132 - Bedtime Story

Hey y'all, it is Jeffrey Kraner speaking to you from the year 2025.

And did you know that Welcome to Night Vale is back out on tour?

We are.

We're gonna be up in the northeast in the Boston, New York City area, going all the way over to the upper Midwest in Minnesota.

That's in July.

You kind of draw a line through there and you'll kind of see the towns we'll be hitting.

We'll also be doing Philly down to Florida in September.

And we'll be going from Austin all the way up through the middle of the country into Toronto, Canada in October.

And then we'll be doing the West Coast plus the Southwest plus Colorado in January of 2026.

You can find all of the show dates at welcome to nightvale.com/slash live.

Listen, this brand new live show is so much fun.

It is called Murder Night in Blood Forest, and it stars Cecil Baldwin, of course, Symphony Sanders, me, and live original music by Disparition, and who knows what other special guests may come along for the ride.

These tours are always so much fun, and they are for you, the Die Hard fan, and you, the Night Vale new kid alike.

So feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your co-workers, your cat, whatever.

They don't gotta know what a night veil is to like the show.

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvell.com/slash live.

Don't let time slip away and miss us when we are in your town because otherwise we will all be sad.

Get your tickets to our live US plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.

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This is a bedtime story my mother used to tell me.

Welcome to Night Vale.

There once was a boy who wanted to know everything.

He was smart and curious.

He would draw the stars and collect insects.

He would read books and write poetry.

He looked at blades of grass in a magnifying glass, and he knew there was more to know.

His father would tell him, I love you, my son.

I would give my life for you.

Most days, his father made him work in the pasture.

The boy was not interested in operating plows or hammers or pry bars.

He was only interested in how they worked and his curiosity would often lead him to injury.

This made his father angry but his father did not want to say an unkind word to his son.

So when he was mad, he avoided the boy, not speaking to him for days, even to check to see if he was okay.

His mother would tell him, I love you, my son.

I would give away everything I own for you.

She sometimes baked cakes for the family.

He loved cake.

He loved leavening agents and the careful art of mixing flour with liquid and the chemical reaction of eggs and fat under extreme heat.

Sometimes he would help, but his mother would become frustrated when he would eat a spoonful of raw baking soda or open the oven early and pour the uncooked batter onto the floor to examine the consistency at different times in the baking process.

His mother would cast him out and tell him no cake, no dinner even, to go to his room for the rest of the night.

His sister would tell him, I hate you, brother.

But their parents would instruct her to be nice and so she would say sarcastically, I love you, brother.

I would climb the tallest mountain for you.

But she knew she did not believe in mountains.

And he would tell her that mountains were real, and she would wrestle him to the ground and pull his hair.

He knew he would never need his father to give his life for him.

He just wanted his father to show concern for his health.

He knew he would never need his mother to give away all of her belongings for him.

He just wanted his mother to show interest in his curiosity.

He knew his sister really loved him.

He knew he would never never need his sister to climb a mountain for him.

He just wanted his sister to believe him that mountains were real.

One day, the boy decided he wanted to be a singer, so he could study how music makes people feel good.

But his mother said, you can't support yourself as a singer.

Another day, the boy decided he wanted to be a doctor.

so he could understand how medicine works.

But his father said, being a doctor means you have to perform surgery, and he feared for the boy's future patience.

Another day, the boy decided he wanted to be a judge, so he could make sense of the laws that govern the land.

But his sister said, you get in trouble too much to be a judge.

The boy wanted to be an alchemist.

Later, a chef.

Later, an archaeologist.

Later, a ship's navigator.

His mind thought of everything it could could imagine.

His fingers touched everything they could reach.

His mouth said everything it could form into sounds.

But for each job he told them he wanted to do, they told him a reason why he couldn't or shouldn't do it.

One day, the boy saw an angel in the middle of the dusty field next to his house.

This was a long time ago, so angels were not to be publicly acknowledged.

But no one else was around, save for a few birds who might report the boy to the sheriff.

