127 – A Matter of Blood Part 1

Speaker 1 Howdy, Jeffrey Kraner here. You probably know that Welcome to Night Vale does live tours.
We've done seven of those tours, in fact.

Speaker 1 If you never got to see these tours, or even if you did and you want to relive them, we have live recordings available to you right now over at nightvale.bandcamp.com.

Speaker 1 You can find those seven different live show performances, including our most recent show, The Attic.

Speaker 1 We've also got some one-off events like our Thrilling Adventure Hour crossover show, our first-ever live show, Condos, as well as The Debate. These albums are only $5 and they're so much fun.

Speaker 1 So while we're between tours, tide yourself over with our live albums. That's nightvale.bandcamp.com.

Speaker 2 Hi, this is Vin from the band Caged Animals.

Speaker 2 You've heard our songs Radio Down and Wildflowers on the weather, and I wanted to let you know that we've got a new album called Make Strange Friends, which blends nine character-driven songs with a nightvale-inspired radio play.

Speaker 2 If you're curious to hear it or pick up a copy on Ruby Red Vinyl, you can visit us at cagedanimals.bandcamp.com. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 with the radio down.

Speaker 2 Don't turn it up for me.

Speaker 2 Sleep like there's nobody watching.

Speaker 2 Welcome to Night Vale.

Speaker 2 Mayor Dana Cardinal, now in her fourth year on the job, has gotten comfortable with the responsibilities and powers of the position.

Speaker 2 She issued a statement in casual conversation with your intrepid host just yesterday while we happened to be next to each other in line at the missing frog salad bar, saying she believes she could bring about some lasting positive change with her position.

Speaker 2 As such, she will be instituting a number of programs to radically expand the power and oversight of the mayor, putting her directly in charge of the agents from the vague yet menacing government agency who spy on her every movement, as well as the sheriff's secret police who regulate our every waking breath.

Speaker 2 She said by taking on full control of all areas, she will be able to make sure everything is run more justly, more humanely, and with less imprisoning dissidents for life in the abandoned mineshaft outside of town.

Speaker 2 But, she said, this change will be difficult for a lot of people, and so she asked me not to tell anyone just yet.

Speaker 2 Oops.

Speaker 2 So this has been Cecil's Fiction Corner, in which I write fan fiction about real people in town. None of that was true.
On to actual news now.

Speaker 2 Astronomers and astrologists alike were excited to announce we will soon experience a rare cosmological event, the blood matter from space.

Speaker 2 Once every 500 years, our region experiences blood matter from space, and experts believe this might be the largest such event in recorded Nightvale history.

Speaker 2 Although specifying that with any certainty is tricky, the experts say.

Speaker 2 The problem is that most of recorded Nightvale history has been covered over with a sloppy black ink scribble and the note, sorry, top secret, love the government, scrawled on every page.

Speaker 2 Sometimes those same government employees will arrive at important events while they're still happening and start shoving wadded up up socks into people's mouths while shouting, la la la la la, I can't hear you, in order to get a jump on censoring history.

Speaker 2 Anyway, for those space heads and starge who are excited by the upcoming Blood Matter from Space, it appears the best viewing will be from literally anywhere in the region.

Speaker 2 It's going to come down hard on us, and there's no hiding from it. Carlos and I will be holding our own viewing party here at the station, and it's open to the public.

Speaker 2 Please bring one potluck item, one bundle of dried herbs to mollify station management, and of course, galoshes.

Speaker 2 You're going to need galoshes. Can't wait.

Speaker 2 And now a segment I like to call Cecil Gershwin-Palmer's Theater of the Mind.

Speaker 2 Please. With your mind's eye, travel into a theater.

Speaker 2 You are in a theater.

Speaker 2 You print your tickets at home, annoyed that for unfathomable reasons this theater doesn't do will call.

Speaker 2 Then you forget the tickets you printed out, so you have to argue with the guy in the box office for a bit before it turns out they can in fact print your tickets there. They just don't want to.

