Mostly Void, Partially Stars

by Joseph Fink

  CECIL: You touched the condo? Don’t touch the condo! Don’t touch it again. Hold on, I’ll be right there.

  CARLOS: I need to get to those flasks. Each liquid was bubbling. There were numbers. I’m going to go into the condo. The condo is perfect. It is perfect. I understand.

  CECIL: Carlos, no! Don’t go in there! Carlos? Carlos? Hello?

  I’m sorry ladies and gentlemen, I have to . . . I’m going to be back as soon as I can. Before I go, let me take you now, to the weather.

  WEATHER: “Remember Us” by Gabriel Royal

  FACELESS OLD WOMAN: 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. 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 than 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 had the 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.

  Then she died.

  Oh, that wasn’t me. I see the confusion here. No, that was a young woman I watched as 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 that 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. This is because I am also slightly malicious. Sorry about that.

  I should go now. I don’t mean go. I am always with you. But I’m 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. It’s probably nothing, after all.

  CECIL: Sorry, listeners. I’m back now. I . . . I’m sorry for . . .

  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, 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.

  I understood that the cubes are perfect. I understood that this is how we become perfect. I understood that what I was seeing was the way to perfection. I don’t know how I understood this. Thinking about it now, nothing about it seems even good, let alone perfect. But inside the cube, within its chambers, it all made sense and I understood.

  And there was a moment, there was a moment, dear listeners, where 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 isn’t real. Perfection isn’t human. Carlos is not perfect, no, even better, he is imperfect. Everything about him and us and all of this is imperfect. Those imperfections in our reality are the seams and cracks into which our outsized love can seep and pool. And sometimes we are annoyed, and disappointed, and that too is part of how love works. It’s not a perfect system, but . . . ah 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 imperfection, to my imperfect Carlos. I took him and I carried him out of that cube. And we came up heaving into this world that will disappoint us, finally free.

  He said . . . well, actually I recorded the whole conversation, of course. I’m never without my microphone. He said:

  CARLOS: Cecil, I was thinking about the series of ongoing actions that we perceive as the present. And the amassing of memories that we treat as a living record of the past. And the hopes and dreams and assumptions that we project as the future. I was thinking about time and about how it means something to so many people and about how it’s so finite and also so infinite.

  I was also thinking about space, about how it is nothing. And then a point, which is just a single spot within the nothing, and a line which separates the nothing into two nothings. And how a plane is a patch of nothing, and an angle just where two nothings meet. But all of those things combined, an object of points, lines, planes, and angles. An object with length and width and depth that can take up actual space. How that object becomes something made of nothing, within nothing. An object can be a wall, a floor, a roof, a bed, a table, a dog, a door, a rug, a . . . a home.

  And then I thought about how a home is just a group of objects connected by a shared personal experience of time—our past, our present, our assumed future. A home is . . . I mean scientifically speaking. Speaking from the point of view of mere facts and logic and . . . What with science and all . . .

  I just thought that it was time for us maybe to make a home together.

  CECIL: And I said, “Yes! Yes! That would be . . . well, that would be neat. But somewhere else, okay? A duplex. Or an apartment. I don’t think a condo.”

  And he said:

  CARLOS: No. Not a condo.

  CECIL: And then he said . . . listen. He thinks I shouldn’t tell you everything. That I should leave something there that belongs only to us. So . . .

  The cubes are slowly fading into the earth, taking those who are frozen inside with 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, but 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 and that’s the best news of all.

  Listeners, I send you now back out into the night. It’s dangerous out there. It’s lonely. It is not perfect.

  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.

  PROVERB: “Wonderwall” is the only ’90s song visible from space.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to the cast and crew of Welcome to Night Vale: Meg Bashwiner, Jon Bernstein, Marisa Blankier, Desiree Burch, Nathalie Candel, Emma Frankland, Kevin R. Free, Mark Gagliardi, Angelique Grandone, Marc Evan Jackson, Maureen Johnson, Kate Jones, Erica Livingston, Christopher
Loar, Hal Lublin, Dylan Marron, Daniel Mirsky, Jasika Nicole, Lauren O’Niell, Flor De Liz Perez, Teresa Piscioneri, Jackson Publick, Molly Quinn, Retta, Symphony Sanders, Annie Savage, Lauren Sharpe, James Urbaniak, Bettina Warshaw, Wil Wheaton, Mara Wilson, and, of course, the voice of Night Vale himself, Cecil Baldwin.

