137 - The Mudstone Abyss Part 3

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If this had been an actual emergency, this signal would be followed by screaming and chaos.

Welcome to Desert Bluffs.

Hello, Desert Bluffs.

It's been exactly one week since language resumed functioning.

We are all, of course, relieved to finally be able to greet neighbors once again with a friendly, you should smile more.

But sometimes with good news comes bad news.

It's also been exactly one week since all construction on the Mudstone Abyss was halted.

There are still several creeping shadows roaming about the dig site, causing everyone who goes near there to become so overwhelmed with joy that they run away screaming.

It's unclear why the shadows are still there.

We don't know what they want.

Some have said they want us to dig no further and that these shadows are responsible for our loss of language.

I think they came out to see the beautiful craftsmanship on our mudstone abyss.

Mayor Lauren Mallard called for a halt to construction despite adamant protests from the media.

The media spent the past week constantly texting and calling the mayor, telling her that construction must continue because it has been the media's dream since childhood to build a grand physical testament to the smiling gods' endless happiness and love.

But the mayor has been slow to respond.

She's probably busy scheduling contractors to restart work on the monument.

Maybe the media should try texting the mayor again.

Why

is construction still

halted,

Lauren?

Oh, that sounds a bit aggressive.

Let's brighten that tone a bit with

Bleeding Gums emoji,

spider with human eyes emoji, cry laughing emoji.

There we go.

The mayor and I have been close for a long time.

We've had our ups and downs, but I think our more difficult times were back when we used to run a company together.

We had some typical disagreements over who was in charge.

She thought because she was the president of the company, she should have final say on all decisions.

Whereas I knew that I was one of the smiling gods' chosen prophets, and our all-loving devourer would not choose a prophet who made mistakes.

I believe ceasing construction was a mistake.

Certainly our mare thinks digging the mudstone abyss is somehow connected to our loss of language, and I appreciate her concern, but there is only anecdotal evidence to support this.

More on this story as it develops.

But first, I wanted to tell you that Charles and I went out again.

Originally, Charles and I were going to go to the opening of the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the Desert Bluffs Museum of Art.

This exhibit features many of O'Keeffe's famous flower paintings, but reimagined as if O'Keeffe were a joyous worshipper of the smiling god.

Artists at the museum have painted large smiles and centipedes over O'Keeffe's originals, and the result is apparently quite powerful and moving.

Then Charles and I planned to have another luxurious dinner at Vermilion, but at the last minute, Grandma Josephine and her demons told him they weren't available to babysit Charles' five-year-old Donovan, and we couldn't find a babysitter.

So instead, Charles, Donovan, and I spent the day at the Desert Bluff Spinning Smiles amusement park.

We rode the spine compressor, the esophagus remover, and a brand new roller coaster called Intentional Sepsis.

Donovan was really delighted by all the struggling actors dressed in stuffy, unvented animal costumes.

Donnie got his picture taken with one person dressed as a smiling tortoise.

We could hear the man in the costume panting heavily and begging for water.

Donnie turned to the tortoise and said, the sun calls for sacrifice because the sun loves all that it sees.

The man inside rasped, Air, please.

I don't know where I am, please.

And passed out.

Donnie giggled right as Charles took the photo.

It was actually really adorable.

What a great memory to capture.

We went back to Charles' house and made sandwiches and watched cartoons, but Donnie wasn't interested in the television.

He just played with his toy planes, zigging and zagging them over his head, turning and swirling them in reckless fits.

I hope he does not grow up to be a pilot.

I sat next to Charles on the couch, mesmerized by the motion of Donnie's planes until Charles and I fell asleep.

Around 2 a.m.

I woke up.

Donovan had put himself to bed and Charles was snoring softly against my shoulder.

I carefully stood up and pulled Charles' legs onto the sofa.

The whole day had made me happy, but not in the way I wanted to be happy about it.

Happiness should be something you have, not something you take.

I placed a blanket over him and drove home.

I'm getting an update that Mayor Lauren Mallard is holding a press conference at City Hall.

Let's hear her speech live.

People of Desert Bluffs, after discussions with City Council, as well as some prominent and very knowledgeable members of the media, I have decided to reopen construction of the Mudstone Abyss.

I know many people are frightened by the shadow beings drifting around the dig site, as well as the ones lurking in and around your homes.

But there is nothing to fear.

These shadows are merely the impure souls of those devoured and then later disgorged by the smiling god.

They're not worthy of your fear.

These shadows don't even have faces.

We cannot discern their intentions or feelings.

They move around in in quick jerks and starts, flickering in and out of our vision, sometimes standing just behind us while slowly tilting their heads.

And unless you're looking in a mirror, there's no way you can even see that.

So I'm not sure why you're all freaking out.

Plus, they're completely intangible.

Watch.

There's one right now, passing in front of me.

I'm whipping my hand back and forth right through it.

It can't do anything.

It's just a shadow.

It can't even smile.

Construction resumes at 7 a.m.

sharp on Monday.

We've assigned every citizen a daily eight-hour time slot with two 10-minute breaks.

