Mostly Void, Partially Stars: Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 1

by Joseph Fink

  [Long silence, just the hum]

  CECIL: Hello. Hello, Night Vale? What is this studio? What is this damnable studio? Night Vale, I do not know if you can hear me. This is Cecil, and I do not know where I am. It is clearly a radio studio, but the walls are covered in blood, and instead of dials and buttons on the soundboard, there is just animal viscera, glistening under the green LED lights. I hope this microphone works. Am I in hell? Dana. Dana, can you hear me?

  Listeners, if you can hear the sound of my voice, please contact the Sheriff’s Secret Police. There is so much blood; it is seeping into my shoes. There are—oh master of us all, no—teeth scattered across the floor. The window into the control booth is shattered and there is a swath of skin and a fistful of long, clumping hair hanging from a sharp glass point. I do not know if this is even Night Vale. I know that I can hear the sandstorm raging outside. There is a low buzz and deep hum that might be my own heart ready to tear itself from my chest in horror or grief. I cannot know which. There is a photo, a single photo of a man on the desk here. He is wearing a tie. He is not tall or short. Not thin or fat. His hair and nose are like mine, but his eyes. His eyes are black as obsidian, and his smile. No. It is not a smile. He must be wicked, this man.

  Dear Night Vale, please pray in your bloodstone circle for me. And pray, too, that no one should ever have to meet this vicious wretch of a man. I want to be home, Night Vale. Oh Cecil, you fool! The vortex! The vortex is still there (only here it is white). Okay, dear listeners, from this vile, vile place, I leave you to your prison. But before I go, because I am a radio professional, and it is sitting right here on this blood-splattered desk, I give you: the weather.

  WEATHER: “Eliezer’s Waltz” by Disparition

  [Kevin’s voice again. Humming is gone.]

  KEVIN: Hello there, Desert Bluffs! It is Kevin again. I told you I would be back. I don’t know where I went, but I think that I met my double. The vortex is gone now, but as I was returning, I passed a man, a man who looked just like me. I smiled and said “Hello there, friend!” I hugged this man, and he hugged me back. We shared a moment in this otherworld.

  I am not sure to where that spiral of space and time took me, nor through where I traveled, but I am certain that there must be more to us than just us, and that there is another place, another time where things could have been different. Better. Worse. But let’s think not on woulds, coulds, and shoulds. I am just happy I am alive. I am happy my other is alive. You are alive. We. We are alive.

  Outside, the winds are subsiding. Our doubles have left us as the sand has left us. The sun is rising again just as it is setting. Our second sunrise collides with the sunset. Let’s reflect on this.

  Let us reflect on our lives and where we will be tomorrow. We lost our other selves, Desert Bluffs, but we gained new perspective. Tomorrow, we’ll wake again, work again, live again. We are home. All of us, together. My mouth, your ears. We have each other. And as always, until next time, Desert Bluffs, until next time.

  PROVERB: Step one: Separate your lips.

  Step two: Use facial muscles to pull back corners of mouth.

  Step three: Widen your eyes. This is how to be happy.

  EPISODE 20:

  “POETRY WEEK”

  APRIL 1, 2013

  CONTRIBUTORS: KATHERINE CIEL, DANIELLE DUBOIS, VANESSA IRENA, ERIKA PASCHOLD, RUSSEL SWENSEN, AND TRILETY WADE

  TWITTER WAS GREAT FUN WHILE IT LASTED.*

  When we created the Night Vale twitter account (@NightValeRadio, if you’re not too far in the future, and the satellites haven’t burned out and there is still electricity), we mostly used it as a place to make weird jokes, because as far as we could tell, that’s what you did on Twitter.

  And through that account, we met a lot of funny and fascinating people, a few of whom I wrote to in early 2013 asking if they’d write a poem for the Night Vale podcast.

