The Buying of Lot 37

by Joseph Fink

  Who knows, maybe one day I will see one of these “radios” for myself. Wow. Even the word sounds goofy.

  This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

  LEONARD:Let’s talk again about the good old days. Remember the 1930s (or the Sparklingly Clean 30s, as we once called them), when America was flush with cash and people literally could not, would not stop dancing with their hips and wearing sequined fringe? It was a great time to roll up hundred dollar bills and fill them with shredded up twenty dollar bills and smoke them like cigars. Just great. I truly wish for stasis.

  CECIL:Intern . . . [sigh] . . . still Intern Cecil here. Big thanks, as always, to our host, Leonard Burton, in the booth, as he has been for what seems like a really long time. Not saying it is a long time. Who knows what a long time is, even? Not me. But it just seems that way. That’s all.

  It’s New Year’s Eve, 1934, and, here in Night Vale, as in towns all over this great country, we are celebrating with large swimming pools full of champagne. This is both fun and also practical, since we have way more champagne than we can drink or even safely store without the towering stacks of champagne crates threatening to tumble down onto our fragile bodies. So what better way of honoring the season than just dumping a ton of this stuff into a swimming pool and splashing around in it?

  Turns out it’s not great for swimming in, what with the alcohol content and acidity, but it’s okay because we have pool floats made from compacted caviar.

  Everyone is here and everyone is having a blast. Even little Josie Ortiz, young as she is, is getting in on the act, entertaining swimmers with simple magic tricks and minor prophecies. This is the best party Night Vale has had since last week’s big blowout in honor of Lee Marvin’s thirtieth birthday.

  As I look out over the lush grassland and the verdant trees sagging with tropical fruit, an area that just a few years ago was flat empty desert forever, I feel the warmth inside, that American warmth that gives me great certainty. It will be this way from now to always. From now on, peace. From now on, prosperity. From now on, champagne swimming pools every New Year’s. America is taking flight, and hardworking people are its wings.

  Back to you, as always, Leonard. Always. I genuinely can’t remember a time you didn’t have that job.

  LEONARD:Of course, just a few years later, the trees and grassland were gone, the second war had hit Europe, and all of Night Vale came together to make explosives and devices to launch explosives. Nothing shows the beautiful perfection of human community like intercontinental weaponized combat. It was a better time then.

  This was also Cecil’s first ever broadcast as the full-time host of this show.

  CECIL:Cry havoc and let slip the hounds of war. Weep havoc. Squeeze grief like coal to diamonds until it slides, crystalline and compact, down your reddened cheeks, and let slip those ugly, useless hounds to do their ugly, useless work. Welcome to Night Vale.

  Hello listeners. Here I am, as I thought I might never be, behind the studio microphone at Night Vale Community Radio. Yes, top news tonight is that our beloved Leonard Burton has retired in order to spend more time trying to understand what a family is, and so I will, from now forward, take over as the voice of our little community. This is a proud day for me, and a proud day, I’m sure, for my mother, who has been hiding from me for decades now but whose absence in many ways speaks to me more than words could.

  With the big news out of the way, we go back to the usual day to day. There is, of course, a war in Europe and the Pacific and all around the world. We ourselves have been attacked. Or not we, Night Vale is still fine, but people who share our same broad category, somewhere, they’ve been attacked. And that will not stand.

  Night Vale is, of course, very tricky to leave, so no one has actually joined the army or anything. But we are doing our part for America by buying war bonds, growing victory gardens, and chanting in Bloodstone Circles. Leading experts say that it is the indomitable American spirit, the fighting prowess of our soldiers in the field, and mostly chanting in Bloodstones Circles that will win this war.

  Like those famous Rosie the Riveter posters all over town say: “Get chanting in Bloodstone Circles double-time, or me and the rest of riveters will come at you with rivet guns. You ever have someone come at you with a rivet gun? Well, bud, you don’t want that, trust me.”