  Also and always: Jillian Sweeney; Kathy and Ron Fink; Ellen Flood; Leann Sweeney; Jack and Lydia Bashwiner; Anna, Sam, Levi, and Caleb Pow; Rob Wilson; Kate Leth; Jessica Hayworth; Holly and Jeffrey Rowland; Zack Parsons; Ashley Lierman; Russel Swensen; Glen David Gold; Marta Rainer; Andrew Morgan; Eleanor McGuinness; Paul Sloan; John Green; Hank Green; Patrick Rothfuss; Cory Doctorow; Andrew WK; John Darnielle; Dessa Darling; Aby Wolf; Jason Webley; Danny Schmidt; Carrie Elkin; Eliza Rickman; Mary Epworth; Will Twynham; Erin McKeown; Sxip Shirey; Gabriel Royal; The New York Neo-Futurists; Freesound.org; Mike Mushkin; Ben Acker and Ben Blacker of The Thrilling Adventure Hour; the Booksmith in San Francisco; Mark Flanagan and Largo at the Coronet; and, of course, the delightful Night Vale fans.

  Our agent Jodi Reamer, our editor Amy Baker, and all the good people at HarperPerennial.

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Joseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in New York.

  Jeffrey Cranor cowrites the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. He also cocreates theater and dance pieces with choreographer wife, Jillian Sweeney. They live in New York.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com

  ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

  Cecil Baldwin is the narrator of the hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale. He is an alumnus of the New York Neo-Futurists, performing in their late-night show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, as well as Drama Desk-nominated The Complete and Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill Vol. 2. Cecil has performed at the Shakespeare Theatre DC, Studio Theatre (including the world premier production of Neil Labute’s Autobahn), the Kennedy Center, the National Players, LaMaMa E.T.C., Emerging Artists Theatre, and at the Upright Citizens Brigade. Film/TV credits include Braden in The Outs (Vimeo), the voice of Tad Strange in Gravity Falls (Disney XD), the Fool in Lear (with Paul Sorvino), and Billie Joe Bob. Cecil has been featured on podcasts such as Ask Me Another (NPR), Selected Shorts (PRI), Shipwreck, Big Data, and Our Fair City.

  Disparition is a project created by Jon Bernstein, a composer and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. More at Disparition.info.

  Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist, and blogger—the coeditor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of many books, most recently In Real Life, a graphic novel; Information Doesn’t Want to Be Free, a book about earning a living in the Internet age, and Homeland, the award-winning, best-selling sequel to the 2008 YA novel Little Brother. His next book is Walkaway, a novel for adults, which Tor Books will publish in 2017.

  Kevin R. Free is a writer/performer whose work has been showcased on NPR’s The Moth and News & Notes. His most recent work, created with Eevin Hartsough, is the web series Gemma & the Bear! (www​.GemmaAndTheBear.com), which is the recipient of several awards, including an Award of Excellence from the Best Shorts Competition. His full-length plays include (Not) Just a Day Like Any Other, written and performed with Christopher Borg, Jeffrey Cranor, and Eevin Hartsough; A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People; The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, or TRIPLE CONSCIOUSNESS; Night of the Living N-Word; and AM I DEAD?: The Untrue Narrative of Anatomical Lewis, and The Slave (commissioned by Flux Theatre Ensemble through the FluxForward program, 2015). He is an alumnus of the New York Neo-Futurists, with whom he wrote and performed regularly in Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind between 2007 and 2011. More at www.kevinrfree.com and on Twitter @kevinrfree.

  Jessica Hayworth is an illustrator and fine artist. She has produced a variety of illustrated works for the Welcome to Night Vale podcast since 2013, including all posters for the touring live show. Her other works include the graphic novels Monster and I Will Kill You with My Bare Hands, as well as various solo and group exhibitions. She received her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art, and lives and works in Detroit.

  Dylan Marron is a Drama Desk-nominated writer, performer, and video maker. He is the voice of Carlos on Welcome to Night Vale and he plays Ari on the critically acclaimed web series Whatever This Is. He is an alum of the New York Neo-Futurists where he wrote and performed for the signature weekly show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Dylan wrote and directed The Human Symphony, a play entirely performed by randomly selected audience members via instructional mp3 tracks. He also created Every Single Word, a video series that edits down popular films to only feature the words spoken by people of color.