The boy was willing to take that chance.

He had never seen an angel and wanted badly to learn about them.

The angel, like all angels, was named Erika.

The angel told the boy that below this field is a world of renewal, a place that will let you be something different, something amazing.

Erika knew the boy wanted more from his life.

Underground, I can be anything I want, the boy asked.

You cannot be anything you want, but you will be something you want, the angel said.

And what is that?

The boy asked.

Like a doctor or a singer or a judge?

What you actually want is rarely what you think you want, the angel replied.

So, probably no.

How will I know if I'm going to like it?

The boy asked.

How will you know anything?

The angel said, and then ascended back to heaven where they had some scones and a tall glass of orange milk waiting.

How do I get there?

The boy called.

And faintly, from the clouds, he heard...

He didn't understand what the noise meant.

Was the angel angry at him for asking so many questions?

His mouth was wet, even in the dry, dusty, desert field.

He felt immediately hydrated.

He spit.

He spit again.

And the dirt moistened into mud.

dark and glistening like chocolate pudding.

He spit and spit and spit until the puddle was about 18 inches wide.

His mouth was dry and swollen.

He couldn't spit anymore.

The boy reached his hand into the mud and the earth gave way easily.

It was a hole.

He reached his entire shoulder in, then his head, his torso, and finally his legs and feet.

He was standing once again, but upside down underneath his world.

Everything was dark, but completely visible.

And below him, the bright white of the noon sky.

He could see the underside of the barn, of the house.

His sister had returned home, and he could see the worn tread on her boots as she stepped across the lawn.

The boy saw worms and spiders and centipedes floating in the dark soil before him.

He could feel them touch his cheek and teeth.

And soon they began to nestle in his ear.

He spent hours exploring every bug, every plant, every buried rock.

He found some artifacts like an expired shotgun shell, a lockbox full of notebooks long since rotted away.

even the skeleton of a dog in a wooden crate.

There was so much to explore.

But he was getting tired.

It was difficult to move around.

He looked for the hole he had entered, but it had dried up in the hot sun.

He could feel ants along his eyelids and the insides of his lips.

He could barely walk.

He tried spitting again, but soil had stuffed in his mouth.

The sun had set, so he curled into a ball to go go to sleep.

He would figure out how to get home in the morning.

He wished he could move.

It began to rain, and from the underside of the earth, the weather sounded like this.

He was wrong to write that, but his writing is so boring.

Too stupid to incite the symphony you're scoring.

You're too old for shit this small, but you're much too young to abandon it all.

Meanwhile, I'm screaming all the time.

You're perfect, you're fine.

You know, I bit my tongue when you've been petulant and galling.

And I was there to lift you up whenever you were falling.

It's been appalling.

Now you say that no one loves you.

I'm like, what about me?

You're like, what, me, who?

But it's me who's been here all the time.

Whatever, never mind.

I'm missing the good parts of a bad friend.

And I fear they're gone for good.

It went from a good start to a bad end.

And I wish he would

come home,

come home.

Turn away, I know he can be.

I wish you'd come home,

come home to me.

We sing everything we'd write before I was your mother.

Two hot young dykes at night, we'd listen to each other.

Now you don't hear anything,

and I don't hear feelings when you sing.

Just like flat iPhone melodies.

Listen, please.

I'm missing the good parts of a bad friend.

And I fear they're gone for good.

It went from a good start to a bad end.

And I wish he would

come home,

come home

to the way I know we can't be.

I wish he'd come home,

come home

to me.

You'd rather be right

than me happy

with my love.

Show me you understand

the things I try to tell you.

Don't throw up all that guarded drama that befell you.

Cause I can smell you.

Retweet if you use feminist darkness to avoid accountability and let's be in processing.

Which why if you prefer friendship to fame?

Favorite of saying:

I'm missing the good parts of a bad friend,

and I fear they're gone for good.

It went from a good start to a bad end.

And I wish he would

come home,

come home.

So the way I know he can be.

I wish he'd come home,

come home to me.