We've also hired some clowns to come by to keep everyone smiling.

As a former corporate president, I know firsthand how important laughter is for maintaining a healthy work environment.

Skeleton Silverfish.

What?

Silverfish, French press carbuncle.

I can't pillowcase slapstick.

Plenty of hibiscus.

Yeah.

Ah, Mayor Mallard.

Such a way with words.

Well, you heard her.

It's a joyous day.

In fact, probably a future holiday.

I cannot wait to start digging again next week, Desert Bluffs.

Let's look now at the community calendar.

These are probably the last non-construction events we'll have for a couple of weeks.

On Wednesday afternoon at Morning Bird Records, the Society for Painless Living will be holding a protest march against the construction of the Mudstone Abyss.

Well, I don't usually read press releases for such tiny events, but I guess there might be one or two people who want to exercise their right to assembly.

So if this sounds like something you're interested in, I guess you should go to the march and then think about all the joy the smiling God has given you and question your motives for refusing to appreciate it.

Thursday morning, the Citizens for Free Will will host a sit-in at the Sunlight All-Day Diner to demonstrate their opposition to the mayor's order for mandatory labor on the Mudstone Abyss.

Huh.

Oh, this looks better.

Thursday afternoon, the Natural Smiles Theatre Company, I love that name, is opening their new play, The Pit of Ruin.

Playwright Danika Lopez says her work is an agit-prop parable about the arrogance of religion, government, and media.

Lopez's play, according to their press materials, tells the story of a bloviating radio host who overreaches his position, enslaving an entire town in order to feed his hunger for religious power.

I like the sound of this theater company less and less.

There has to be some community event that's actually fun in here.

Friday morning, the people for clean, sharp teeth will be burning Kevin the radio host in effigy.

I don't

understand.

I'd like to spend more time on this, explaining to you, dear listeners, that my happiness is not yours to take.

I'd like to have all afternoon to teach you about how you must receive your own joy by making joy rather than destroying others' joy.

But I cannot spend any time on this because I'm getting word that Mayor Mallard has been forcibly removed from her podium at City Hall.

A large crowd of unsmiling people overtook the mayor and city council.

The crowd used a tattoo gun to draw a permanent frown on the mayor's face, which effectively exiles her from this community.

The crowd is chanting, Pete Moss handlebars, peat moss handlebars.

The police have tried using their bullhorns to call for order, but instead of words, they're emitting bird chirps.

Language seems to be failing us again.

Desert Bluffs, I need you to remain calm.

I need you to take a deep breath.

and think positive thoughts.

Think about the smiling god, its mammoth wriggling form and thousands of legs emerging from the earth and devouring your body.

Envision your whole self nestled in the moist, loving belly of the divine beast.

Smile while you do it, Desert Bluffs.

Keep smiling.

Keep...

I'm getting a phone call.

Ooh, it's from Charles.

Maybe he found a babysitter.

Hey Charles, I was just thinking about you.

You know there's a nightclub that opened last month.

It's called No Exit.

I thought maybe we could drop off Donnie with Josephine this evening and then

Aha.

So you called to see if I wanted to go to the zoo with you and Donnie this afternoon instead?

Uh.

Well,

I was just looking at the weather and I'm not sure if today's the day to

It's not.

Charles,

I have the weather report right here.

Listen.

Yeah, I've come to know the wish list of my father.

I've come to know the shipwrecks where he wished.

I've come to wish aloud among the overdressed crowd, come to witness now the sinking of the ship,

throwing pennies from the seat top next to it.

And I've come to roam the forest past the village with a dozen lazy horses in my cart.

I've come here to get high, to do more than just get by.

I've come to test the timber of my heart.

oh I've come to test the timber of my heart

and I've come

to be untroubled in my seeking

and I've come

to see that nothing is for naught

I've come to reach out blind, to reach forward and behind.

For the more I seek, the more more I'm sought

yeah the more I seek the more I'm sought

And I've come to meet the sheriff at his pile seat

to offer him the broadside of my jaw

I've come here to get broke, then maybe bum a smoke We'll go drinking two towns over after all

I will go drinking two towns over after all

And I've come to meet the legendary takers

I've only come to ask them for a lot

Oh, they say I come with less than I should rightfully possess I say the more I buy, the more I'm bought.

And the more I'm bought, the less I cost.

And I've come

to take their servants and their surplus.

And I've come

to take their raincoats and their speed.

I've come to get my fill, to ransack and spill.

I've come to take the harvest for the seed.

I've come to take the harvest for the seed.

Yeah, I've come to know the manger that you sleep in.

I've come to be the stranger that you keep

I've come from down the road and my footsteps never slowed before we met I knew we'd meet

Before we met I knew we'd meet

And I've come here to ignore your cries and heartaches

I've come to closely listen to you sing

I've come here to insist that I leave here with a kiss I've come to say exactly what I mean

and I mean so many

things

and you've come

to know me stubborn as a butcher

and you've come

To know me thankless as a guest

But will you recognize my face when God's awful grace strips me of my jacket and my vest

and reveals all the treasure in my chest?