  Inspiring words in difficult times. But when the turbulent events of the past few years have you down, just remember your friend Cecil, behind the mic and talking you through it from this day forward.

  LEONARD:Huh. While that clip was playing I found a few Fidelipac cartridges. They look pretty old. I don’t remember pulling these for today’s “Best Of” show. Let’s see what this first one is. It’s marked THE END? Question mark.

  CECIL:Nulogorsk, our Russian sister city, is gone. The people of Nulogorsk, our friends, they are gone too. Since then the sky has been hot with death. So much fuel for so many rockets burning away at once, it makes the fall air seem a little warmer, even down here, not to mention that final sizzle at the end of each.

  Blooms of death all over the world, hot and final. I speak to you for as long as I can, from a world ending. 1983. Our final year. I suppose as good a year as any.

  Josie Ortiz, once young, now middle-aged, will never go on to be the old woman she could have become. Lee Marvin, famed screen actor, will die having just turned thirty, never to see another year pass.

  And I will go too. Amidst a screaming of sirens that warn without helping, that make a show of protecting without protecting at all. I will never meet that someone. That someone who could have given my life depth and meaning, who could have been my other. I will only ever sit here, only have ever sat here, behind this microphone, until I am not ever, ever again.

  Good night, from a world ending, Night Vale. Good—

  [static, radio tuning, fading in on a different Cecil]

  . . . looking to be a good year. At least as good as 1983 has been. Josie Ortiz would like me to remind everyone that this Thursday she is holding a benefit for the Old Opera House. It will be a lavish evening, with everything you would expect from a fancy night out, like a salad bar. Tickets are $100 and are not for sale to the likes of you.

  In other news, Simone Rigadeau, professor of Earth Sciences at the Night Vale Community College, says that her reality has split, that she is experiencing another history happening now, a history in which all of this ends. She is shutting down the Earth Sciences program in order to devote herself fully to understanding what has happened to her shattered mind and this ended but yet also not-ended world. Well, best of luck in your new career, Simone!

  LEONARD:Oh yes, those were glorious days. These days the world seems to never be ending for some and not others. The world is a worse place now than it ever was before, but far better than it ever will be again. The past is always better than the present, and the future is the worst of all.

  This next cartridge is marked WEATHER. Let’s see what’s on it.

  WEATHER: “When Can I Say that I Love You” by Kyle Fleming

  LEONARD:And I have one last clip here. There’s a piece of duct tape on the plastic casing upon which someone has written a thick, shaky NO. So let’s play that.

  CECIL:Listeners, oh listeners. I come to you with sad news. I think you know the news. I think we all saw what happened. To the family and friends of former Night Vale Community Radio host Leonard Burton, I extend my deepest sympathies. Not that my sympathies will do you any good.

  For what Leonard experienced is something that no human, no sentient being should ever have to experience. The blood, those stains on the broken asphalt. The skin, or I think that was skin. But then all those bits that were clearly not skin, of course. And then all the more blood, of course. And the wretched sound of the pulling. And the single, awful snap. We will all remember the sound of the snap forever. There is more. But I cannot. There is more. But I won’t. And the fingernails, of course. Of course, the fingernails.

>   I mourn Leonard Burton with all my heart and my liver and kidneys. With the bones of my toes and with my belly button. I mourn him with my armpit and neck sweat. Every part of me. Every facet. The physical of me, I mourn him with these.

  Leonard gave me my start. He took a chance on me. He gave me the life I have. And now he doesn’t have life. It is an equation with a miswritten number. Nothing can be solved. It is an error.

  The City Council warned that the mess left from Leonard Burton’s death is likely to draw Street Cleaners and that we should all take shelter. Cover your mirrors. Shade your eyes. Stay indoors and mourn. Stay indoors and mourn.

  Leonard’s death and my barely contained grief have been brought to you today by Shasta Cola. Shasta Cola: Same great taste. Low, low price.

