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

by Joseph Fink

  Let us go now, possibly for the last time, to the weather.

  WEATHER: “Get Me Home” by Robin Aigner

  Old Woman Josie called during the break and said that the mysterious “E” is one of the angels and that the E stands for Erika. “Erica?” I asked. “No, no, Erika. With a K,” she said. “Oh, Erika, with a K,” I said. And then there was a weird pause, and then she said, “All angels go by the name Erika,” and then I was like “Right, right,” and I felt dumb, because that’s like the first thing you learn in seventh-grade Transmigration Studies.

  Anyway, the City Council in a press conference said, “Oh, an angel wrote that? Well, okay then! Never mind. Sure, we’ll show you the monolith. Come in.”

  And so those on the streets outside the Dog Park entered. And the City Council showed them the monolith, welcoming all with friendly upturned palms. But some witnesses resisted, and their conservatism served them well, for the tall black gates soon closed, vanishing into the smooth onyx walls, taking the Dog Park visitors with them. No entrance. No exit. There may never be either again.

  Sadly, Intern Dana (or her double) was inside the Dog Park when it was sealed. And listeners, I hesitate to tell you, but as a journalist, I think I must. Intern Dana (or her double) texted me a photo of the monolith just before the gates closed. Did you know there is an inscription at its base? And get this, right here, on this, the first day of Poetry Week . . . the inscription is a poem.

  According to the plaque, the poem was written in 1954 by former Night Vale mayor Danielle DuBois, quote, “in honor of nothing that should never not be unknown.” The poem reads:

  the gentle man, in glowlight

  is a candle in his maybes.

  his face is a loamy bog.

  do you ever stop to look at

  all the blood you gather?

  metal halos spring

  from your attention. she said:

  watch with all your eyes

  lest chance again escape you

  said: chalk’s wasted

  on blind children,

  wrote TODAY’S SPECIALS

  on the board.

  What’s blessed entry

  in this weather? i heard it

  tapping, but it doesn’t leave

  a trail. when you catch a beating

  heart in the wild, you hold it

  squirming, & say:

  that is that.

  but the damn thing

  keeps on moving

  till you squeeze

  it in your hands.

  I know not what the monolith’s poem hides, Night Vale, nor if there will be consequences for my actions today. But I do know it is Poetry Week. It is only the beginning of our fun and festive favorite time of year. Let’s not think about what we’re not allowed to know. Let’s think about what is safe to know. And let’s start with the beauty of our words. So get out those pens and dust off your iambs and couplets.

  Also, Intern Dana (or your double), you will be missed. I tried texting you back, but now there’s just blood seeping up through some newly formed crack on my touchscreen, so I think that’s a no-go. Good-bye, Dana.

  And for the rest of you, good-bye too, but with the hint of a future hello. Stay tuned next for the sound of some helpless thing being eaten.

  Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

  PROVERB: Pain is just weakness leaving the body, and then being replaced by pain. Lots of pain.

  EPISODE 21:

  “A MEMORY OF EUROPE”

  APRIL 15, 2013

  I REGULARLY SEE COMMENTS THAT WE MUST BE ON SOME POWERFUL DRUGS to write Welcome to Night Vale, or at the very least that we must be constantly stoned.

  Comments like this both ignore the power of the human imagination and also misunderstand the quiet, boring concentration that is needed to get anything written and edited, even the weird stuff. Not to mention, it overestimates the productivity of marijuana and other narcotics.

  Which is all to say that even the strangest moments of Night Vale were written while we were sober, in our respective offices, during a planned work time, and with the primary motivator of word counts and episode deadlines to get us moving. The creation of any kind of art is rarely glamorous, but there’s a reason why short stories and novels, especially, rarely have behind-the-scenes footage. No matter how exciting the end product, the process is rarely fascinating to watch.

  This is all a roundabout way of saying that I wrote an important section of this episode while very not sober. It might be the only thing I’ve written not sober that has made it into the show.

  One drunken night in Spain, as I was falling asleep, I thought, “Time is like wax dripping from a candle flame. Fluid and falling in the moment, and then solidifying into a record of whatever it happened to land as.” This seemed like an interesting enough idea that I got back up, not without some struggle, and wrote it down along with some notes expanding on it. Then I passed out.

  Luckily, this thought turned out to still be interesting to me when I was no longer drunk, and so it turned into the passage that ends this episode. So this show was never written on drugs, but I cannot say that it has always been written completely sober.

  It’s still a pretty boring and unglamorous process.

  —Joseph Fink

  Hang a map of a place you’ll never go on your living room wall. Draw new streets. Tear off bodies of water. Wait for news crews to arrive.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

  Teddy Williams, owner of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, has reported that he is starting an around-the-clock militia watch on the entrance to the buried city beneath the pin retrieval area of lane five. This watch will consist of a line of patriotic volunteers, armed to the teeth and forming an unbroken perimeter along the whole of the bowling area. Teddy admits that this will make bowling slightly more difficult than usual, and league games may have to be rescheduled or made illegal, but he adds that this is a small price to pay for safety. The other price for safety is $2.25, which is how much he would like every single good Night Vale citizen to pay him for this important defensive service against the unknown but presumably fearsome and dangerous aggressors from the buried city.

