111 - Summer 2017, Night Vale, USA

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A friendly desert community where the sun is hot, the moon is beautiful, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we lay open-eyed, watching it all.

Welcome to Night Vale.

The City Council reiterated for the 1874th consecutive day that the dog park is off-limits for both dogs and humans.

The fence is electrified and highly dangerous, etc.

Hooded figures and all that.

Since its construction, we have shied from and feared the dog park.

The dog park is neither a park nor for dogs.

So what does it even mean to call it a dog park?

Why do we use language that means one thing to describe something that is entirely else?

I don't know what the word for that place the city council calls the dog park, but I do know it's time to start searching for that word, and once found, to use it boldly.

The angels, who I can now say are angels and will say are angels because they are angels, held a memorial for Old Woman Josie in her house.

Everyone in town came, overcome with a feeling that finally they could look at these beings and recognize them for what they were.

Even the city council attended the memorial, but refused to make eye contact with anyone.

Of course, this positive, concrete identification only led to more mysteries.

For if these are angels, Then where did they come from?

And what does that mean for us?

Even now we find that we cannot voice these questions, not because we are not allowed, but because we cannot find the words to ask.

Instead, we ate cake and drank coffee in the living room of Old Woman Josie,

which was once just that,

a place she lived.

Now,

It is only a room.

One by one,

we laid our hand on the angels' hands, and in that moment of contact, each of us, in turn, found ourselves weeping.

As the party wound down, we all heard a soft pop outside.

It was the light bulb on Old Woman Josie's porch, burning out.

A man who I know very well came into my house today, which is also his house.

He laid his head with its perfect and beautiful hair upon my shoulder and crossed his arms over his perfect and beautiful lab coat.

I embraced him.

We are creatures of touch, humans, and we retrieve so much meaning and happiness from contact.

I have become too complacent, he said.

When I came here, I understood this town as scientifically fascinating, and then gradually it became my day-to-day life.

I could no longer see the strangeness, but only my home.

We are all guilty of that, I said.

But I am a scientist, he said.

Well, I said, we have all been scientists at one point or another in our lives.

Just a reminder to all the parents out there.

Let's talk about safety when taking your children out to play in the scrub lands and the sand wastes.

You need to give them plenty of water, make sure there's a shade tree in the area, and keep an eye on the helicopter colors.

I asked my best friend and brother, Steve, to talk me through which helicopters belong to which organizations.

Obviously, the black helicopters belong to the world government.

Although, I had not realized until Steve laid it out for me how closely they are also associated with the lizard people.

The blue ones are Sheriff's Secret Police.

The pink ones are the new double secret police.

And the ones painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving,

well, not even Steve knows what those helicopters are, nor what they want.

On Steve's chart, Those are just labeled with the word run

and then a a few hundred exclamation points.

A commercial airliner, flying through local airspace, disappeared today, only to reappear at the fifth hole of the Sagebrook Pines private golf club and bulk supplier.

This disrupted all golf activities badly, as well as scaring a family of four who were perusing bulk paper towels offered at a discount price in a nearby sand trap.

I feel, for the first time, that I can articulate that this airliner had flown into some other universe, those divisions being particularly thin here in our quaint little community.

This also is the cause of things like dead relatives occasionally joining us for breakfast, or the shimmering skyscrapers and crowded cities that appear for flashing moments in the sky.

Of course, it also could be the handiwork of the East Nightvale Cacti, the basketball team at the new East Nightvale Elementary School.

Those scamps are always pulling pranks.

Could they transport a large plane through multiple universes?

Who am I to say?

But probably yes.

For shame, East Nightvale.

For shame.

My husband and our town's friend and protector, Carlos, called a town meeting.

He thought we hadn't checked in with each other in a while and wanted us to have a moment where we came face to face and saw those faces and remembered that we are all real and all affect each other.

Erika and Erika, of the newly acknowledged angels, brought corn muffins, which were inedibly salty.

They explained that angels just can't get enough salt.

Dana Cardinal was there, not as our mayor, but as a citizen, one who is so young for the responsibility that has been thrust on her.

Tamika Flynn was there, not as a city council member, but as a citizen, one who is so young for the responsibility she has seized with an army of loyal and extremely well-armed teens.

Please see my upcoming editorial on why millennials are always joining armed teen militias.

Ugh, millennials.

Carlos reminded us that we are by far the most scientifically interesting town in the country.

And we joined hands and nodded because, boy, don't we know it.