  And now, moving forward as best we can, to political news. Of course the focus now is on the big debate about President Clinton: Who is he? What’s a president? How did this strange news from the outside world reach our little desert hamlet?

  For that let’s bring in senior political analyst Lee Marvin, who, oh look what day it is, this is your thirtieth [CLICK]

  LEONARD:I . . . Listeners. Have you ever forgotten where you put your keys? You were certain they were on the mantel. But they were not. Have you ever missed an appointment because you were sure it was on Wednesday at noon, not Tuesday at ten? Have you ever remembered a life you did not lead? Has a carefully collated series of words ever made you uncertain? Unconfident? Or un. Just un. Un as an adjective unto itself.

  I do not remember that story at all. I do not like that story. That is a bad story.

  It was a better day earlier, back when I hadn’t heard that story. This present, this now, is no good. No good at all.

  Stay tuned next for less of the best and more of the same. It’s been a pleasure to fill in this week, in my old job, Night Vale. Cecil will be back soon. Until then, this has been Leonard Burton.

  And as always, See ya, Night Vale. See ya.

  PROVERB:“I’m all business,” I say, peeling off my skin strip by strip, showing you what oozes out. “Business to my core.”

  Episode 68:

  “Faceless Old Women”

  MAY 15, 2015

  GUEST VOICE: DYLAN MARRON (CARLOS)

  THERE IS NO QUESTION THAT I GREW UP IN A HAUNTED HOUSE.

  I’m not even sure there is such a thing. I’m agnostic about ghosts and spirits, but there was something unusual going on there. Appliances turned on in the middle of the night, things moved from one place to another when no one was there, certain rooms were always much colder than others. It always felt like someone, or something, was there with us. Not a malevolent spirit, but one that followed its own rules, ones we would never understand.

  I was a fearful child, often afraid, always anxious. But I was never scared of whatever seemed to be haunting us. If anything, it was a point of pride. We never played house when my friends came over, we played creepy house and I’d brag about our “ghost.” Mostly, I felt safe at home, protected. It was what was outside that scared me.

  Some cities have lush green trees or rolling hills or the ocean. Desert cities have the sky. It seems limitless, and endlessly beautiful . . . at first. But then comes the overwhelming smallness and the creeping realization that there’s nowhere to hide. The valley suburb of Los Angeles where I grew up wasn’t quite the desert, but we had the same overwhelming, expansive sky, and looking at it could be too much for me. The constant sunlight felt intrusive, even cruel.

  Maybe this is why I first connected so strongly with Welcome to Night Vale. No one had ever put the creeping horror I could feel into words before. I had read stories about the horrors lurking in New England fog, or the spirits haunting Victorian houses in New Orleans, but where had the Desert Noir been all my life? There was so much about it that rang true to me, and still does.

  Playing the Faceless Old Woman in Night Vale has been an honor. I’ve had the privilege to perform her in shows in lush green cities, cities with rolling hills, cities by the ocean. And of course, in the desert. In some places, she’s a beloved character (her fan base seems to be particularly strong in Canada) and in some places she’s feared. It’s true that the Faceless Old Woman operates in ways that we can’t understand. She seems impulsive, impassive, but what she does makes sense to her. She might haunt us, but I don’t know if she’s anything to be afraid of.

  Perhaps that’s too easy for me to say, though: I’m used to being haunted. And now I get to be the one doing the haunting.

  —Mara Wilson

  Get the body you’ve always wanted. We know where it’s buried and can lend you a shovel.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  Hello, listeners. I’m back from vacation, and I’m feeling great. I, of course, miss being with Carlos in that desert otherworld and miss having so much time to relax with my boyfriend, but as with any vacation, it always feels good to come home.