Speaker 2 That sorted, you enter the lobby. It smells like wet velvet.
The paint is peeling a bit, but you can can see that once this theater was really something.

Speaker 2 It's still something, you suppose. Just a very different kind of something.

Speaker 2 You don't have to pee, but you think you probably should just in case. The bathroom is tiny and it has a long line, so you decide not to pee.

Speaker 2 Except, of course, now that you thought about it, you do have to pee.

Speaker 2 You sit in your seat and hope the first act isn't too long and mentally trace out the route.

Speaker 2 You'll you'll speedwalk the moment the lights come up for intermission, so you'll be one of the first at the bathroom. Finally, some 10 minutes after the show is supposed to start, the curtain opens.

Speaker 2 That's it for this installment of Cecil Gershwin-Palmer's Theater of the Mind. Next time, we'll get into the actual show.
So, look forward to that.

Speaker 2 Controversy has arisen about Dana's plans to radically expand her mayoral power, which were leaked to the public through

Speaker 2 some

Speaker 2 unknown channel. No, really, it could have been anyone who told.
The city council was the loudest voice of protest. Their lungs are huge, and they can make their voice deafening.

Speaker 2 The machinery of Nightvale government is delicate, the city council screamed. loud enough that it woke even Larry Leroy out on the edge of town, who was asleep because it was 4 a.m.

Speaker 2 This policy shift can only upset the checks and balances inherent in our system. For instance, we, the city council, check and balance everything and ultimately make all the decisions.

Speaker 2 That's how civic government is supposed to work.

Speaker 2 And then they keened for several hours and we all gave up and got out of bed because none of us were getting any more sleep that night.

Speaker 2 Joining the dissent, Tamika Flynn, local armed teen militia leader and the sole member of the city council who is not a single-bodied, multi-voiced, inhuman entity, expressed concern about government overreach.

Speaker 2 She said, If the government ever tries to overreach me, I'll grab that arm they're reaching with and do a series of self-defense maneuvers to disable the overreaching government.

Speaker 2 Sorry, she continued. That metaphor kind of got away from me.

Speaker 2 What I'm saying is, while Dana is a good person and a friend of mine, expanding government power on the assumption that the government will always be run by well-meaning people is a dangerous gamble.

Speaker 2 Dana herself did not alleviate these concerns as many people reported her acting strangely in public throughout town. She burst into many local businesses demanding to know if they knew where she was.

Speaker 2 They would tell her she was in their store, and she would get angry and storm out. She was also spotted standing across from City Hall, monitoring the front doors with binoculars.

Speaker 2 Perhaps this is part of a social program we just don't understand yet. Or perhaps she is annoyed at a big-mouthed friend of hers who is very, very sorry.

Speaker 2 More on this story as I'm sure it's going to develop.

Speaker 2 And now, traffic.

Speaker 2 A businesswoman sits in an airplane, mid-flight, staring out the window. She pretends she is doing this because she is bored.
She is actually doing it because she is nervous.

Speaker 2 The plane is shaking and she is looking out the window to see what is causing this, but of course she cannot see what is causing this.

Speaker 2 Instead, what she sees is a miracle, unimagined in thousands of years of human science and theology. What she sees is the top side of the clouds.

Speaker 2 Here is a place that her species, since the start of it, have projected worlds onto, have looked up at and told stories, some based on what was observed, some based on what was felt, but all based on never being able to see the top side of the clouds.

Speaker 2 And oh, there were those in the mountains who could see the top side of low-lying clouds, but That's not the same at all, is it?

Speaker 2 Nothing like going to the top layer of clouds and breaking through until there is only space above and clouds below.

Speaker 2 And here she is, nervously sipping a sprite and looking out the window and worrying about what will happen when she lands, which is that she'll lose her job. Although she doesn't know that yet.

Speaker 2 Because she's still in the air, looking down at the top side of the clouds. This has been traffic.

Speaker 2 And now a word from our sponsors.

Speaker 2 Pay no attention to the vase in your backyard. All human beings die.
This is unrelated to the vase in your backyard. You don't remember purchasing that vase.

