by Joseph Fink
CECIL: My understanding is that the jury is not all human. It is a jury of peers, Hiram.
HIRAM-GOLD: Well, now, my green head is speaking metaphorically.
HIRAM-GREEN: WE WILL SCORCH THE SCALES OF JUSTICE.
HIRAM-GOLD: Like that. The thing is, Cecil, they are using computers to simulate five-headed dragons on the jury, but now they’re saying that a single five-headed dragon computer program counts as five separate jurors. So they’re only making one computer and then choosing seven human jury members. And that hardly seems fair.
HIRAM-GRAY: They don’t respect us at all.
HIRAM-GOLD: No, they don’t, Gray Head. They really don’t. Plus, no computer can re-create the complexities of a sentient dragon.
HIRAM-GRAY: It’s offensive.
CECIL: Well, I know they looked for actual five-headed dragons, but there aren’t many out there that the city can find.
HIRAM-GOLD: My sister Hadassah is in town. I think she should be considered.
CECIL: Family members of the accused generally aren’t allowed on juries. But also, one of your heads, the violet one, is going to be a witness against you at the trial. How are things going within your own body?
HIRAM-GOLD: They put a hole in my cell wall so my violet head can be outside of the jail since he’s not charged with any crime.
HIRAM-VIOLET: [off mic] I can still hear you conspiring against me.
HIRAM-GREEN: QUIET, YOU TRAITOROUS SKINK. I WILL CHEW YOU FROM Y——
HIRAM-GOLD: Easy, Green. We’re not allowed to talk to Violet anymore. It would be witness tampering.
HIRAM-BLUE: We shouldn’t even be talking to the media. Our lawyer said anything we say can be used in the trial.
HIRAM-GOLD: My blue head is right, Cecil. But I just wanted to use my phone call to get the word out about the unfair practices going on in this trial.
HIRAM-GRAY: It is so unfair.
CECIL: Well, I’ll certainly look into this. Are you having an okay day otherwise, Hiram?
HIRAM-GOLD: Sure am, Cecil. Despite my circumstances, everyone’s in pretty good spirits today. They served raw lamb in the mess hall, and they let us watch a whole hour of the Lee Marvin marathon on C-SPAN this afternoon.
HIRAM-GREEN: THEY SHOWED DEATH HUNT. IT WAS HIS FINEST WORK AS AN ACTOR.
HIRAM-GRAY: I think Gorky Park was one of his more interesting roles, but yeah, Death Hunt is pretty good.
HIRAM-BLUE: Lee Marvin is a lighthouse in a stormy cinematic sea.
HIRAM-VIOLET: [distantly] I personally prefer Cat Ballou—
HIRAM-GREEN: SILENCE YOU WITHERED NEWT.
HIRAM-GOLD: All right there, Green. Thanks for taking my call, Cecil.
CECIL: Thank you, Hiram.
We’re getting good news from Teddy Williams down at the new skating rink that there are record crowds. So many people are showing up to skate. He didn’t realize how popular roller skating would be here.
We’re also getting bad news from Teddy that all of the lights have gone out. He’s hearing deep growls coming not only from the ghost pets in the walls, but loud shouts and snarls coming from the skaters themselves. He cannot see who it is but he can definitely smell the metallic, briny stench of blood. He did not care to elaborate about how he is so familiar with the smell of blood, just that he’s sort of an expert in the matter and it’s definitely blood and that no one else should come to the skating rink.
He whispered all of this from underneath the turntable in the DJ booth. He reported seeing looming shadows in the near-black. The shadows of hulking figures with what appeared to be either antlers or very elaborate hats. He could feel the floor trembling beneath him as if there were a stampede of beasts or a clash of angry gods.
Williams reported that he just once (just one time in his life) wants people to be able to play arcade games and skate and bowl and drink sodas without fearing for their safety.
Listeners, do not go to the skating rink. And for those of you already there, take cover. Do not come out from your hiding place, not even if they put on Pat Benatar.
As I wait for further news from Intern Kareem at the skating rink, let me take you now, to the weather.
WEATHER: “Thinking of Milk” by Tristan Haze
Despite a terrifying start, the new skating rink sounds like a huge success, and everyone seems to be having fun again. It is clear now what has happened.
Intern Kareem said that when he arrived at the skating rink, he saw almost everyone from Night Vale. Leann Hart from the Daily Journal. John Peters, you know the farmer? Old Woman Josie and the beings Kareem insists on calling angels. Judge Siobahn Azdak. Even the City Council was there. Their black cases were all opened, revealing white retro skates with thick red and blue piping. It was a feel-good atmosphere on a feel-good day.
Kareem bought a soda, filled it with every flavor from the fountain, and put his bag in a locker. “Electric Lady” by Janelle Monáe was on, and he raced to the floor to have his first skate to his favorite song, only to see a group of hulking figures with elaborate hats enter. Kareem stopped dead in his tracks, standing and shivering in front of this menacing group.