We have clear eyes now.

We see ourselves for who we are, but more importantly, we see each other.

We are still a community.

The Nightvale Business Association is proud to announce the refurbishment of the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area.

Now, you might remember that these facilities have always been absolutely beautiful, eco-friendly, and with a pedestrian-focused design.

However, they have suffered poor attendance due to the complete lack of water in the desert.

But this is where things have changed, the Nightvale Business Association said in a press release that they drunkenly sung in unison out in my yard last night.

The recent problems we had with other universes intruding on our own resulted in a great deal of pain and loss.

But it has left us with an ocean.

This ocean is only visible from the waterfront recreation area's boardwalk, and viewed from any other angle, the area still appears to just be the the usual sagebrush and rocks.

Carlos said he doesn't understand how this window into another world works and warned that no one should attempt to touch the ocean, for we do not know what lurks within it.

But, he said, there could be no harm in a sunset stroll along the boardwalk, listening to the soft hiss of the retreating waves.

The local chapter of the NRA is selling bumper stickers as part of their fundraising week.

The stickers are made from good, sturdy vinyl, and they read, We genuinely do not value human life.

Cute!

Carlos and his scientists, like Luisa and Nilanjina, are renewing their investigation into the house in the development of Desert Creek, out back of the elementary school, the house that doesn't actually

exist.

It seems like it exists, muttered Carlos.

Like it's just right there when you look at it, and it's between two other identical houses.

So it would make more sense for it to be there than not.

But, he says, it is actually a doorway to another world, a world he himself was once stuck in for a year.

There seem to be secrets about that year he is keeping to himself.

Maybe someday we will learn what they are.

Lights,

seen in the sky above the Arby's.

Not the glowing sign of Arby's, something higher and beyond that.

One night years ago, Two people scared and vulnerable and loving and ready came together for a quiet moment under that sky.

And I pretended at the time to understand the lights.

But a big part of recognizing the world for what it is is recognizing when you have no idea.

Invaders from another world?

Harbingers of future terror?

A fragment of another universe fading into our own above reasonably priced lunch meat?

Maybe any, maybe all,

maybe none.

But here is what I do know.

The lights are, among other things,

a part of my memory.

And a part of my marriage.

And a part of my love.

They are a piece of my past, and I don't need to understand them to understand that.

Ladies and gentlemen, the past is here

and it's about a hundred feet above the Arby's.

Carlos and Luisa say that the monitoring station near Route 800 is recording wild seismic shifts, even as our ground remains completely still.

He suspects that this might be because multiple universes are colliding, creating earthquakes that are undetectable in the third dimension.

Picture all worlds intertwining, he said.

And here we are in the coil.

The friction of every possibility coming into contact, shaking the very structure of chance and fortune, he said.

Well,

submit an insurance claim anyway and see what you can get, right?

Listeners, the traffic.

Police are issuing warnings about the ghost cars out on the highways, those cars only visible in the distance reaching unimaginable speeds, leaving destinations unknown for destinations more unknown.

It seems that the ghost cars have taken to drag racing on weekends, which poses a hazard to both pedestrians and other drivers.

The police indicate that they will be arresting whatever beings drive these cars, as soon as they can figure out how to pull one over.

And now

the weather

I've been leaping off this branch with a rope around my spine.

Snapping and I'm twisting cause I'm reaching for the ground.

Nats turn up.

Facts hurtling the world, the harsh version of the murder.

Post-mortem, I resurrect through sound.

Filling these faces, following traces.

I'm still impatient.

I cannot face you.

You cannot save it.

I will not raise you with the presence of an immortal.

Leaping through a black hole, stretching in the portal.

My mind is never stable.

the pressure's ever strong.

Pushing through the tragedy, the fight goes ever long.

Searching for a queen, kings dancing like a palm.

Tantrum on a tantrum, cause my heart would never calm.

Swimming through tsunamis while I'm prancing in a storm.

Ask a length to execute perfection in the form.

I'll never be the energy attached to the normal.

Collapsing at the sources, I'm searching for a love that will never bring me more than.

This love was never, ever true.

This love was never, ever true.

This love was never ever true.

This love was never ever true.

I've given all I got.

Now you wanna break up, I guess it's your choice.

And I will never stop you from doing what you wanna.

Falling down the stairway, the fairway to karma.

Can't take the bad space and erase the drama.

Peace, babe, it's been late, and we ain't the freeway.

The relay pause, compound collision.

