123 - A Story of Love and Horror, Part 3: "Frances"

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Who was that whistling, whistling in the dark?

Was that you, my love, whistling, whistling in the dark?

Welcome to Night Vale.

Francis Donaldson and Nasr al-Mujahid were faced with a terrible choice.

There are times, as humans, it feels like we are given more responsibility than we can handle.

It feels as though the world is resting on our backs, and any decision we make could have implications for everyone else in the entire world.

But of course, that's not really the case.

The truth is, while we might be able to ruin our own lives, or even a whole bunch of people's lives, there are few who are ever put in the position where they could make even a ripple in the life of everyone on earth.

But this was exactly exactly the situation Francis and Nazur found themselves in.

She had accidentally entered this night veil from a night veil in a different universe.

If Nazur and Francis stayed together, the two of them could both phase out of reality and cease to exist.

A powerful entity, the Brownstone Spire, could make it so they could stay together safely.

but only by destroying the universe she came from and every person in it.

There There was no path forward for their love that did not end in horror.

There was no path forward without horror that did not end their love.

It's clear what we have to do, said Nazur sadly.

No two people are worth so many lives.

We must go our separate ways.

Already he could see the long evenings alone in his office, watching tapes of football plays and trying to recapture the innocent happiness he used to to feel doing his job.

It's clear to you because you have other options, said Francis.

You're from this world, and you could find another to love.

I wouldn't, tried Nazur, but predictions like this can never carry the weight of truth, because who can predict the heart?

You will find someone else, she said, and me, I will have to live alone forever or risk my own existence and the existence of everyone I entangle myself with.

Can I even have close friendships, or would those two result in an unraveling?

Certainly, I would be afraid to risk it, and in that fear, I would settle into a bleak loneliness.

He shook his head.

So what are you saying?

That we should murder a universe of living beings?

I'm saying, she said, that I love you.

and I would like to proceed from there.

After this argument, they didn't talk or see each other for a few days.

Both of them felt completely overwhelmed by the weight of the decision.

Both of them pretended it was a settled question for themselves.

And now corrections.

Despite previous reports, the ineffable isn't real.

It's a joke, a trace, a sandwich left on a park bench.

A misunderstood smile from an unfriendly crowd.

The accidental arrangement of the sky.

the distance from the earth to the moon, the way grass feels when it gets a little dry, a hand reaching blindly into a drawer, a word spoken once and never again said aloud, a dream which seemed prophetic but evaporated upon waking, a stain in a shirt that's source is a mystery, a bird with three missing feathers, a math problem with no possible solution, a signpost to a place which never existed.

It's a trace, a joke.

The ineffable isn't real.

We apologize for our previous mistaken report.

During the days apart, Francis and Nazur were not alone.

They were not alone first in ways that were mundane and expected.

For instance, Nazur had his team, and while he was distracted and morose, he was also determined not to let this affect the chances of his good kids, and so he forced himself to double his efforts when it came to practices.

And if any of the team members or faculty thought anything about his behavior during this time, it was that he seemed especially dedicated and focused, and so therefore his relationship must be benefiting him.

Francis had her customers, and while an antique store doesn't usually bustle, it does have a steady stream.

And the goal is to sell a few high-end items a day, along with a good amount of cheap trinkets, so that it all evens out, and she would have enough money to eat for another month.

She had friends, too, except now she felt they weren't her friends.

Her friends were back in another universe, and the people here looked like her friends, but did not share exactly the same experiences this Frances remembered.

She didn't know if this should matter, but felt that it did, and so avoided her friends.

Her friends, when they talked, thought she must be so focused on her happy relationship that she no longer had time for them, and they felt resentment.

They did not resent her personally, but rather resented the situation.

But Francis and Nazar were not alone in a more malevolent way as well.

Every evening, Bark's ennui visited each of them.

Frances, no matter where she went, would find him sitting next to her.

He would sigh.

Francis, he would say softly, Frances.

The voice was almost kind, but his eyes were pivoted toward her unnaturally, giant 2D saucers on a three-dimensional yellow snout.

