The Buying of Lot 37

by Joseph Fink

  To get out of this strange otherworld Carlos must reach a door while Todd is tasked with getting a diploma. The scientist bravely weathers shaky ground while the student finds balance on compounding deadlines. The fictional boyfriend struggles with poor cell phone reception and the real husband struggles with . . . poor cell phone reception (don’t worry, we use Wi-Fi when available).

  Both Carlos and Todd are swamped with work they’re fascinated by, while still emotionally tethered to their partners back home. They are in two places at once. “There is a lot of work for me to do here,” Carlos tells Cecil through the receiver, “and, the only person who I truly care about isn’t in this desert anyway.” Substitute desert with any other location and you’ve captured modern romance.

  Now, to be fair, Carlos can’t reach Cecil without an elusive portal that connects their two distinct worlds. Todd and I, on the other hand, have Amtrak. But missing someone is missing someone, whether they’re conducting Important Science in a parallel dimension or studying law on a campus two states away.

  Come home soon, Carlos. Cecil misses you.

  Come home soon, Todd. I miss you, too.

  —Dylan Marron

  Look! Up in the sky. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a cloud. It’s a moon. Also, some stars. There are so many things in the sky.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  New Night Vale mayor (and former intern at this very station) Dana Cardinal announced today that she wants to open the Dog Park for public use.

  Said Dana—or I guess I should start saying Mayor Cardinal—“Dog Parks should be used for dogs and owners to exercise and play. A Dog Park should be a fun gathering place for citizens to meet and socialize, not a secretive patch of municipal darkness full of conspiracies warning signs.”

  Only moments into her announcement, the City Council entered the press room, walking in synchronous steps, hips together, teeth apart, blocking the view of reporters and photographers, and unplugging the mayor’s microphone. The Council shuffled away to the Council Chambers, taking the mayor with them.

  Twenty minutes later, Mayor Cardinal re-emerged, wearing several large, ivory rings and a long cerulean cape. She announced that dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park. People are not allowed in the Dog Park. You may see hooded figures in the Dog Park. But not for long, as there are now plans to reinforce the fence around the Dog Park.

  Oh, listeners, guess who we’ve got on the phone line now. I’ll give you a hint, he saved Night Vale a few weeks ago by shutting out a great terror trying to invade us from another world.

  CARLOS:It wasn’t just me.

  CECIL:He’s also my boyfriend. And a scientist. And I miss him.

  CARLOS:I miss you, too.

  CECIL:That’s right. My boyfriend is a hero. Please welcome to our show Carlos, the scientist.

  CARLOS:You’re too much.

  CECIL:Listeners, Carlos had to stay behind in whatever strange desert otherworld, which was very brave of him even though he’s now very far away from people that love him. Any luck getting back through to Night Vale?

  CARLOS:Not yet. Oh! But I’ve been exploring this strange rumbling noise here. It’s the same rumbling noise we heard when that terrible light was coming into Night Vale.

  CECIL:Are you safe? Is everything okay?

  CARLOS:Actually there it is again. When we shut the doors the rumbling and the unbearably bright light went away. This empty desert with the mountain and the lighthouse and the large wandering army all seemed so normal, you know? But last night the rumbling returned.

  There it is again. I need to grab my instruments.

  CECIL:I can’t hear it.

  CARLOS:I’ll call you back.

  CECIL:No. Carlos! I—

  [Carlos clearly has hung up.]

  Every time, I never know when you’ll call back.

  Well, speaking of the town being safe, our neighboring town, Desert Bluffs, ran a full-page ad in the Sunday extra-large imagination edition of the Night Vale Daily Journal this week that said, I imagined, “Thank you for having us, Night Vale. Best of luck in your future.”

  I can’t tell if that’s an exclamation point or a question mark there. What a weird font. It’s like someone put paint or some other thick liquid on the tip of a sharp finger and then handwrote this ad. It’s just like that.

  Then at the bottom it has a photo of your face, dear listener, and the same finger-painted lettering that reads “BLESSINGS FROM A SMILING GOD.”

  Wow, where did they get that photo of you? Although, honestly, it’s not a bad photo. I mean, you look just adorable when you’re sleeping.

