The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe

by Joseph Fink

  Okay, listeners, it’s time to introduce the candidates who will be taking part in our studio debate. First, someone I’ve known my whole life (and you have too): It’s the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Welcome.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: Hello.

  CECIL: Where are you? I can hear you, but I can’t see you.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: I’m behind you in a mirror. Just over your shoulder, in the distance. You’ll see slight movements in the dark. You’ll feel a single fingernail gently run along your cheek.

  CECIL: Faceless Old Woman. Can I call you Faceless Old Woman?

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: I have a name, Cecil.

  CECIL: You do?

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: Yes.

  [Long pause]

  CECIL: Let’s introduce our next candidate, and I’m so glad to finally meet this man, not man, no this person, not person, this entity: Hiram McDaniels. Hello, Hiram.

  HIRAM-GOLD: Hello.

  CECIL: You know, in the entirety of Night Vale’s recorded history, there is no sign of a five-headed dragon ever running for mayor. So it hasn’t happened in at least seven years!

  HIRAM-GOLD: I am thrilled to be breaking new ground for those of us who do not identify as human.

  HIRAM-PURPLE: We are thrilled.

  HIRAM-GOLD: Yes, my purple head brings up a good point, I also do not identify as a single being. I have five heads. You will notice that my opponents have one. One head each. Just one.

  HIRAM-GREEN: ONLY ONE HEAD. THAT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THINKING.

  HIRAM-GOLD: Well, Green head, not impossible, but certainly very difficult.

  CECIL: And speaking of your opponents, let’s meet our last candidate for mayor. It’s an honor to introduce our wealthiest citizen and now potential new mayor: billionaire Marcus Vanston. Welcome.

  MARCUS: Yep. Hey. I mean, whatever. All this. This is whatever. You know, I used to own a dragon.

  HIRAM-GRAY: Excuse me. What an inappropriate thing to say.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: I agree with Mr. McDaniels’s gray head. Ownership of sentient life is cruel and unconscionable.

  MARCUS: Yeah, well it was great. It had eight heads though, not just five. I pretty much used it for commuting to work.

  HIRAM-GREEN: [A howl/growl of rage, long and uncomfortable]

  [Pause]

  CECIL: Great! Let’s get the debate started. We’ll have opening statements as well as two rounds of questions. So, listeners, if you have a question, call now. Call silently to the sky with pleading eyes. When the birds come, you will feel your question has been received. You will not know for sure, because presumed knowledge is arrogance.

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  CECIL: Let’s get to our opening statements. You have two minutes each. Faceless Old Woman.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: Night Vale, I want to be your mayor. Who better to serve as leader of a town than the one person who lives secretly in the home of every single resident? I know each and every one of you personally, intimately. Mike Numminen? You need to discipline your children more. Claire Franklin, tell Eva you love her. It’s been three years, and you need to take this seriously. Felicia Jackson, there is an enormous spider on the back of your dress right this very moment. You should probably change clothes before you leave the house. Change clothes slowly.

  What other candidate can help our community on such a personal level? I have set fire to countless home appliances and stood secretly and stoically over crumbled bodies of sobbing citizens who only thought they were alone. Night Vale, you are not alone. I am there. I am always there, staring at you with curiosity and concern. Look for me out of the corner of your eye just before you fall asleep. I want to brush against your face at the deepest gulf of night. I want to be your mayor.

  CECIL: Thank you for that. Let’s go next to Hiram McDaniels and his opening statement. Hiram.

  HIRAM-GOLD: Ladies, gentlemen, sentient creatures, imagine your perfect Night Vale. Close your eyes and imagine what a perfect town would be like. You can’t, can you? That’s because you only have one head. I have five. Listen, I don’t mean to say I’m better than you. I, after all, have my own faults: caring too much, caring too little, caring just the right amount but at the wrong time, debilitating claustrophobia, an occasional lack of control over my fire-breathing. But one thing I do have is a multitude of heads—heads that can think through problems that the single-head cannot.

  Here. Try this. Try solving an easy math problem with me. Quickly, what is fifty-six times ninety-seven?

  HIRAM-GREEN: FIVE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO. THE ANSWER IS FIVE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND THIRTY-TWO. YOUR MATH SKILLS ARE UNDEVELOPED AND PUNY.

  HIRAM-GOLD: See, I have a green head that is excellent at math. I mean, I don’t know that mayors have to be that good at math, but the point is . . .

  HIRAM-BLUE: Well, mayors have to write budgets and know the population and things like that.

  HIRAM-GOLD: Oh! See? Good point from my blue head. You see how we all work together? I can think quickly about a variety of topics, thanks to my many heads and brains and personalities and needs and desires. Some of these desires are nearly unmanageable, and I have a strong desire to be a good mayor. So you know I’ll do everything, everything, I will stop at nothing to do that. I will be mayor.

  CECIL: Charming! Thank you, Hiram. Marcus Vanston.

  MARCUS: Yeah.

  [Pause]

  CECIL: Go ahead with your opening statement.