Speaker 2 Certainly it does not seem like your style. It wouldn't go with any of your things.
And that is not a color you buy glasswork in.

Speaker 2 You are, just in this moment, realizing you have opinions about the color of glasswork. And this is causing you to reassess in some small way your sense of self.

Speaker 2 But pay no attention to that vase in your backyard. We all get slower, get sick, and then we pass on.
This is unrelated to the vase. in your backyard.
The vase in your backyard did not cause this.

Speaker 2 It is an inornate vase, not of any recognizable era or culture. Perhaps you should plant climbing vines or thick shrubs around the vase so that eventually you won't have to see it anymore.

Speaker 2 It will be covered over with greenery as you will someday be covered over with greenery. Everything will eventually be covered over with greenery until the greenery goes too.

Speaker 2 But pay no attention to the vase in your backyard.

Speaker 2 All human beings die.

Speaker 2 This is unrelated to the vase.

Speaker 2 This message was brought to you.

Speaker 2 Worries continue to rise about the mayor's controversial initiatives. The sheriff was especially put out by the planned shifting of the secret police to the purview of the mayor's office.

Speaker 2 Over my dead body, said the sheriff, and I was told by a psychic once that I would never die, and we all know that lying is illegal, and so my dead body will never exist for anything to be over.

Speaker 2 The point is, it's not happening.

Speaker 2 There are, however, those who are in favor of the plan. Like green market owner Tristan Cortez, who said, We all know, as citizens of Nightvale, that our government is a difficult beast.

Speaker 2 Doing just about any activity requires tons of forms and waiting in in lines and puts us at risk of being devoured by the beings who run City Hall.

Speaker 2 As a taxpayer, I welcome a shake-up in our government.

Speaker 2 Plus, I've been in the sheriff's secret prison since my daughter and I got caught committing robbery and fraud this fall, so really any change seems good to me.

Speaker 2 Well, this is a complex issue, and...

Speaker 2 Oh my god.

Speaker 2 Oh no. What is...
What?

Speaker 1 Um...

Speaker 2 Listeners, I've just been handed a report.

Speaker 2 It seems that a secret parking enforcement officer struck up a conversation with Dana as she sat across from City Hall, watching it through binoculars.

Speaker 2 Dana had stared at the officer without replying, and when the officer took a step towards her in order to give her a friendly pat on the arm, she...

Speaker 2 She...

Speaker 2 She killed him.

Speaker 2 I don't understand, but I am being asked to tell you that our mayor and my friend, Dana Cardinal, is wanted for murder.

Speaker 2 Let me.

Speaker 2 Let's just go to the weather.

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Speaker 2 This story, already concerning, has gotten both more confusing and more frightening.

Speaker 2 I have received a recorded statement from our mayor, Dana Cardinal, and it's

Speaker 2 well,

Speaker 2 you should listen for yourself.

Speaker 4 Once there came a sandstorm.

Speaker 4 This was years ago.

Speaker 4 So much of what we live through now was put into motion for us long before. But by the time the consequences come, we've set aside the inciting incident as ancient history.

Speaker 4 Once there came a sandstorm, and with it came our doubles.

Speaker 4 When my double came, she attacked me.

Speaker 4 Or I attacked her.

Speaker 4 I don't remember who acted first.

Speaker 4 We struggled.

Speaker 4 It was a brutal fight that could have ended badly for either of us.

Speaker 4 But the result was that I murdered my double with a stapler.

Speaker 4 It was as slow and gruesome as you imagine.

Speaker 4 Or I think I murdered my double.

Speaker 4 It's possible I am my double, and I murdered my original self.

Speaker 4 If we both had the same memories leading up to that moment, how would I know which of us I was?

Speaker 4 I am Dana, or I am her double.

Speaker 4 I will live forever with that doubt.

Speaker 4 I believe in what I am trying to do with my position as mayor.

Speaker 4 Why else would I have been given a job so onerous in its responsibility if I wasn't meant to use that responsibility for the greater good?