  I know this farewell ad may seem like a kind gesture, but good riddance to those monsters. No one is happier than me to see us run Desert Bluffs out of town.

  Meanwhile there has been a lot construction noise (bike horns, seesaws, parrot shrieking, etc.) from the old StrexCorp headquarters at the lip of Radon Canyon. Several tall beings with wings who all introduced themselves as Erika were seen hanging around outside, while a Sheriff’s Secret Police representative ran frantically between onlookers putting her hand over each person’s eyes and shouting, “You’re not seeing anything real!”

  Well, I for one am excited to learn what these of course completely nonexistent angels plan to do with the huge, malevolent corporation they purchased.

  Oh, also I stopped by the office of station management. Seems our community radio station was purchased back from StrexCorp by our original owners, whom I have never met or seen and who until recently had run this radio station for centuries.

  It’s nice to have all these familiar faces back, or not faces. More like muffled screams and chattering echoes and pulsing orange lights surrounding dark stone doors that are never in the same place you remembered them being. Just a quick stroll past the new old boss’s office brought me back to the good old days as I crumbled to the floor, struck numb and blind with flashes of hideous daydreams, a history’s worth of deaths that were not my own.

  How great to be back to the way we were. The good old days. The fearful, terrible, deadly good old days.

  Oh, my phone’s buzzing.

  CECIL:Hello, Carlos? Are you back on the line?

  CARLOS:Yes. So there’s a lighthouse here in the desert. It’s on top of a tall mountain. And there’s a blinking red light on top of this lighthouse. And this blinking red light always blinks. That’s what it does. But now that the rumbling has returned. . . . Can you hear the rumbling from your end, Cecil?

  CECIL:No.

  CARLOS:It’s very loud. But when the rumbling happens the blinking red light stops blinking. It just stays on.

  CECIL:What do you think that means?

  CARLOS:I don’t know. I’ve talked with some of the army of men and women and others who roam about this desert and they look frightened. They have never seen the blinking light stop blinking. It is what a blinking light is supposed to do, and fear is what happens when a thing that has always behaved one way does not behave that way at all. They run and hide now when they hear the rumbling and see the static red light up on the mountain. I, too, am starting to feel scared.

  CECIL:Carlos, remember how you got into that desert in the first place? You went through a door in a house that did not seem to exist. Have you found any of those doors yet?

  CARLOS:Not yet, no.

  CECIL:Carlos, look for those doors. There must be at least one left somewhere.

  CARLOS:I’ll start looking very soon. But listen, Cecil, I’d really like to figure out this rumbling–slash–red-light thing. I’m a scientist. I need to discover slash understand things. It’s what I do.

  CECIL:But couldn’t you look for the door while you figure it out?

  CARLOS:I’ll look for the door some tomorrow. For sure I will.

  CECIL:Well, it’s not that I—

  CARLOS:The rumbling’s gone. Do you hear that? I’ve got to run. I need to find Doug.

  CECIL:Who’s Doug? Carlos, who’s Doug? Carlos?

 
Okay. Well, I guess let’s just have a look at today’s horoscopes.

  LEO: Need a penny, take a penny. Have a penny, take another penny. Pennies are worthless, but go ahead and take them all. Build a great fortune only to have its great copper weight crush your lifeless pauper body.

  VIRGO: Don’t shoot the messenger, Virgo. It’s noisy and will alert others of your crime. Lure the messenger inside. Make sure no one saw him come in. Choose something quieter than a gun—perhaps suffocation or an accidental fall. Really plan these things out. Stop being so trigger-happy, Virgo.

  LIBRA: Do you believe in ghosts? You don’t? Well won’t YOU be surprised when you wake up in the middle of the night tonight? Scream loud enough so the neighbors can hear you.

  SCORPIO: You are respected by your peers. You are a great thinker and leader. You—What is this? This is definitely not the right reading for a Scorpio. Must be a typo. I bet the stars meant to say: “You should hear what they’re saying about you. Very funny things, Scorpio. They’re saying very funny things at your expense, you jerk.” Yep, that’s definitely what the stars meant to say.