Kareem had never seen them before but he recognized them immediately by their sound and their smell as the Management of this radio station. Kareem stiffened up, and prepared an explanation that he was here to work, to report on the new skating rink, and he was not slacking. But Station Management did not seem to notice him. They were gazing across the room at the City Council, who by this point had all donned short shorts and headbands and were twirling and spinning in unison around the rink.
Just as Beyoncé’s “XO” started playing, the City Council and Station Management all made eye contact. Station Management and City Council skated toward each other, and everything went dark. The record player scratched and all went quiet save for horrifying growls and animal screeching. Kareem could smell something briny and metallic, like olives.
While everyone scrambled to hide in fear, Kareem, himself a young man in a new relationship, knew exactly what was going on. He put on the night-vision goggles we require every one of our interns to carry at all times, and he watched as Station Management and the City Council met in the middle of the rink, joining arms, skating in slow happy circles, intermittently placing heads on shoulders, wanting to sneak kisses but uncertain of the right moments. Dozens of figures with hundreds of fingers all intertwined in defiance of our understandings of physical dimension, sighing hotly with romantic need and burning anticipation. The City Council had brought live rodents, and they held them up gingerly to Station Management’s mouths as Management chewed off pieces of the screaming creatures. When Station Management finished devouring the last bites, the City Council adorably brushed pieces of tail and fur from Station Management’s face, letting their fingertips, or whatever it is at the end of whatever those appendages are, linger.
After a few circles around the rink, Management and the council left together. The aftermath of their budding romance is clear on the brand-new polished hardwood floor of the skating rink: swirling hearts strung together, carved into the wood with their wheels.
The lights are back on now. Everyone is skating again. The stereo is blaring Parliament’s “Flashlight,” with Hanson’s “MMMBop” coming up next.
As a person in long-term relationship, I know how fulfilling long love can be. I also remember the days of being single, and that is also fulfilling. But nothing is quite so thrilling, so unexpected and uncertain, as that moment in between those two states, single and in love.
That short fire burst of irrational passion for a person, or people, or multidimensional entities you barely know but with whom you maybe want to be with always. You know the thrall of hopeless wanting, where you long to hold the other so tightly as to become one. You think it is love, even when it is not. Love is patient and understanding and turbulent and rocklike, ever confident in itself. But this early infatuation, these addictions to a new other, are some of life’s most fragi
le and ecstatic moments.
Well, I’m so happy for City Council and Station Management. They make a cute . . . couple.
Kareem said that he also saw former intern Maureen, her new puppy, and some boy in a hoodie all brooding in the corner. Maureen appeared to be making sardonic jokes at the expense of the new couple, and at the expense of the idea of dating itself. Kareem said the dog was really cute, but there was something about the sight of Maureen and the hooded boy and the puppy that upset him. I told Kareem, oh she’s always like that.
Stay tuned next for the best hits of the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s, and beyond.
And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night.
PROVERB: Be careful what you wish for, because it probably won’t come true and life is mostly about expectation management.
Episode 83:
“One Normal Town”
MARCH 1, 2016
WHEN PLANNING OUT THE PLOT FOR THE SECOND HALF OF YEAR FOUR, we talked about this episode and how we wanted to approach it. How do you write about the difficulties of merging cultures without making it a direct commentary on the refugee crisis or the then current Republican race or any number of other serious problems of our time? Those are all things very worth talking about, but they are so weighty we thought it would likely quickly take over whatever silly sci-fi story we had going.
So I started writing this episode with the goal of finding a way to talk about a political reality forcing different cultures together without relating it to current events and found, quite quickly, that it was absolutely impossible.
The trick to facing an insurmountable problem in writing (and probably in life) is just to lean completely into it. I decided to zag hard the other direction and make the episode entirely about the issues we had hoped to avoid. The result is half Night Vale story, half New York Times editorial, and I think it was the only successful way of navigating the relationship between the story we’re telling and the real world as it is right now.
Of course, in the years since this episode, the urgency of the refugee crisis has only deepened, and the government responses have only become more brutal and cruel. As global warming continues to worsen, this problem will become more and more the center of our lives, and so it seems damn worth writing about whenever we get the chance.
I’ve also lately become much less apologetic or hesitant to inject politics into my work. There is a sense when you are in a privileged class that putting politics into work is somehow rude, because politics is a game we play before returning to our basically unchanging lives. But that’s not how politics works for a large portion of that country, a portion that is only growing as more and more groups are targeted. Politics is the shape of people’s lives. And politics carries moral weight. To support the looting of this country by the rich, or to support putting refugees into cages is not to me a matter of policy, but of immorality. They are evil actions, and writers should never be afraid to talk about good and evil as they actually exist.
On an unrelated note, the traffic segment of this episode has kind of an interesting origin. Back when the issue of assholes selling bootleg Night Vale merch was still a somewhat manageable problem, I had to do a weekly e-mail to an on-demand shirt-printing site to take down all the crappy Night Vale merch people had put up.
Given how often I was having to contact them, and wanting to at least provide some entertainment for them if I was going to have to reach out so much, I started telling a serialized story in the comment section of their copyright takedown form. The traffic in this episode is that story, originally sent on a weekly basis to the legal department of a T-shirt printing site four years ago.