Francis, oh, Frances,

he would murmur, until she slept, or thought she slept.

He was less gentle with Nazur.

With Nazur, he screamed.

No words, merely a high keening, in the living room as Nazur tried to watch game tapes or in the bathroom as he brushed his teeth.

First, a mundane quiet, and then suddenly a huge dog screaming, cartoon eyes and cartoon mouth both gaping in terror.

Why was Barks afraid?

He was the specter who was haunting Nazur, but Barks was afraid.

This made Nazur even more afraid.

Stop screaming, he would scream back, but Barks didn't seem to hear.

And now sports news.

Now I'm a big fan of Knightville football because I love our town, and our kids who are out there playing, and our fabulous coaching staff.

But to be honest, I'm often a little shaky on how the sport works.

So I thought I'd try a little experiment.

I will now attempt, without looking up anything or consulting anyone else, to explain the rules of football from memory.

Let's see, the kids enter the field.

There's a lot of them.

They're all padded up and ready.

Hoorah, they say, and others shout, let's get the football.

They are there to get the football.

They line up facing each other.

Someone shouts some numbers that they like in order to get them in a happy headspace before starting the game.

And then the football is thrown weird.

It could be thrown much easier, but they throw it in a weird way.

The quarterback catches the ball, mostly.

Sometimes they miss, and that's a foul.

But if they catch it, then they try to sneak it down the field.

The ball needs to get going, but no one can know the team is doing it.

And so they try to act nonchalant.

Oh, and also they slam dance with the other team in order to show that they're only there to party.

And no football is going down the field.

No way.

But it is.

The other team figures this out and jumps on the football.

Eventually, the football is carried to what is called the end zone because it's a zone at the end of the field.

There, it transforms from a leather bag into a victory.

There is more dancing.

You know, football is mostly about dancing.

There's some other stuff, like sometimes it turns into soccer for a little bit, and they bring on a soccer player to do that, but mostly it's about dancing and sneaking, which are two of my favorite activities.

Wow, no wonder I love football.

This has been Sports News.

Nazur and Francis made the night as romantic as they could.

They lit candles, because the risk of house fires is, of course, very romantic.

They had flowers on the table, because the reminder of how plants grow is considered a great aphrodisiac among people who get really revved up about plants.

Neither Nazur or Francis were one of those people, but still, it couldn't hurt.

It's not too late, she said.

We could still be together.

This didn't help the romantic mood.

We couldn't, he said.

What would we become if we caused so much loss just for our own petty happiness?

Is that what this is?

she said.

Petty?

No, he said, it's just

what isn't petty against the span of all of it.

To me, she said, you aren't.

You aren't.

But he could not be persuaded.

She gave up and instead, she kissed him.

He had never felt such a kiss, because he had never before kissed anyone out of a kind of desperate grief.

I don't recommend that context to any of my listeners, but it does make for one hell of a kiss.

Then she left his house.

Nazur sat all night with the decision they had made.

It was the correct decision.

But if that was true, then why did he feel so completely like a person buried under rocks or locked into a cell with no light for months?

He felt as though he would never take another free breath of air.

There was no longer another version of himself in his home, but it also felt to him that perhaps there was no one in his home, that the version of himself who was a human being existed only in the past tense, and from here on out, there was only this quotation of Nazur, an out-of-context excerpt.

stripped of meaning.

He stood for a while before walking down to his car car and pulling it out of the garage.

It was almost morning.

The radio shack wasn't open and packed with technology-craving customers yet, so he parked there and walked the rest of the way up to the humming spire.

He fell to his knees.

This wasn't his decision to make, but he had already made the decision.

Brownstone Spire, he said, I've made my choice.

Destroy the other universe.

I have to be with her, no matter what.

The spire did not reply.

Please, he shouted.

He slapped his palms against the hard-packed earth again and again until they stung.

Please, I've decided.

Destroy the other universe.

The spire hummed to life.

It is done, said a voice from deep in its core.

Nazur, murderer of billions, walked away slowly toward his car.

The ending of our story coming up.