  I didn’t really have an idea what I would do with those poems, just that I knew I wanted to write an episode called “Poetry Week.” So Russel Swensen, Vanessa Irena, Trilety Wade, Katherine Ciel, Erika Paschold, and Danielle DuBois all submitted some lovely words, and I patched a story around it all.

  I heard Joseph say once that this time is the best time to be an artist because there are so many resources and lowered barriers to entry. We have Twitter and Tumblr to help us find communities of talented people and to disseminate original art.

  Here were these six people I knew only as people who wrote really good tweets, and they all contributed something really wonderful to our show.

  As a side note, a fan on Tumblr sent me a photo of a tattoo she’d gotten on her back. The tattoo is the entire text of this episode’s traffic report. I immediately forwarded the photo to Katherine Ciel, who wrote that passage. I hope Katherine feels the same way, but it was one of the prouder moments of my life.

  —Jeffrey Cranor

  * Is it still around? When are you reading this book? I assume civilization has crumbled, or at least changed beyond recognition. If so, Twitter was a website (do you know what a website is? I don’t have much space, so you’ll have to look it up on your own if you don’t.) where people could write short messages (no more than 140 characters, or maybe 10,000, hard to say) to other people.

  “You’ll be safe here,” says a whisper behind you.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

  Listeners, today begins Night Vale Poetry Week—one of our most sacred town traditions. As you know, every citizen is required to write hundreds of poems. Nonstop poems. During this time, the City Council lifts their bans on writing utensils, thesauruses, and public descriptions of the moon. And they mandate that everybody use their municipally granted free will to join in on the fun.

  Last year, over 800,000 poems were written by Night Vale residents and then eaten during the Poetry Week’s closing ceremonies by real, live librarians who were chained to thick titanium posts inside double-locked steel cages. (Honestly, listeners, I don’t think it’s a good idea to ever have librarians out in public no matter how secure the posts or cages are. I know there were no serious injuries last year, but some of you older listeners may remember what happened in 1993, when an unchecked librarian population resulted in the loss of many innocent and screaming booklovers.)

  But that was twenty years ago. Let’s not dwell on our corpse-strewn past. Let’s celebrate our corpse-strewn future. On the show today we’ll be featuring some poems sent in by listeners from all over Night Vale. We’ll start with this one. Last night, Night Vale’s poet laureate, Trilety Wade, with clenched teeth and frightened eyes, delivered the opening stanzas for the Poetry Week festivities. Here is what she read:

  I fell in love with a hooded figure

  who tied my tongue with an ink ligature,

  and silently urged I write this po-em.

  Please believe me, I wasn’t forced,

  through bone telepathy or the code of Morse,

  to pen this uncoded, unsubversive gem.

  On the desert farms, the ghost-eyed maidens make the cheese

  while a maelstrom of thick milk falls with ease.

  Our punishment? Hot-blooded clotted cream.

  The days here pass like cancerous sunspots.

  And black metal trees can’t compare to car lots.

  You are in Night Vale—Welcome.

  Wade capped off her reading by screaming, “It is lies. It is lies!” before separating into minute white particles and fluttering away on a swirling breeze. Like soft snow, she covered our hair and light coats and, like snow, it smelled of fennel and meat. Then a voice announced over the PA: “Everything is perfect in our little town.” Poetry Week has begun, Night Vale! It’s going to be a great one!

  This weekend the Night Vale Zoo finally reopens after last month’s renovations. Among the new features are fences and Plexiglas to separate the animals from each other and from zoo patrons. Zoo officials promised that they focused especially on the tiger, bear, spider, and snake areas in this regard
. Another new feature is the Sensory Extraction Room, where a randomly selected zoo-goer will be dropped into a pitch-black, soundproof booth for two straight days while zookeepers harvest their scent and teach it to genetically improved predators. They’ve also unveiled a new logo featuring a swan being eaten by a giraffe and a new slogan: “You go to the zoo so the animals can watch you.”

  So come join in on the fun this weekend. Slow-moving children with more than fifteen percent body fat get in free!