Several karma piled up like never envisioned.

Projected from the driver's seat, I'm the Peter Pan I'm the reason I receive it, why we never land Non-believer while I receive the devil in my hands Kissing on the covenant, this shit won't eat God fucking damn, I do the best that I can Banging on the banners of my heart pad, I'm full hit Bullet piercing through the skull, I live life to the fullest I'm tired of fucking and faking and ducking the bullshit

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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You don't technically need this car.

You say that out loud to yourself.

You say, I have no space.

You say, eh, I'm just looking.

Then you click.

Then you zoom in on photo number 87 and whisper, oh no.

Then you text a friend, the one who always enables you.

You say to yourself, this is the last one, knowing it is not.

You don't need this car.

But maybe, just maybe, this car needs you.

Bring a trailer.

It's never just a car.

The sun didn't set at the correct time today or any other day, Carlos and Nilanjina reported.

They are quite certain about that.

They checked several clocks.

But they said the sunset was really beautiful, so at least there's that.

Carlos still does not have any explanations, but he did suggest that while time is especially weird in Night Vale, time is weird everywhere.

Mostly people don't notice in the rest of the world because while time is weird there, it's always weird in the same way and so is mistaken for being remotely understandable.

It's easy to forget in this hot, hot desert climate, but things would actually be slightly harder for us without the sun.

We know know this because there was a version of nightvale in some other universe in which the sun did not exist, and that version of nightvale was terrible.

Ugh, just no good at all.

Their street plan didn't make a lick of sense for one thing.

There was no flow to any neighborhood.

I'm glad I live in my sunny nightvale and not any other.

The city council would like to remind you about the tiered heavens and the hierarchy of angels.

The reminder is the Council is grumpy that all of this is not forbidden knowledge.

But due to the new laws, they are required to inform you that the angels have made all of that information available.

Stop by the house where the angels live if you want to pick up a free packet outlining exactly how all of that is organized.

While the packet itself is free, it is likely the angels will ask to borrow $5.

They tend to do that.

Over at the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, Teddy Williams, its owner, reported the startling news that there is nothing under the pin retrieval area of Lane 5.

As you may remember, there has been a tiny city of warlike people under the bowling alley for several years now, which has caused some trouble, although not a lot of trouble, because they were very tiny people.

But now there is just a hole in the earth under the pin retrieval area, an empty space containing only my own memories of a night that someone I loved almost died before I had a chance to truly love him.

So, good riddance to whatever that town was.

Carlos, perfect and beautiful, came into our studios during the break earlier and we ate lunch together out of Tupperware's.

He had some sort of blinking box in his hand covered with wires and tubes.

When he put it close to the microphone, it sounded like...

well,

like a bunch of baby birds had just woken up, really went crazy.

He asked if I remembered it.

He had brought it by on the first day we had met.

He had told me that it tested for materials, but he wasn't actually sure what materials it tested for.

He had just wanted an excuse to come by and talk to me.

Anyway, he said, I thought it was a nice memento back when we were fumbling awkwardly toward this life we share.

But, he added, it's a real instrument that is detecting some actual materials of some kind, so there is a good chance that everything about this studio is deeply dangerous.

Please be careful.

Then we fed Koshak, the cat floating in one of the bathrooms here at the station.

Carlos pointed out, cats don't float.

I stared at Koshak,

having never really

thought about that.

After a bit, I said,

this one does.

Carlos smiled, petted Koshek between the eyes and went back to his work, and I went back to mine.

This is my work, listeners.

My work is to speak to you all, to talk you through the day, to murmur you into the night.

Settling in to be another clear and pretty evening here in Nightvale, this weird,

weird town.

I hope all of you out there have someone to sleep through it with.

I know I do.

Good night, listeners.

Good night.

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.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was Andromeda by Aerospace.

The link for more music is in our show notes.

Comments, questions, email us at info at welcometonightvale.com or follow us on Twitter at NightvaleRadio or reconsider your place in the world.

Check out Welcometonightvale.com for more information on this show and our live shows where we take the entire town of Nightvale to your town.

Today's proverb: there is no proof you exist, only evidence.

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 going to 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 welcometonightvale.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 diehard fan, and you, the night veil new kid alike.

So feel comfortable bringing your family, your partner, your coworkers, your cat, whatever.

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

Tickets to all of these live shows are on sale now at welcometonightvale.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 U.S.

plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightvale.com/slash live.

And hey, see you soon.