But hey, let's check in on today's weather.

I have let you down

pieces by pieces

I will make you mine again

pieces by pieces

Nothing is lost when it is found

again

Everything's found where it was lost.

There's bad men out there now.

No peace in these places.

I have to go.

I love you so

to pieces and pieces.

Nothing is lost when it is found

again.

Everything's found where it was lost.

Everything's found where it was lost.

I am coming home

in pieces and pieces

with every broken bone

piece me by peace then

peace me back

then

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At first, Nazur walked with shame.

But what use, after all, was shame?

He had done what he had done so he and the woman he loved could live together in happiness.

It would be a waste of everything, the worst of all possible outcomes, if he had agreed to such a monstrous price, only to have any possible remunerative happiness ruined by the guilt of what he had done.

He made the decision, then and there, to leave it behind him.

By the time he had reached his car, still waiting in the radio shack parking lot as if nothing of import had happened in the intervening minutes, he had set aside the choice as a matter of the past and started to feel the first spark of joy in his heart.

For the last few weeks, he had felt a strangeness, which he now knew was the feeling of falling out of step with reality.

And now, the feeling was gone.

He felt human again.

He started the car, drove directly to Frances' house.

He couldn't wait to see her.

He had never felt such a complete hunger for another person, but it's possible no one in all of history had ever paid such a price to be with another person.

And there was that person

before him, tending to her garden in the cool morning sun.

He did not think about a universe.

and everyone in it, including another version of Frances, who no longer existed.

he thought about this Frances.

He watched her for a long moment from his car, feeling a blissful lack of urgency.

They had a life together.

What would a few more minutes be?

So he let those minutes pass, watching her work, and then he stepped out of the car and approached her.

She looked up with a smile.

Haya, she said.

I did it, he said.

I went to the spire and I did it.

He realized he was crying, but he was also smiling.

She frowned, stood, took a step back.

Did what?

She said.

What do you mean?

I, he said.

I made the choice.

You were right.

She held the clippers in front of her, not quite towards him, but not quite not.

Sorry, she said.

Maybe this is something that the other Francis would understand.

I suppose a certain confusion was going to be unavoidable, but I do wish you'd calm down.

The other Francis?

In the other universe?

He didn't know what was going on.

Sure, she said.

Sweet lady, or is that immodest?

Anyway, she told me that she asked the brownstone spire to take her back to her own universe where I had been stuck.

She said we had gotten mixed up and things weren't working working out for her here.

So she showed me how to come back to my world and she went back to hers.

She said at least we'd have a chance at happiness this way.

She also said she hoped you were as nice in her world as you are in ours.

She eyed Nazur's sweaty face, the desperate lean of his posture.

Are you nice, Nazur?

She went back,

he said.

Not a question, but a surrender.

To her world,

to her universe.

Yes, said a Francis who barely knew him at all.

Now, I'm sorry, but I do want to get back to my gardening.

Nazur returned to his car, but had nowhere he wanted to go.

He watched the Francis who was not his Francis, but she glared at him, so he drove aimlessly and stopped again.

His Francis was gone, along with her entire universe.

Before he was aware of it, he was already shouting.

Please let me reverse it, he shouted.

Please take it back.

Bark's ennui, in his awkward three-dimensional body, was sitting in the passenger seat.

There is no taking it back, said Barks.

But I will make you a one-time offer.

If you like, I will let you join her in oblivion.

It is not mere death.

It is an absolute ceasing of existence forever.

Blip, and you'll be gone.

Do you want this?

Nazur looked into the dog's distended eyes.

He looked and looked.

Two weeks later, he returned to school.

He went back to football.

redoubled his dedication to his team.

A complete focus on football may not be much of a life to many folks, but it is a life.

There are many different kinds of life, and most of them are nothing special at all.

Frances, a different woman quite literally from the one we started this story with, continued to run the antiques mall.

What delighted her most was how objects existed here in the moment.

That everything existed all at once, right now.

She loved the present.

She thought little about time.

Outside her window, a plane passed overhead.

No one watched its passing.

Good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

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