  Oh, I can’t wait anymore, listeners. Poetry Week has to be the most wonderful time of the year. Let’s get back to the fantastic poems that have been sent in. Some of them are even from our city officials, like Mayor Pamela Winchell, who put her quill to parchment and sent us this lovely stanza:

  No one will

  Have to be

  Anyone

  Ever again, in fact

  It will not

  Be

  Allowed.

  That poem also doubles as recently enacted legislation, enforced by the Sheriff’s Secret Police. Thank you, Mayor! And now—and this is very special—a poem written by the sheriff himself! Here goes:

  The town criers have cross-stitched their mouths shut and stapled their eyes open.

  The benches are all broken.

  No one sits down anyway. No one can fit their broken wings beneath their cloaks.

  A skin condition that makes its victims appear timelessly sad afflicts most.

  Prominent citizens drown in the carpool lane.

  Their makeup floats to the surface. Wineglasses clink together. They hate each other.

  They clink.

  Until one breaks and then the other.

  There is no such thing as vagrants.

  There is no such thing as home.

  The sun has a tic.

  No one can afford flowers but the children stand very still in the garden.

  Until the cold snap cracks.

  Very pretty. Thank you, Sheriff.

  And now a poem sent in by Irena Panchyk, a third-grade teacher from Night Vale Elementary. It is called “Street Cleaning Day”:

  Run Run

  Remain Calm

  Run

  Where are my children?

  Do I have children?

  Run Run

  Remain Calm

  Run

  I know

  I know where

  they will not go

  But what way?

  Again the announcement:

  Run Run

  Remain Calm

  Run

  They are coming

  I must choose

  I have chosen

  Save myself

  Thank you, Mrs. P. You did the right thing.

  Madeline LaFleur, executive director of the Night Vale Tourism Board, sent in a piece of paper that just reads, in all caps:

  TOURISM IS IMPORTANT

  Below that is a reddish-brown smudge shaped like an underfed hawk alighting on a mesquite tree. She also Scotch-taped what appear to be three human molars to the page. You know at first I thought, this is not poetry. This is visual art, but that’s mere semantics. We are all poetry, Night Vale. Every breath or branch or sigh before another hopeless night of uneasy slumber is itself a verse in a great poem.

  Here’s a question, listeners: Have you seen those new billboards all over town recently? They have no pictures, just hyper-bright and colorful text that reads “20% OFF EVERYTHING! WE’RE GOING TO TAKE 20% OFF EVERYTHING! EVERY THING. WE’RE CRAAAAZY!” There’s no store or brand associated with the advertisements, and the Highway Department said that there’s no record that anyone owns the billboards or that they were ever put up. “They just appeared one day, and we all sort of accepted that they were there,” a representative from the city told us.

  The Sheriff’s Secret Police warned that the advertisement appears to be completely literal, and that soon twenty percent of everything might, indeed, be gone. They are still investigating as to whether or not we have a choice of which twenty percent gets taken off and where that twenty percent goes.

  Scientists say that the twenty percent must go somewhere because of something to do with something called “thermodynamic laws,” but police officials reminded us that scientists are comedians and that they should stick to comedy.

  Let’s have a look at traffic.

  Old Town Night Vale resident Katherine Ciel just sent in the following report of what’s happening out there on the roads. Katherine writes:

  On Sunday, a lambent crevice opened up in the street outside my house.

  By Tuesday birds were flying into it.

  “I probably won’t miss you,” my mother said.

  “I’m only interested in the end of the world,” I replied.

  Many find it difficult to breathe

  without the atmosphere

  but we knew how. We just stopped breathing.

  We’re at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner and they’re serving up fruit from the plants growing out of the waitress.

  The CLOSED sign whispers, “Please, don’t touch me.”

  We watch bodies fall to the ground outside like deep-sea creatures surfacing.

  You turn to me and ask, “Do you ever think about suicide?”

  I look away from you and close my eyes,

  eat the raspberries to confuse the blood in my mouth.