  MARCUS: Let me finish this e-mail to my assistant. [Mumbling while typing] “and that is when I first understood what it meant to love myself for who I am. I am a complete person, Jake.” Annnnd send. [Normal] Okay. So, people of Night Vale, I would like to be your next mayor. I will use all of my resources to do this.

  In fact, I have already invested several million dollars into finding and excavating the Hidden Gorge where mayoral races are decided. I plan on developing a single computer voting machine to help streamline elections. So once that is complete, everything should work out fine. We’ll all be just fine. Some of us will be more just fine than others, but again, that’s also just fine.

  CECIL: Thank you, Marcus. Thank you candidates for your desire to serve the Night Vale community with your leadership.

  I want to go now to the issues. But first an update on our earlier news story.

  Listeners, we’ve just received word that the newly intelligent deer are stopping on the road and allowing themselves to get hit by moving vehicles. They are then using that physical contact to launch themselves and the drivers and the wrecked vehicles backward in time by several days.

  The leader of the deer, a two-headed, spider-eyed mule deer named (as all deer are named) Deer, apologized for the problems they are causing but they just want to experience pain. They have been so numb emotionally, physically, and spiritually
, and they want to remember again what it is like to hurt, not just in their bodies but to see others suffer as well. The time travel was a happy accident, Deer admitted, as they had no idea humans experienced such angst, such terror when confronted with multiplicity of self.

  The Sheriff’s Secret Police remind us that while capable of time travel, the deer don’t actually understand the implications of parallel universes versus linear continuity. The deer, while talented, are still very dumb animals. The deer countered that the Sheriff’s Secret Police are just being mean now.

  The City Council are asking that residents lock their doors and close their windows. The deer are organized and they will stop at nothing to get what they want, Night Vale. Be safe.

  And now back to our first ever mayoral debate. Let’s reach out to our community and find out what they want from their mayoral candidates. First caller, you’re on the air. Who is this?

  DIANE: Hi, Cecil, This is Diane Crayton. Candidates, as a member of the Night Vale PTA, one of the most important topics to me is our schools. This past year, we’ve seen a rise in some concerning trends: declining graduation rates, gun violence, teacher complaints about centipedes crawling out of their eyes at unexpected moments, and clocks that don’t work correctly, causing confusion about when the next class is.

  What will you do as mayor to improve our schools?

  HIRAM-GOLD: The centipede thing is tough, because centipedes are helpful and intelligent beings, so I’m not going to say they have no right to live in and crawl out of teachers’ faces. But I think we can find ways to compromise with them about living in different parts of the body so that they do not distract our children from learning.

  As for the other issues, we spend an exorbitant amount each year on extracurricular activities, such as sports and art and history. I think we could take some of that money and put it toward after-school programs to help tutor students in important topics like music and brick-laying and how to build great stone shrines to . . . well, whoever, I mean, let’s say reptiles, just as an example. That’s just an example.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: While I agree with my opponent that we must stop our children from learning too much in schools, I disagree that we need to cut funding from any school programs. Nor should we ask the government for more. We can do this as a community.

  I propose selling off unused items from our homes to raise money for our schools. Cecil, you have a whole set of collectible Jade-ite bowls that you never use. I would be happy to sell them on eBay for you. Hiram, you live in a cave that I do not like, but you have a collection of rare jewels and coins in a mahogany chest that you keep locked and buried. Let’s put those up for sale. Marcus, you have a coffee table made of human bones.

  MARCUS: I need that coffee table.

  CECIL: Please let the Faceless Old Woman finish, Mr. Vanston.

  MARCUS: I need that coffee table.

  CECIL: Okay.

  MARCUS: I need it.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: We all have things we do not use. Books we do not read or care for. Furniture and electronics and dead mice and antiques that could be worth a lot of money to our students. Children are our future. They are a terrible and less enjoyable future than the future we all represented, but they are a future nonetheless.

  CECIL: Marcus. Do you have a rebuttal?

  MARCUS: [Thinks] No. It doesn’t really affect me at all.

  CECIL: Sorry for yet another interruption in our debate, but I’ve just received an update on the deer situation. The City Council announced that the deer are multiplying. When asked how they are doing this, the City Council rolled their eyes and said the same way deer always replicate, by humming and breathing softly in unison until others that hear them become them. Good thing you’re a reporter and not a biologist, the City Council teased, and a sudden, shared laughter broke the tension of the room.

  The City Council then announced that they just can’t be here anymore and that they wish us all the best in our final moments.

  “We’re pretty much done for,” the City Council reassured reporters. “The deer have taken over the streets, the sidewalks. Many are standing at your window right now waiting for you to see their eyes and hear their hums.”

  Do not open your windows or doors, listeners. Stay by your radios, stay always by your radios, and we will update you with more information.

  Okay, next caller, you’re on the air. Who is this?

  ERIKA 1: This is Erika.

  CECIL: What’s your question, Erica?

  ERIKA 1: It’s spelled Erika. With a K.

  CECIL: I’m sorry. What’s your question, Erika?

  ERIKA 1: Well, I’m an angel and I’m concerned. Not concerned, anxious.

  CECIL: Let me stop you right there, Erika. Angels aren’t real. But go ahead with your question.