  SAGITTARIUS: The best revenge is living well. The second best is tasteless, slow-acting poison. Maybe it’s more of a tie. Either way, you got wronged and you need to set things right, Sagittarius.

  CAPRICORN: ’Tis better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, which is better than to have never loved at all but also somehow lost a love, thus creating a paradox. Paradoxes are bad, Capricorn. Be careful, or logic will destroy you.

  AQUARIUS: Your boyfriend is trapped in an alternate desert dimension. It is difficult to say when he will return. Perhaps take up drinking while crying in a quiet room. Wow. That’s a very specific and painful horoscope. Thanks for nothing, stars.

  PISCES: A train leaves a station traveling west at forty miles per hour. Another train leaves a station traveling east at sixty miles per hour. These two trains left on different days in different years in different countries. How long until the passengers acknowledge their own impermanence?

  ARIES: I think they saw you, Aries. Hold still. They cannot see you if you do not move. Ssshhh. Don’t move. Don’t move. Donnnn——Nope they saw you. So long, Aries.

  TAURUS: Someone misses you a lot, Taurus. And even though you have nothing but endless time, trapped out in a nightmarish desert hellscape, you have a hard time making a phone call longer than ten minutes. Maybe call a bit more than you do, Taurus. Yep. That’s just some astrological advice, from the stars.

  GEMINI: You know those eight spiders a year you eat in your sleep? Well, they add up. And they are all organizing a pretty dramatic escape. Very soon, Gemini. Very soon.

  CANCER: The ocean is vast, you convince yourself, walking alone between the trees. The sky is endless, you mutter repeatedly trying to finally lull yourself to sleep. Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, you contemplate despite not understanding the first part of the statement. What’s on the Food Network tonight, you say aloud to a stranger you have known for years.

  This has been today’s horoscopes.

  Ah, he’s calling in again. Carlos?

  CARLOS:Cecil, the rumbling has started again. The mountain is moving. Up and down, like breathing. There are creaks and groans in the earth, in the stones, that together sound like a growl. An undulating snarl of something much bigger than anything that should ever be able to snarl.

  Cecil, this is a strange place, and considering where I’ve lived for the past couple years, that says a lot. I know Dana used to be trapped here and she has told you about it. I mean I used to wonder how she could call and text you from this place for an entire year with no cell towers or power outlets. But I’ve been here for weeks and I have three bars (only 4G but still) and 97 percent battery, which was the charge I had when I came through the door in the house that doesn’t exist.

  In a temporary peace between the rumblings, I walked with some of the desert army toward a small patch of discolored sand. We found a swath of damp dirt, just a handful of red mud, and in that mud were several tiny white bones—looked like long legs and short wings of a creature I can’t even imagine. I look forward to figuring out exactly what this is. I’ll be able to imagine it then.

  CECIL:Carlos, I don’t think it’s safe there. I want you to—

  CARLOS:Cecil, nothing and nowhere is safe. But there are things greater than us. Greater than all of this. (You can’t see but I just made a big, sweeping hand gesture to indicate everything in the universe.) And there are people who must learn about it all . . . how it all works and why. This is what we call science.

  CECIL:I know what science is.

  CARLOS:And I am a scientist.

  CECIL:I understand. It’s just that I miss you and . . . oh my, the building is shaking.

  CARLOS:You can feel it? You can feel the rumbling? Oh, this is exciting. Wait, this is new. The ground is moving very quickly. There is a large lump, churning the sand up and down. I’m leaning out over this ledge to get a better view of this fantastic event, and ow——

  CECIL:Carlos? What happened?

  CARLOS:I got hit. What is that? Is that a rock? Ow!

  CECIL:Carlos!

  CARLOS:Cecil. The rocks are coming down. They’re coming down the side of this hill. I need to take cover. I need

  [thump/rattle/click]

  CECIL:Carlos? Carlos?

  Listeners, while the earth still shakes, take shelter. This does not feel like one of our government-scheduled earthquakes, but if I were you I would still do as the Earthquake Safety Mascot, Duncan the Brown Recluse Spider, always says: “I’m small and I hide a lot, so it’s easy to be safe!”

