to shrug and cease thinking about it the moment people around her stopped reminding her of it) and let the sun do its thing on her skin. The air as she drove felt good, sliding over her and feeling real in a way that nothing else that day had.
What she needed was someone who understood the world, who studied it in an objective way. She needed a scientist. Fortunately, Night Vale had, just a few years earlier, acquired a few of those.
They had come all at once, scientists being pack animals. Their le
ader was a nice man named Carlos, who had started dating Cecil, the presenter of the local radio station, after a near-death experience a few years before involving a brutal attack from a tiny civilization living under lane 5 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. It was an ordinary enough way to begin a relationship, as these things go.
Jackie had always thought they made a sweet couple, even if Carlos was a bit too preoccupied with whatever “science” was, and Cecil was a bit too enthusiastic sometimes about, well, everything. The fact that Carlos was an outsider to Night Vale was unusual as well. Night Vale doesn’t bring in a lot of new residents, and most people born there never leave. Everyone liked Carlos, as they liked most out-of-towners (or “interlopers,” the affectionate nickname Night Valeans shout while pointing when they see someone unfamiliar in the street). He was likable enough, good looking enough, and smart enough to be reprehensible, but despite all of these things, no one feared or distrusted his clever science or perfect hair.
Because Cecil talked openly on his radio show about Carlos, their relationship was a point of near-constant discussion in Night Vale, all of their imperfections and faults, which made them individuals worth loving. They had built those faults into the usual messy, comfortable, patched-up, beautiful structure that any functioning long-term relationship ended up being.
This, the idea of relationships bit, was all conjecture on her part. She herself felt too young to try to figure out her own life, let alone someone else’s life near hers, and so she had never even sought out companionship of that type. Jackie thought about dating from time to time in the distant way a person thinks about eventually becoming famous or owning a castle or growing ram’s horns. They’re all achievable, realistic goals, but by turning objectives into mere fantasies, she never had to go through the trouble of achieving or maintaining them.
She occasionally found herself thinking about love when staring at the many twinkling spy satellites in the night sky, or when the wind tasted like sour peaches for no understood reason, or when she said a word that seemed different than a word she would ever say. Then she would wonder what it might be like to join her life with someone, or even just a few minutes with someone, just a touch or a glance, just anything, just something.
I’d like to meet someone special someday, Jackie thought.
“KING CITY,” the paper in her hand said.
Jackie crumpled the paper against the steering wheel. She hadn’t been completely aware she was driving.
She pulled into a strip mall that only had two businesses: Carlos’s lab and Big Rico’s Pizza. Big Rico’s had struggled ever since wheat and wheat by-products had been declared illegal. This was the result of a long and not terribly interesting story, but the gist is that wheat and wheat by-products transformed first into snakes and then into evil spirits resulting in a number of dead citizens.
Jackie parked the car on asphalt that had been lifted into sharp undulations by the roots of a nearby tree, which was transformed by the tires of her slowing car into a disquieting thumping that did nothing to improve her mood.
Carlos’s lab was on the outskirts of the science district, which was a pretty run-down part of town. There were a few new laboratories being built, but the science community did not like gentrification, so they resisted new money, holding tight to their history and culture.
It was not uncommon for a single block to have not only marine biologists but also quantum physicists living next door to each other. In many other cities, this may seem like the makings of a civil disaster, but Night Vale’s science district really made it work.
There were certainly some major disagreements and highly public conflicts between, say, the astronomers and the ornithologists, neither of which considers the other a real science. It’s difficult sometimes for two scientific groups to get on well when the core tenet of one science is to disprove the existence of another science—such as it is with meteorologists and geologists.
Carlos’s lab was helpfully labeled with a simple illuminated yellow and black LAB sign and a handwritten
WE ARE “OPEN”!
sign in the front window. The door was unlocked, and led first into a small waiting room, like a doctor’s office but with fewer deadly traps. She passed through it into the lab itself.
Carlos and his team of five scientists were huddled around a table. There were rows of beakers around them, all bubbling, and a chalkboard covered in numbers and also the word science! in different fancy cursives. Some of the iterations had pink chalk hearts around them. It was much like any university-level science lab.
“Excuse me,” Jackie said.
None of the scientists noticed her. They were all writing busily on clipboards and wearing lab coats. This is called “doing an experiment.”