  ERIKA 1: Of course. Yes. Well, there’s a tiny civilization living under lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Angels have not been able to determine where this nation came from or what it wants. It is rare that angels cannot solve a problem, but when they cannot, they turn to small-town civic leaders for help and guidance. What do you know about this nation of small people in the bowling alley?

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: Erika, let me first say thank you for your hard work. You do not exist, but if you did, we would be extraordinarily proud of the work you do protecting humans. That being said, it is a crime to acknowledge the existence of angels. So I have nothing more to say.

  HIRAM-GREEN: BURN IT TO A PIT OF ASH AND DESPAIR.

  [Pause]

  HIRAM-GOLD: We could just burn it down. Or . . . whatever.

  MARCUS: [Off mic] I’m not crying.

  CECIL: What was that?

  MARCUS: I’m not crying.

  CECIL: Listeners at home, Marcus is hunched over, head turned away from his microphone. He is sobbing.

  MARCUS: No I’m not.

  CECIL: Perhaps he has been chosen by the angels, who, as a legal reminder, are not real in the slightest. But those who are chosen for special tasks by angels often cannot stop weeping when they talk about angels.

  MARCUS: I’m fine. Next question.

  CECIL: Caller, you’re on the air with the mayoral candidates.

  JOHN: Hi, this is John Peters, you know, the farmer? Last year, there was a pretty big glowing cloud that went through town dropping dead animals and things everywhere. And I know that glow cloud is now on the School Board and all, but is there anything one of you could do to keep it from dropping animals everywhere? I nearly lost my organic certification because none of those cows or crows or nurse sharks or spider wolves it dropped had any paperwork. And also all the radiation was probably not healthy.

  CECIL: Thank you, John. Candidates, what will you do to protect us from the glow cloud? What will you do to serve the glow cloud? What efforts will you make to hail the all-mighty glow cloud?

  ALL ON STAGE: ALL HAIL! ALL HAIL! ALL PRAISE AND REPENT BEFORE THE GLOW CLOUD! GIVE YOUR TEETH. GIVE YOUR EYES. GIVE YOUR ALL TO THE GLOW CLOUD.

  CECIL: And to John’s point, it’s a difficult situation given that the glow cloud is a stand-up member of our community, but the glow cloud is also a—

  ALL ON STAGE: TERRIBLE FORCE OF DESTRUCTION. A PUNISHMENT FOR WEAK HUMANS. A CELEBRATION OF UNBRIDLED MADNESS AND PAIN AND FEAR AND PAIN AND PAIN AND PAIN. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.

  CECIL: Thank you for your call, John.

  JOHN: You bet.

  CECIL: Next up. Caller?

  ERIKA 2: Hi, this is Erika again.

  CECIL: Erika, you sound different.

  ERIKA 2: I do?

  CECIL: Well, yes, I mean, in your earlier call you sounded like a man, and now you sound like a woman.

  ERIKA 2: Angels cannot hear gender, Cecil.

  CECIL: Well, if angels were real, Erika, what would your question be?

  ERIKA 2: Thank you. This question is just for Marcus. Marcus, if called upon by angels to serve a great good, to serve a great calling, to serve a
great war, would you serve?

  CECIL: Marcus? Are you crying?

  MARCUS: [Off mic] Hang on. Nope. I’m fine. I’m fine.

  ERIKA 2: You are needed, Marcus. You are needed now.

  CECIL: Listeners, oh my. Marcus is rising from his chair. His feet are off the floor. He is stretching to inhuman lengths, his eyes are glowing black, and his fingers are spiraling long and diaphanous. Marcus. Oh dear. Listeners, Marcus grew gold feathers from his back as he vanished. He is gone.

  ERIKA 2: I am sorry to interrupt your debate, Cecil. Good-bye.

  CECIL: Good-bye, Erika.

  ERIKA 2: And Cecil . . .

  CECIL: Yes?

  ERIKA 2: I am afraid. . . .

  CECIL: Yes? Go on.

  ERIKA 2: No. That’s it. Just: I am afraid. Good-bye, okay?

  CECIL: Okay. This debate has certainly taken an odd turn listeners, but also none of this happened and we will comment no further.

  One last caller. You’re on the air.

  STEVE: Hi, this is Steve Carlsberg. I have a question for Hiram. Hiram—

  CECIL: NO STEVE. NO. STEVE CARLSBERG, WE ARE OUT OF TIME FOR QUESTIONS. GOOD-BYE.

  Candidates, let’s get to closing statements. Faceless Old Woman.

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: My fellow Night Valeans, my opponent talks about human children, but he has never been a human child. I have. It has been centuries, but I have. He claims he wants to improve fitness and health in our schools, but he cannot even regulate his own body temperature. I can. I can also regulate yours. He says he cares about you, but I am the only candidate who is actually in your home at this very moment, writing down the grim specifics of your eventual death on the backside of one section of drywall. You’ll see it someday when getting some pipes or wiring fixed, and you’ll be impressed. Not impressed. Terrified. This is a promise I make to you. My other opponent is now an angel, and cannot legally be thought about. So vote for me, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. I’m touching your neck right now. You smell nice.