  Witnesses have reported seeing the Apache Tracker out back of the bowling alley, in fervent discussion with a man in a tan jacket. Sheriff’s Secret Police report that the conversation was too quiet for them to hear, and reminds all citizens to please hold conversations in a loud declamatory manner, facing outward, and making dramatic gestures to increase both the ease and excitement of their surveillance duties. The man in the tan jacket was described as impossible to remember, but presumably a man of some kind, with facial features and limbs. The Apache Tracker was described as a real jerk, just now, by me.

  Listeners, the coming of the first gentle winds of spring has brought me back to my college years, and to the late spring I spent backpacking through Europe. Truly this is a milestone in the life of any young person able to afford it, and I am thankful for the opportunity.

  I remember spending a wonderful period in the country of Svitz. Svitz, of course, land of low rolling hills and off-key tones heard on the breeze, is perfect for the visitor with a strong constitution and a low tendency for hallucination. My traveling partner and I stayed in a lovely two-bed hostel, situated in a plywood shack on a steep hillside. The incline meant that my partner kept rolling into me, and then we would both roll out of the shack and tumble down and down until we came to rest in a ravine full of thorns and fragrant, violently blue flowers, at which point we would trudge up the hillside, settle in, only to have it happen over again. Oh, we laughed and laughed. The situation was made stranger by the fact that I don’t remember having a traveling partner before or after Svitz. Who was he? Who knows? It all seemed perfectly normal at the time. I also don’t know how long I stayed in Svitz, rolling down that hill and climbing up again. What with the tones on the breeze, the intoxicating smell from those flowers, and the fact that it was
never any time but the middle of the night, it was difficult to keep track. But it couldn’t have been more than a decade or so. Eventually I was knocked out on one of our falls and when I awoke it was in a different country, I had aged by years, and no one I talked to knew where the country of Svitz was, or even had heard of it. Anyway, it was a lovely place and I would say it’s a must-see for any European traveler that can find it.

  Trish Hidge, from the Mayor’s Office, called a press conference today, in which she stood in front of a large truck painted in bright neon colors and decorated with flashing lights, and resolutely denied the truck’s existence. She continued this denial for several minutes and through a lengthy round of questioning from the gathered reporters, although it should be noted that many of the questions took the form of just pointing at the trunk and raising an eyebrow. Ms. Hidge admitted afterward that the conference was simply a workout of her denial skills, which she says she must keep sharp through constant practice, and which she also says do not exist. She was then heard to deny the sky, the existence of a loving deity, and eggs. Eggs aren’t real, she said. Nah uh. Show me an egg. That’s not an egg. What’s an egg? Who let you in here?

  Simone Rigadeau, the transient living in a recycling closet in the Earth Sciences building at Night Vale Community College, released a statement today saying that the world has ended. “The world ended three or four decades ago,” she scrawled on a Subway sandwich wrapper. “I don’t know what this thing is that we’re living in, but it’s not the world. Scientists won’t investigate it because they’re not real. Turkey with extra Swiss.” I think that last bit was already written on the wrapper by a Subway sandwich artist or one of their familiars.

  Well, provocative stuff from one of the foremost minds in the Earth Sciences building ever since it was condemned by the city as unsafe and left vacant. Has the world ended? What would the world ending even mean? And how did Simone get this Subway wrapper, given that all Subway restaurants have many entrances but no exits? As their motto goes: A thousand ways in, no way out, eat fresh. Eat so terribly, terribly fresh.

  Terribly, awesomely, gruesomely, terrifyingly fresh.

  For more on this world-ending story, we now go live to the sound of an aquarium pump:

  [Sound happens as described]

  Returning now to my hazy and sepia-toned European memories: Another country I recall with great fondness of course is the nation of Franchia. Franchia, land of arches. It is fascinating to see how other cultures live, shaking you out of your locked-in Night Valian ways, and Franchia is a prime example. To see a culture that doesn’t even have any people, a country with no population, just ancient stone arches, hundreds of square miles of arches, intertwining and leaning against each other. The wind hollows through the narrow alleyways as the lone traveler, camera in hand, explores the vast, empty cityscape. One doesn’t need to be able to speak another language to be able to try your hand at communicating inside the borders of Franchia. Merely call out “Hello?” after long silent intervals, and hear your call echo back to you from the depths of the knotted, crumbling arches, unanswered. The beauty, oh listeners, of intercultural exchange.

  Of course, despite the fun times I had, curled up with a blanket through the long nights of Franchia, looking up at the stars in a haze of cheap wine, no visit can last forever. Eventually I became convinced that I was not alone in the labyrinth, that somewhere among the arches was a beast, stalking me. I would stand still for hours, listening to that wind, searching for the slightest sound of movement off in the distant halls of arches. I fled Franchia, running desperately for the border, finding dead end after dead end before, heart pounding, I crossed into the next country and fell to my knees on the grassy hill of the countryside, the arches having stopped completely at the border. And I swear listeners, I swear, that in the moment of crossing I felt a single claw graze against my back. I swear I felt the endless wind of Franchia turn hot and wet, the breath of the beast inches away from my neck. So visit Franchia! But, you know, watch out for the monster that I may or may not have only imagined!