Speaker 4 So that is what I am trying to do, Night Vale. I am trying to work for the greater good.

Speaker 4 But I know not everyone is with me.

Speaker 4 I have felt followed for the last few days.

Speaker 4 Threatened.

Speaker 4 I thought that groups who were opposed to my vision for Night Vale were trying to physically stop me.

Speaker 4 This has, as you know, happened before.

Speaker 4 And now these false murder charges. I have been framed, obviously.

Speaker 4 I mean,

Speaker 4 I know that I just admitted to killing someone years ago, but trust me that I didn't do this one.

Speaker 4 It is set up to throw even more obstacles in the way of making the role of mayor one which actually does good for this town.

Speaker 4 Or that is what I thought.

Speaker 4 I no longer know what to think.

Speaker 4 Because right now,

Speaker 4 I am staring at myself.

Speaker 4 There is another me.

Speaker 4 She is in my living room.

Speaker 4 Her hair is shorter than mine.

Speaker 4 Her face is hard and furious.

Speaker 4 And her hands,

Speaker 4 they are covered in blood.

Speaker 4 But she is me.

Speaker 4 I have come for myself.

Speaker 4 I am going to run now. I'm going to hide.
But this isn't over.

Speaker 4 I will make Night Vale a better place if it kills me.

Speaker 4 Or if I kill me.

Speaker 4 I will keep in touch. If you see me, don't approach.
It is me, but not me.

Speaker 4 And I don't know what I am capable of.

Speaker 4 Stay safe.

Speaker 4 Well,

Speaker 2 I certainly do remember the day of the sandstorm and the day of the doubles.

Speaker 2 It was actually a pretty traumatic time, if I'm honest.

Speaker 2 So I appreciate what Dana is going through, but murder is a serious charge, especially at a time when such controversial changes are going on over at the mayor's office.

Speaker 2 For their part, the sheriff has said that Dana Cardinal is wanted for murder, and they don't care which Dana they get. Any Dana, the sheriff said, waving their hand breezily.

Speaker 2 If we see a Dana, we will arrest her. And Bob's your uncle, into jail she goes.

Speaker 2 When questioned whether this had anything to do with Mayor Cardinal's current effort to take over the sheriff's secret police, the sheriff huffed a bit and said things like, Well, I never, and then hung up without answering the question.

Speaker 2 What does it mean if the doubles are back?

Speaker 2 And And what is going on with Dana Cardinal?

Speaker 2 None of those questions answered now, because stay tuned next for Bubblegum Hour, the hour devoted to reviewing the chewing sounds of popular varieties of bubblegum, hosted by today's celebrity chewer, Mr.

Speaker 2 Tom Hanks.

Speaker 2 Good night, Nightvale.

Speaker 2 Good night.

Speaker 5 Welcome to Night Vale is a production of Night Vale Presents. It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Joseph Fink.
The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

Speaker 5 The voice of Mayor Cardinal was Josica Nicolle. Original music by Disperition.
All of it can be found at disparition.info or at disparition.bandcamp.com.

Speaker 5 This episode's weather was Jacques Hughes by Mooka Patza. Find out more at mukapatza.com.
That's two C's and two Z's.

Speaker 5 Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at nightvale radio. Or try to learn the language of trees by slowing down your life to their speed.

Speaker 5 Check out WelcometonNightvale.com for more information on this show and our merch that is always coming and going from our store. New stuff all the time.
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Speaker 5 Mine's a stop sign. I stole it from an intersection and I hold it up every time someone tries to talk to me.

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Speaker 5 Join me, Meg Bashwiner, and fellow tri-hosts, Hal Lublin and Symphony Sanders, as we dissect all of the cool, squishy, and slimy bits of every episode of Welcome to Night Vale.

Speaker 5 Come for the insightful and hilarious commentary, and stay for all of the weird and wild behind-the-scenes stories. Good morning, Nightvale, with new episodes every other Thursday.

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Speaker 2 Yes, even there.