—Joseph Fink
Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe, don’t breathe.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
Our neighboring town of Desert Bluffs is no more. It has been swept from the map, its borders a bad memory, its name a forgotten joke.
Oh, listeners, I have long dreamed of saying these words although the circumstances are different than I could have ever foreseen.
Mayor Cardinal announced today that after months of extending loans and other budgetary aid to the struggling community, she and Mayor Cardozo of Desert Bluffs agreed that the path to financial stability lay in, I can’t believe I’m saying this, merging the two towns.
As of this week, Night Vale’s borders will extend to include the dumb buildings that used to belong to Desert Bluffs, and all the weirdos that for some reason chose to live there.
Dana said that she understood there would be some adjustment needed from everyone, and then went on to say some other stuff that didn’t really matter because apparently it’s fine that Desert Bluffs is now part of Night Vale and no one has a problem with that and it’s okay, it’s fine. It’s fine.
Our new sheriff, Sam, who has been an outspoken opponent to the monetary aid given to Desert Bluffs because of the strain it puts on law enforcement budgets, reacted as expected. At a press conference, they expressed their extreme displeasure in this development by singing selections from Richard Foreman’s Tony award-winning Broadway musical Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good while weeping copiously. In response to follow-up questions from the attending journalists, Sam quietly said, “Listen, I just need this right now, okay?” before vowing that they would continue their strong opposition to the mayor’s plan for unification, and then softly crying a little more.
And now, traffic.
There once was a farmer who never much thought of leaving his land. He was comfortable where he was, and comfortable with only ever being merely comfortable. He had no close friends, although a few people at the farmers market knew who he was.
“Yes, I know who he is,” one of them might have said, although none of them ever did. None of them were ever asked.
One night as he was sitting down alone to dinner, he heard a loud party happening out in his field. Music, conversation, laughter. More confused than annoyed, he went out to see who could have set up a party in his remote field. But there was no one there.
Instead, the party now sounded as though it were coming from his house.
He ran back in, now afraid he was dealing with intruders.
But there was no one there.
The sound of the party was again coming from outside. Not from his fields, but from the empty stretch of road that led from nowhere much to his little farm, which was also nowhere much. He went out to the road.
But there was nothing. The sound of the party was now just over a gentle slope in the road. He followed it. Nothing.
Then it was just around the corner. Then where those trees covered the road in shadow.
He followed and followed the sound, each time finding that he was almost but not quite to its source, and he never came back to his farm again.
“I have no idea what happened to him,” one of the folks at the farmers market might have said, although none of them ever did.
None of them were ever asked.
This has been traffic.
The Ralphs supermarket announced a small change to their sales structure, indicating that they will no longer be following the “bring food you want up to the cashier and pay for it” model that has been played out for years now, and instead will be structuring themselves as the world’s first auction supermarket.
Any citizen looking to buy food from Ralphs will have to come to one of their daily scheduled auctions and bid on the kitchen staples and snacks as they are brought up for auction one by one. For instance, Lot 402 might be a banana, while Lot 403 might be a bag of Sun Chips and a bottle of tomato juice.
Charlie Bair, new weekday shift manager at the Ralphs, said, “We believe this will be a more exciting and fun way for consumers to get the food they need. And to pay more for it. A lot more,” he continued. “In competition with others, so that if you don’t get that peanut butter someone else will, and then they’ll have peanut but
ter and you won’t. Better open up those wallets and make sure you get the food you need.”
Fortunately for me, Carlos tends to do our shopping, since I personally have . . . a little trouble with auctions due to some traumatic experiences in my past. I mean, I know that, as the saying goes, “past performance is not a predictor of future results,” but still. I think I’ll sit these auctions out.
As part of the launch event for the auction system, Ralphs employees will stand on the supermarket’s roof, pelting passersby with water balloons and expired produce, and drunkenly chanting the lyrics to every Cat Stevens song in unison until they have run out of breath, and, eyes locked with each other, in hunched-over, panting silence, continue to mouth the lyrics they no longer have the breath to say.
Back now, to the news.
The dissolve of Desert Bluffs into Night Vale continues.
It’s not only new people, but new ways of life.
Dave Morales Cariño, a former Desert Bluffs resident, announced the founding of the first ever Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God here in Night Vale, on an old industrial stretch of the Eastern Expressway. Night Vale is a proud city of bloodstone worshippers, but certainly there are many in town who know of the power of the Smiling God, and belief and worship in the Smiling God is not a new thing here. In fact, a few longtime Night Vale residents attended the inaugural service at the Joyous Congregation’s church, located in a storefront that used to sell leaf blowers and leaf blower accessories.
The City Council said that sales from their bloodstone factory have fallen by as much as 1 percent and that this is totally not okay with them.
“We’re seeing someone now,” they said, in a high-pitched whiny voice. “And it’s just not a good time for us to be losing any income. Mayor Cardinal won’t let us devour the Joyous Congregation, but we urge you to stick to the traditional worship of Bloodstone Circles, like your mother, and your grandmother, and the lizard people before her.”