I wish he'd come home,

come home

to me.

I wish he'd come home,

come home

to me.

I wish you'd come home.

Come home.

Hey, it's Jeffrey Kraner with a word from our sponsor.

You're on a desert island, but not a deserted island.

Someone else is there.

Something else is there.

In the water surrounding you, lurks a mythical beast with two large eyes and many long arms.

You're just now hearing of this beast, but you're not afraid because you don't plan to swim.

Though that water looks nice, you're good at talking yourself into things, and soon you are in the sea, frolicking and splashing.

You even squeal, thinking you're all alone.

But you forgot what I just said.

You're not alone.

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It lifts you high in the air, waving you about at dizzying heights.

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It winks and tells you kraken rum is ideal for Halloween cocktails and disappears back into the dark, briny depths.

Visit the official sponsor of Welcome to Night Vale, Kraken Rum.com to release the Kraken this Halloween.

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that promises a path through the void, Sam and his friends set off on a journey that unravels everything that they thought they knew about their home.

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The woods are watching.

After the rain, his arms felt longer, as well as his toes, but he still could not move.

Days passed and he grew longer and longer.

There was sometimes more rain, but mostly sun.

One morning, after several months, he could actually feel the wind again on his face and on his back.

When the rain came, it sounded like it always had, not that odd underground sound he had grown used to.

And he realized he had finally begun to emerge back above ground.

He wanted to run home, but his legs and toes had grown so long that they were entangled in each other, in rocks and in other plants deep within the ground.

He wasn't climbing out of the ground, but growing out of it.

His skin was greenish-brown and wooden.

He had little bulbs tufted along the tips of his fingers and the top of his head.

Stuck in the earth, he had only to think about everything

around him.

It was what he always wanted from his life.

He learned about photosynthesis and cellular division.

He learned about mating habits of squirrels and birds.

He studied the geometry of spider webs and the physics of stars.

He spent a lot of time in those next several months watching his family, their grief at his loss, his parents' happiness at his sister's education, aging, and the rapid breakdown of his parents' bodies over the next many years.

Time slowed for him, and his knowledge grew so vast and so expansive, human triumphs and pains became only a small sliver of his interest.

There were much larger systems to comprehend than humanity.

In a decade, he had grown to over 20 feet tall.

His sister, now an adult, approached.

She touched the leaves growing from his chest and hips.

The boy felt something he hadn't felt in a while, but he couldn't quite explain what it was.

He tried to speak, but nothing came out.

He had forgotten what he used to be.

The boy was no longer a boy, but a tree.

He did not know why a tree would want to speak.

His sister smelled the tips of her fingers that had run along his leaves.

She touched his bark,

and she left.

Over the years, she would return and plant flowers near the tree.

She would remove beetles that were burrowing into his body.

She would sit beneath him and read a book, and he would try to read over her shoulder, but it was written in human language.

These days, he could only read clouds and stars and moonlight.

His sister would pluck fruits from him, great green bulbs, like pears but larger and filled with a bright pink flesh and teardrop-shaped grey seeds.

She would cut them open and eat them while reading, the juice trailing down her chin and onto her cotton shirt and denim trousers.

She sometimes collected his fruits in a basket and sold them or made pies.

Eventually there was a man with her, later a child.

One sunny spring morning she and the man and the child came to the boy, the tree, all wearing black.

Their eyes were swollen.

The tree grew sad, knowing they had lost a family member, but he wasn't sure which one, or what a family member even was, or that it was one of his parents.

The crying woman below him was his sister, but he could not remember this.

His humanity was eroding, his botany flourishing.

Later that spring, the woman and the man and the child brought a picnic and some games, and the tree was happy, but could not comprehend why, nor did the tree attempt to.

The tree was simply happy, and this was a feeling that existed.

Years later, the family wore black again and cried, and the tree felt sad, but it did not connect this feeling to any kind of narrative.

It was simply sad, and this was a feeling that existed.