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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I figured it out, Desert Bluffs.

The mob outside City Hall has dispersed.

They returned Lauren Mallard with her tattooed frown to her position as mayor, mayor, but city bylaws prohibit anyone incapable of smiling from serving in that position, so for now, we have no mayor.

The drifting shadows around the mudstone abyss have dissipated, returning to whatever other other world they came from.

And construction has begun again at the monument dig site, several days ahead of schedule.

I figured it out.

During our phone call, Charles was getting flustered.

I asked what was wrong and he said Donovan was distracting him by swinging his toy planes around again.

I told Charles to focus on us and not worry about what Donovan was doing.

We can't talk about us, Kevin, without worrying about what Donovan is doing, he snapped at me.

Donovan is us.

That's the deal, okay?

And I was hurt.

I wasn't smiling.

I don't like criticism.

It makes me sad.

And then mad.

And then confused.

Listeners,

I don't often use strong language, so if your ears are sensitive to vulgarity, turn the volume down for a few seconds.

I hate

not being happy.

I hate it.

There, I said it.

I'm sorry.

I thought about what Charles said.

I thought about his teeth, his chest, his hair, his snoring, his smile.

I thought about Donovan.

I thought about Donovan swinging those toy planes all around above his head, like the birds in that dream every one of us has every single night.

You know, where the birds zig and zag across a blood-red sky, recklessly turning and swirling in panicked fits.

Donovan's planes were, in fact, moving in the exact same pattern as those birds.

I figured it out.

Each movement, each turn, each path of each plane was identical to those birds' paths.

Listeners, it's not a dream.

It's a message.

The shadows do not speak in our mouthy languages, but in shapes and patterns.

I interrupted Charles to tell him this.

I told him to take Donnie to the Mudstone Abyss.

I told him to bring Donnie's planes.

Charles and Donnie approached the shadowy figures.

The gathered crowd called to them to stop, to move no closer to the shadows, but all the crowd could yell was cabbage coat hangers!

Charles then presented Donnie to the shadows, and they flickered as he zigged and zagged his planes above his head.

And then,

a miracle happened.

Glowing dotted lines appeared in the paths of the toy planes.

A radiant geometry, triangles and stars and hexagons.

The shapes began to connect to each other, circles forming spheres, triangles forming pyramids.

The shadows raised their arms and disappeared.

Donnie stopped flying his planes around, but the dotted lines hung in midair, an unreadable but completely comprehensible message to the now silent crowd.

They figured it out.

One by one, the people returned to the dig site and began carving the shapes they had just seen into the mudstone.

As people grew tired and stepped away for rest breaks, they found that their words had returned to them, and when they went back to dig more, they fell silent again, but only because they felt more comfort in their new spatial language of shapes and motion.

The anger over the construction was no more.

Citizens came together not just out of a common communication, nor for the good of a great monument, but because happiness finally showed itself to them, and they discovered their own paths to peace.

Through the pride of choosing hard work, for the benefit of all.

Charles called to tell me how excited he was for me.

You figured it out, he said.

Kevin, you figured it out.

I told him, Donnie figured it out.

He didn't spout a solution in words, but in deeds.

You should be proud of your son, Charles, I said.

I am proud of him.

I didn't say anything else.

I need more time to know what else to say.

Soon, we'll go visit the zoo.

Hopefully soon we'll have a night to ourselves.

To drink, to dine, to dance, and late at night in a quiet home, to dream a dream of diving birds, of love and language.

And we will wake up the same people in a different place.

The earth will have moved, the clocks will have moved, the sun will not have moved.

But we will wake.

and we will smile and we will do our best to understand ourselves and others.

Desert Bluffs.

I didn't figure out the language of the Abyss.

Donnie did.

I didn't figure out what the language intended.

You did.

What I figured out was that I sometimes push too hard.

I will do my best to not do that.

We are building this monument because you want to.

I want to too, but I'm glad you found your own way here.

Lauren, tattooed frown scrawled crooked on her face, is standing over the pit and staring at the shapes the dream has shown us, as though reading messages only she could understand.

She is muttering strange syllables to herself and staring with obvious malice at the workers in the pit.

So even she has found a hobby in this post-mayoral life.

Thank you, Desert Bluffs.

I love this town.

I'm happy you do too.

Stay tuned next for the sound a child makes upon seeing a giraffe in real life.

And as always,

until next time, Desert Bluffs.

Until next time.

Welcome to Desert Bluffs is a production of Night Vale Presents.

It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Disparition.

The voice of Desert Bluffs is Kevin R.

Free.

The voice of Lauren Mallard was Lauren Sharp.

Original music by Joseph Fink.

All of it can be found at josephfink.bandcamp.com.

This episode's weather was Hymn Number 101 by Joe Pug.

Find out more at joepugmusic.com.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at Nightvale Radio.

Or trip the light fantastic and watch Laughing as it falls.

Check out Welcometonightvale.com for more information on this show and the new Alice Isn't Dead novel by Joseph Fink.

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