  Now: traffic.

  The Night Vale Department of Transportation has advised us that work crews are slithering on certain sections of Route 800. Commuters are advised to drive slowly in these marked areas as construction-hatted workers will be roiling on the ground all over the place, a heaving mass of limbs and lolling, panting mouths. Fines for traffic violations in these marked areas are double. All fines outside of the marked areas are quadruple, as usual.

  Also, the DoT has asked me to read the following advisory notice, using their exact wording. So: “Silver Hawk, Copperhead, and the Gopher, activate. I repeat, activate. Execute Mission Alpha-November-Zulu-Zero-One-Three. Lethal Parameters Acceptable.”

  I’m not sure quite what that means, but if you understood it then avoid an annoying traffic ticket by obeying whatever dictate was being relayed. And remember: wear seat belts. They are a cool fashion statement and easily obtained by cutting them out of your own car and crafting them into any number of accessories.

  And now a word from our sponsors.

  Seven lights in the window, seven lights in the hall, seven lights seven lights all in all.

  Six notes in the melody, six notes form a dirge, six notes to rid you of the urge.

  Five ways of escaping, five ways all blocked off, five ways each one broken and lost.

  Four words in a whisper, four words in your ear, four words that fill you up with fear.

  Three taps of a finger, three taps on a wall, three taps as you try to stall.

  Two eyes wide and desperate, two eyes squinting scared, two eyes open yes but nothing there.

  One light in the window, one light in the hall, one light one light all in all.

  Taco Bell. Live más.

  To return once more to pleasant reminiscence: Europe is not just about looking at monuments and talking to monuments and licking monuments. It’s also about the people. One memorable interaction happened in the little alpine country of Luftnarp. It had been a long day of train travel and searching for then checking into a cold and dreary hostel, and I was in desperate need of a warm meal and some good company. I remember heading down to the local alehouse, where the proprietor stared at me frozen, with a gaping mouth and gray, ashy skin. So did everyone else in the place. All of their mouths were stretched to almost cartoonish dimensions, outside of the bounds of known medical science. I asked for a plate of whatever they found most delicious, adding a quick “please” in the local language to indicate that I was trying to blend in and was not the usual ugly American tourist. They graciously responded by letting out a guttural rattle, in unison, and by not moving as I walked into the kitchen and devoured some of the less moldy potatoes and a few mysterious and slightly sour sausages. I left them, rattling away in their local tongue and frozen in a caricature of human terror, feeling like I had not only gained a good meal, but a few new good friends.

  Big news in the science world! Scientists announce that they have discovered the world’s deadliest spider, a previously unknown species that is as hard to spot as its bite is hard to survive. Apparently the specimen was found when your dead body was examined. They say you were a portrait of agony, your skin a myriad of pulsing, angry colors. Oh, you know what? I’m sorry. This report is from next week. Things have gotten so confusing ever since the wire services started using time machines. Never mind. No need to worry about that report for a few days.

  And now the weather.

  WEATHER: “Sni Bong” by Dengue Fever

  Thinking back, ladies, looking back, gentlemen, thinking and looking back on my European tour, I feel a heavy sadness descend upon me. Of course, it is partly nostalgia, looking back at that younger me bustling around Europe, having adventures, and overcoming obstacles that, at the time, seemed so overwhelming but now seem like just the building blocks of a harmless story.

  But here is the truth of nostalgia: We don’t feel it for who we were, but who we weren’t. We fee
l it for all the possibilities that were open to us but that we didn’t take.

  Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the tabletop, and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid, single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held.

  It is impossible, no matter how blessed you are by luck or the government or some remote, invisible deity gently steering your life with hands made of moonlight and wind, it is impossible not to feel a little sad looking at that bit of wax, that bit of the past. It is impossible not to think of all the wild forms that wax now will never take.

  The village glimpsed from a train window, beautiful and impossible and impossibly beautiful on a mountaintop, and you wondered what it would be if you stepped off the moving train and walked up the trail to its quiet streets and lived there the rest of your life. The beautiful face of that young man from Luftnarp, with his gaping mouth and ashy skin, last seen already half-turned away as you boarded the bus, already turning toward a future without you in it, where this thing between you that seemed so possible now already and forever never was.

  All variety of lost opportunity spied from the windows of public transportation, really.

  It can be overwhelming, this splattered, inert wax, recording every turn not taken. What’s the point? you ask. Why bother? you say. Oh Cecil, you cry. Oh Cecil.

  But then you remember, I remember, that we are even now in another bit of molten wax. We are in a moment that it is still falling, still volatile, and we will never be anywhere else. We will always be in that most dangerous, most exciting, most possible time of all: the now, where we never can know what shape the next moment will take.

  Stay tuned next for . . . well, let’s just find out together, shall we?