She walked up to see what they were experimenting on. Under some work lights was a pink plastic flamingo.
“Careful now,” Carlos was saying. “We don’t know what this or anything else does.”
The scientists nodded in unison and scribbled on their clipboards.
“We understand very little.”
More nodding, more scribbling.
“Excuse me, Carlos?” she said. He turned. There really was something blindingly handsome about him. His hair maybe. Or his demeanor. People are beautiful when they do beautiful things. Perhaps he had spent most of his life doing beautiful things and it had really stuck. He smiled. He had teeth like a military cemetery.
“Jackie, hello. I’m sorry, I was doing science.” He waved over at the flamingo. “This is all very sciency stuff. Just here is an equation,” he said, indicating some numbers on the chalkboard. “It’s important to have equations.”
“I see that. How’s Cecil?”
“Overenthusiastic, consumed with his work, has very little understanding of science. I love him a lot. The usual.”
The scientists nodded and wrote on their clipboards. All information was important information, even if the reasons were not immediately apparent. The reason for anything was rarely immediately or even eventually apparent, but it existed somewhere, like a moon that had escaped orbit and was no longer a moon but just a piece of something that once was, spinning off into the nothing. The scientists were just then writing down that very metaphor. Metaphors are a big part of science.
“I need your help, Carlos.”
“Jackie, there’s little I love more than helping people. Science and Cecil are about it. But I’m in the middle of an important experiment, and I think if we just push through we might figure out why the experiment is important. Finding out why we are doing what we already were doing is an exciting moment, and I believe we may be almost there.”
“All right, dude, but—”
“Besides, Josie asked us to look at this, and I owe her a few. More than a few. I owe her, I don’t know, a high number. I would express it as an equation, but it’s all figurative and figurative math is really tricky.”
“Carlos, look.”
She held up her left hand. The scientists all waited with pencils hovering, unsure of what observations they should be making at that moment. She did all her tricks with the slip of paper. She tossed it on the ground, tore it into pieces, flung it onto a Bunsen burner. Hell, she ate it. Why not?
Each trick ended the same way, with her holding the uncreased paper back in her left hand, where it had never really left.
Carlos dropped his clipboard.
“You too?” he said.
“Me too?”
“Let me see that.”
He took the slip of paper and examined it closely. When he let go it was back in her hand. The scientists were staring, mouths open. Their clipboards were at their sides. One of them appeared to have overloaded and shut down completely.
Carlos rushed around the lab, turning on and off burners, and throwing switches frantically. The other scientists helped the one scientist reboot.
“We start immediately,” Carlos shouted.
“Oh
, good,” she shouted back. “Why are we shouting?”
12
“Here is what we know so far. The composition of the graphite is what you would expect to find in graphite. The composition of the paper is exactly what you would expect in paper. All the parts are as we suspected, even as the whole astonishes.
“It does not appear to be physically dangerous. Mentally it exerts a hold stronger than even the fascination with its properties could explain. After all, and I speak as someone who came here for what was supposed to be only a short research fellowship with the local community college, this town is mostly made of the unexplained.
“Sorry, I’m getting distracted. Also, can you stop throwing the paper at me? I know it never actually reaches me, but it’s still unnerving, and I’m helping you out here. Thank you. I’m sorry if I snapped. It’s okay to say I did. No, it’s okay.
“King City is a small town of a little over ten thousand people in Monterey County. You can see pictures of it online. Just search any phrase at all in image search and a picture of it will always be the first result. There doesn’t appear to be anything unusual about it, any more than any other place where people live their unusual lives.
“You are not the first I’ve seen with these slips of paper. It’s not important who else. It’s important to them, but not to you. I haven’t thought much about it, so I guess not important to me either. I just assumed it was another passing strangeness that would take care of itself before Cecil even finished the broadcast day of reporting on it. But it’s been a few weeks now. And I didn’t realize the paper did that. I wonder what else it does.
“You’ve reported feeling like your life is different since getting the paper. Like you are not yourself anymore, and the past is not your past, and the future you planned is now impossible. This is a common feeling, usually felt when we first wake up or when we receive thoughts that do not seem to be our own while showering. But with that feeling sustained as long as it has been, and the start of it aligning exactly with your receiving of the paper, it is safe to say that the two are connected.