  Now you’re in the only car in the parking lot at midnight and you’re watching me throw stones at the moon,

  which hangs low in the sky so that he can look into your house.

  Your sister tried to touch him from her bedroom window once, and he flinched; now he and the oceans watch her with a quiet concern.

  The lilac sky is trying to rest her head on his shoulder, all trees gradually growing through her.

  A hummingbird whispers to you, “Be careful, under her dress is her skin,” and then builds his nest in the middle of the highway.

  I look back to you, and you close your eyes.

  So, Night Vale, it sounds like you should use some alternate routes today. Thank you, Katherine, for that report. This has been traffic.

  An update now on Poetry Week. A strange thing has happened, listeners. A note was posted at the entrance to the Dog Park. I’m told the note is on paper that is black like the ocean of space, and the text is—well, it’s not white, really, more resplendent—radiating its strange free verse message from the dark page. The message reads:

  Today they scratched me from sleep.

  Nails unhinged, carving

  my name in cement. Ash stains

  my pillow and bruises the shape

  of spiders climb my neck.

  Sunlight catches dust

  and broken glances between strangers

  dodging desert puddles of something metallic.

  I’m highly contagious, quarantined

  to another body I’ve since infected.

  I will seep into you

  if you hold me too tightly.

  I assemble your letters, left

  torn in the pocket of a hospital

  gown. I stain the paper

  with sweat. I’m beginning

  to steal your voice.

  The voice that lies

  dying

  in the Dog Park.

  The poem is signed with just the letter E. Listeners, while I certainly love luxuriating in the lush language of a good poem, I do not condone entering the Dog Park. It is forbidden. Dogs and dog owners are not allowed in the Dog Park. Please disregard this renegade poet’s radical lies and stay away. Oh, I fear the damage is done, listeners. Whoever this “E” is must know we are all now in grave danger.

  And now a word from our sponsor. With low interest rates, now is the perfect time to buy a home. Just name your amenity. Every house in Night Vale has a luxurious view of the void. We also have great schools and plenty of spiders. Who wouldn’t want to settle down in Night Vale? Seek a licensed Realtor to help you find the house of your dreams. Realtors live inside dee
r. When you find an undersized stag or ailing doe you can catch, simply wrestle it down and knife open the chest cavity. Then let the Realtor inside help you achieve your American dream.

  The head of the Greater Night Vale Realty Association, Russel Swensen, says, “No one has lived here for years. You’re one of them. One of the no ones. A woman is a fire and no one is invited. Anyone can watch. No one can help.” [Beat; off mic] Dana, is this a poem Russel wrote for us, or . .

  [Beat; shuffling papers; back on mic] So start looking today for your new Night Vale home. As the old saying goes, “Streets swallow their own tails and choke.”

  Listeners, oh this is bad news, the gates to the Dog Park have been opened for the first time anyone can recall. In fact, no one even knew there were gates. We’ve only ever seen tall black walls with no visible entrance or exit. But there are gates, and apparently they’re just standing wide open. Witnesses said that inside you can see a couple of old tennis balls, some Frisbees, and a black stone monolith that is humming a hum that makes anyone who hears it feel calm and ever so slightly more sensual.

  The City Council issued a statement moments ago which was just a series of ancient glyphs. Nobody could read the language, but we all understood what it said. It was a dire warning. A warning to the mysterious “E.” A warning to those by the Dog Park. A warning to all of Night Vale. A great pain. A great piercing. A great scream that will soon break apart our sky and our lives if this insolence does not stop.

  If you are near the Dog Park, listeners, do not enter it. The monolith (or whatever you think you see) is not for you to know. Public property is not for citizens. Stay home, Night Vale. Write your poems. This should be a fun and festive time to write government-mandated rhymes. Not storming the shores of hell and bringing us all to war with you.

  I’ve just sent Intern Dana (or Intern Dana’s doppelgänger, I am still unsure) to the park to warn those who are standing so near to their demise. I only hope Dana is in time to save them.