As the woman and man entered their old age, the tree did not understand their actions or their words or their behaviors.

The tree barely noticed them at all, but as they arrived it felt good.

When they left it also felt good or sometimes bad.

The only things it understood were sunlight and rain

and soil.

The tree knew it might live centuries without being able to speak or move or bake or work in the field.

Trees could never be doctors, singers, or judges either, and this tree didn't know why those particular human careers came to mind.

But it loved examining the changing world with no ability to do anything about it.

There was not to do but feel.

It had learned to cope with the itchiness of bugs, the searing pain of lightning strikes, and the embarrassment of birds.

And it could stand all day and night, never tiring of gaining more knowledge about weather and gravity and biochemistry.

One day, more than a hundred years later, in the once dusty field, now populated with grass, flowers, and several more houses, An angel approached the tree and said, Hello boy, I'm Erika.

The tree tree did not hear the angel.

The tree did not see the angel.

The tree felt the angel but had no understanding of the angel's presence.

The tree understood so much of what there was to know about the earth.

It certainly never learned to sing or test medicine or interpret laws.

But these were minor details compared to memorizing the patterns of weather, the terrain of the moon, the motions of stars within an ever-expanding universe.

So the presence of an angel was not that big of a deal.

The tree felt it had learned everything important there was to learn.

The angel said, You've yet learned so little.

And from behind their back, Erika revealed an axe.

They swung wide and drove the blade into the tree's face.

It hurt, and the tree remembered mortality.

I am sorry this hurts, boy, Erika said, and drove the axe into the tree again.

For most of an afternoon, the angel chopped and chopped,

and eventually the tree fell.

Over a few days, the tree and the fruits and the separated stump died.

But the tree retained everything.

As its body was planted into boards, as its twigs were ground into mulch, the tree felt the knowledge of each seed it had planted across the valley, each creature it had nourished with its fruits, and each piece of lumber built into a home for generations of humans to come.

The tree felt its branches burned in a fireplace, and it rose up as smoke and dissipated into carbon across the sky, coming down in trillions of molecules to build more soil, more trees, more creatures.

The boy could truly learn everything now, cell by cell.

It's been centuries, and the boy is still learning.

He's inside you.

And me, this very moment, learning about each of us.

Maybe one day, one of his memories will find its way into your own.

Maybe it will make you a singer, or a doctor, or a judge, or a baker, or even another tree.

And you will think of the boy who wanted to know

everything

and did.

And then my mother would pat my head and say, good night, Cecil, good night, or

so I imagined.

By then, I was long asleep.

I hope you are too.

Stay tuned next for temporary oblivion, followed by a forgetful waking consciousness.

And

good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

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

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

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Original music by Disparition.

All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.fancamp.com.

This episode's weather was Bad Friend by Cheese on Bread.

Find out more at cheeseonbread.com.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio.

Or check those shoes you haven't worn in a while to see what kind of spiders have moved in.

Check out Welcometonightvale.com to read up on our brand new live show about secrets with a run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this month and a tour across the U.S.

next month.

Today's proverb.

Live every moment as if it were just one of the two and a half billion moments you have in your life.

Seriously, pace yourself.

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I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

You might know me from the League Veep or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We love movies, and we come at them from different perspectives.

Yeah, like Amy thinks that, you know, Joe Pesci was miscast in Goodfellas, and I don't.

He's too old.

Let's not forget that Paul thinks that Dude 2 is overrated.

It is.

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone from Greece to the Dark Knight.

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks, we've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look, and we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

So, if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unschooled wherever you get your podcast.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

Hi, I'm here to tell you about Good Morning Night Vale.

Welcome to Night Vale's official recap show and unofficial best friend food podcast.

Join me, Meg Bashwiner, and fellow tri-hosts, Hal Lovelin and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Night Vale.

Come for the insightful and hilarious commentary, and stay for all of the weird and wild behind-the-scenes stories.

Good morning, Nightfale, with new episodes every other Thursday.

Get it wherever you get your podcasts.

Yes, even there.