  And with that, I take you now to the weather. . . .

  WEATHER: “Echo in the Hills” by Carrie Elkin and Danny Schmidt

  CECIL:Carlos, are you there? Carlos?

  CARLOS:I’m here.

  CECIL:Are you okay?

  CARLOS:I’m fine. A scientist is always fine. Doug was really helpful.

  CECIL:Who is Doug?

  CARLOS:He’s one of the members of this great masked army. He must be a captain of some sort, given his size and the respect he appears to garner.

  As the rocks and boulders came down, Doug picked up a large flat stone and held it above us. The rocks bounced off his makeshift shield. Unfortunately, I dropped my phone. I smashed the phone something good. I thought I lost you for a while there, Cecil. I was despairing that my one way to reach you would be lost for who knows how long. But then, you know what? Something really amazing happened. Something tremendous. The phone healed itself.

  CECIL:That’s great.

  CARLOS:It is great. But phones don’t just heal themselves. This is another scientific mystery I can’t wait to get to the bottom of.

  CECIL:Where’s Doug now?

  CARLOS:Oh, I don’t know. He’s probably back at the encampment. They’re a nomadic army. Sometimes they are here, sometimes not. I don’t really have time to make new friends. They’re nice people, but there is a lot of work for me to do here. And the only person I truly care about isn’t in this desert, anyway.

  I do not know what the rumbling is. I do not know why some doors work and others do not. I do not know why my phone never loses battery power and can heal itself. I do not know how long it will take me to pursue this knowledge, but I do know two things.

  CECIL:What’s that?

  CARLOS:I love you.

  CECIL:I love you, too. What’s the other thing?

  CARLOS:You just said it.

  Cecil, I have to go. Be patient with me. We have our phones, we have our voices, and you have the best voice of them all.

  CECIL:Thanks for being on the air with me. We did almost the entire show together.

  CARLOS:We can still do things together, even in absence. I’ll be back again soon.

  CECIL:Find that door, Carlos.

  CARLOS:I will, but first I need to see if the red light is blinking again or not.

  CECIL:Bye, Carlos.


  Listeners, I wish I could tell you where the rumbling came from, and that we are safe from it. The Sheriff’s Secret Seismology Team announced that today’s rumbling, which caused quite a bit of structural damage and knocked out power for one-third of the town, did not register at all on the Richter scale, which is a thing seismologists use to assign two-dimensional numbers to complex, multi-dimensional physical events.

  But, the upshot is we are all alive for however many two-dimensional numbers we have left.

  Stay tuned next for the sound of future becoming the present becoming the past in no time at all.

  And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night.

  PROVERB:Everything that happens happens for a reason. Except ostriches. What the hell, man?

  Episode 52:

  “The Retirement of Pamela Winchell”

  AUGUST 15, 2014

  IT’S DIFFICULT TO WRITE POLITICAL SATIRE IN A POLITICAL CLIMATE AS absurd as the current. When we created the character of Pamela, it was a great deal of fun to have a politician who could not stick to a topic, whose thought processes were impossible to follow, and who fundamentally seemed to exist in a different universe than the rest of us. This concept became less fun later on.

  We still have deep affection for the character of Pamela, as evidenced by us making her a major character in our recent novel, It Devours! She is, unlike some politicians, entirely well-meaning, even if the way she goes about her life can sometimes become threatening, or even terrifying. One game we have when writing her scenes is finding more and more strange ways for her to end her press conferences, including riding off on a steed and disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

  This episode also represents the beginning of Intern Dana’s transformation into Mayor Dana. It is a difficult transformation. She is young, and has no experience in politics, and also once killed a double of herself, or maybe she is the double, and she killed the original of herself. She isn’t sure. Either way, she is carrying all the existential and identity crises of the young, plus a few more added by the strange nature of Night Vale, into a pivotal role of power, and it is not an easy process. It is a process we are continuing to explore, even now, in the podcast. Dana is one of the characters who absolutely makes up the beating heart of Night Vale, someone who does not always do well, but always means well, and who believes strongly in this town she is forced to try to run.