  Zack Parsons is a Chicago-based humorist and author of non-fiction (My Tank Is Fight!) and fiction (Liminal States). In addition to Welcome to Night Vale, he has worked with Joseph Fink on the website Something Awful and can also be found writing for his own site, the Bad Guys Win (thebadguyswin.com). You can call him a weird idiot on twitter at @sexyfacts4u.

  PRAISE FOR WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE: A NOVEL

  “This is a splendid, weird, moving novel. . . . It manages beautifully that trick of embracing the surreal in order to underscore and emphasize the real—not as allegory, but as affirmation of emotional truths that don’t conform to the neat and tidy boxes in which we’re encouraged to house them.”

  —NPR.org

  “The book is charming and absurd—think This American Life meets Alice in Wonderland.”

  —Washington Post

  “Longtime listeners and newcomers alike are likely to appreciate the ways in which Night Vale, as Fink puts it, ‘treats the absurd as normal and treats the normal as absurd.’ What they might not foresee is the emotional wallop the novel delivers in its climactic chapters.”

  —Austin Chronicle

  “The charms of Welcome to Night Vale are nearly impossible to quantify. That applies to the podcast, structured as community radio dispatches from a particularly surreal desert town, as well as this novel.”

  —Minneapolis Star Tribune

  “Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel masterfully brings the darkly hilarious, touching and creepy world of the podcast into the realm of ink and paper.”

  —Asbury Park Press

  “Welcome to Night Vale lives up to the podcast hype in every way. It is a singularly inventive visit to an otherworldly town that’s the stuff of nightmares and daydreams.”

  —BookPage

  “All hail the glow cloud as the weird and wonderful town of Night Vale brings itself to fine literature. . . . The novel is definitely as addictive as its source material.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “Take Conan’s Hyborea, teleport it to the American Southwest, dress all the warriors in business casual, and hide their swords under the floorboards—that’s Night Vale: absurd, magical, wholly engrossing, and always harboring some hidden menace.”

  —John Darnielle, author of Wolf in White Van

  “They’ve done the unthinkable: merged the high weirdness and intense drama of Night Vale to the pages of a novel that is even weirder, even more intense than the podcast.”

  —Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and coeditor of Boing Boing

  “This is the novel of your dreams. . . . A friendly (but terrifying) and comic (but dark) and glittering (but bleak) story of misfit family life that unfolds along the side streets, back alleys, and spring-loaded trap doors of the small town home you’ll realize you’ve always missed living in.”

  —Glen David Gold, author of Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside

  “This small town full of hooded figures, glowing clouds, cryptically terrifying public policies, and flickering realities quickly feels more like home than home. . . . There is nothing like Night Vale, in the best possible way.”

  —Maureen Johnson, author of 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Name of the Star

  “Brilliant
, hilarious, and wondrously strange. I’m packing up and moving to Night Vale!”

  —Ransom Riggs, author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

  “I’ve been a fan of Welcome to Night Vale for years, and in that time writers Jeffrey Cranor and Joseph Fink have delighted me with stories that are clever, twisted, beautiful, strange, wonderful, and sweet. This book does all of that and so much more. It’s even better than I’d hoped. I think this might be the best book I’ve read in years.”

  —Patrick Rothfuss, author of The Name of the Wind

  “Emotionally compelling and superbly realized. This seductive, hilarious book unfolds at the moment when certain quiet responsible people find they must risk everything on behalf of love, hope, and understanding. Not a single person who reads this book will be disappointed.”

  —Deb Olin Unferth, author of Revolution and Vacation

  “Welcome to Night Vale brings its eponymous desert town to vivid life. Those of us who have gotten to know Night Vale through Cecil Palmer’s biweekly radio broadcasts can finally see what it’s like to actually live there. It is as weird and surreal as I hoped it would be, and a surprisingly existential meditation on the nature of time, reality, and the glow cloud that watches over us. ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.”

  —Wil Wheaton

  ALSO BY JOSEPH FINK & JEFFREY CRANOR

  Welcome to Night Vale: A Novel

  The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe:

  Welcome to Night Vale Episodes, Volume 2

  CREDITS

  Illustrations by Jessica Hayworth