  We had such a delightful time. Carlos and the masked army of nomadic giants that inhabit that place have managed to build a little paradise there. There’s now a roller coaster and an ice cream parlor and a beach resort hotel and spa. Unfortunately, they don’t have operators for the roller coaster, nor any milk for making ice cream, nor any water along the beach resort. So most of those things just sit empty, except for the roller coaster which is constantly running and filled with the same people who got on it over two months ago, unable to stop because no one knew how to build a brake system. There were terrified screams dopplering up and down the otherwise quiet nights. Those people are just having the time of the rest of their lives.

  More on my trip later, but first some breaking news.

  The Sheriff’s Secret Police just announced that they have captured the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. The Faceless Old Woman is one of two fugitives the Secret Police have been tracking for the past few months. She and literal five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels are wanted in connection with a series of attacks on Mayor Dana Cardinal at City Hall.

  A Secret Police spokesdeer made today’s big announcement by writing it in dirt with its hoof. The announcement began a couple hours ago, but we’re just now getting to the good stuff and reporters have grown impatient with the spokesdeer who can only scratch one or two words at a time and then has to erase them before continuing with the next words.

  The press conference turned ugly as a couple of reporters shouted, “Speak English!” at the deer, but then a couple more shouted, “PA ROOSKI!” and the spokesdeer, looking relieved, began speaking in fluent Russian. Which flummoxed those reporters who only spoke English despite their adamant demands that others develop a mastery of multiple languages.

  But the big news is that they captured a dangerous fugitive, which is so shocking, because to my knowledge no one has ever even seen the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home because she lives there secretly. Of course, without a face, I imagine it would be simultaneously easy and difficult to identify her.

  More on this story as it develops.

  Okay, so back to our vacation. Carlos showed me the apartment he built using his scientific knowledge of physical materials and spatial relations. It was a cute little one bedroom on the side of a low, craggy mountain. (I could hardly believe it. A mountain, right?!) We took turns making each other breakfast whenever we thought it was morning. Carlos cooks a delicious vegan omelet using thick fillets of ginger root for the eggs and filling it with dried cranberries and capers. I’m not a great cook, but I make excellent coffee. I generally don’t let Carlos make the coffee, because I have a specific way I like to make it using a coffee hammer and angry chanting.

  I like my coffee like I like my nights: dark, endless, and impossible to sleep through.

  After a week’s staycation in Carlos’s apartment, we went with the giant masked warrior Alicia on several hiking trails around the desert canyons. Carlos and Alicia showed me the brilliant array of flora that grows in that desert otherworld. While the de
sert around Night Vale is mostly red and brown dust, with a smattering of white and brown rocks, topped with gray and brown brush, the canyons of the desert otherworld were flush with rich brush of charcoal and tan, rocks the color of snow and leather, and dust that was striped in shades of sunset and mahogany.

  And there were mysterious lights in the sky. Just like here in Night Vale. We could not understand the lights, but we understood our lack of understanding, which is all most understanding is.

  Some mornings, Alicia and Doug and the other giant masked warriors would see other masked armies and they would head off to war, gone for days at a time, only to return bloodied and fewer in number. Carlos and I didn’t mind, because it gave us more time to ourselves. More about our vacation later, but there’s some news or something.

  An update on today’s arrest of the Faceless Old Woman. Several residents across Night Vale are reporting vandalism inside their homes. Old Town residents Christopher Brady and Stuart Robinson report their living room walls were covered in writing that reads: “YOU TALKED! I SEE YOU AND I CANNOT HATE YOU BUT I CANNOT FORGIVE YOU.” The text seems to have been written with hand-smeared mayonnaise. Also all of the toes were cut out of their dress socks.

  Said Robinson of the damage: “I think it’s because I reported to the sheriff that the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Our Home was secretly living in our home. I regret this now.”

  Brady added: “I told you not to do that, Stuart!”

  Robinson then replied, head in his hands: “I know, Chris. You were right. You’re always right.”

  “You should have listened to Christopher,” came a cold whisper over their shoulders.

  Stay tuned here, as we bring you more news of today’s arrest.

  And now, it’s time for another edition of my popular advice segment “Hey There, Cecil.” Let’s get to your questions.