The Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air): Season One, Episode 3

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Hi, it's Jeffrey Kraner.

This is episode 3 of Orbiting Human Circus.

It's the last episode of this new podcast we'll be playing here on the Welcome to Night Vale feed, but it is not the last episode of the podcast.

If you want to hear all future episodes of the Orbiting Human Circus, make sure sure you go subscribe to their feed directly on iTunes or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

We at Night Vale Presents have been over the moon about this show.

That's a metaphor.

There's no such thing as a moon.

The music, the acting, and the wonderfully unique stories and unpredictable paths it takes have been everything we could want out of a podcast, which is why we're so proud to present it to you.

It's been a welcome addition to our podcast family.

We hope you feel the same way.

If you do, then don't forget forget to subscribe directly to the Orbiting Human Circus of the Air.

Thanks.

And now, let's start the show.

Sometime last week, stagehands Jacques and Francois had this conversation in the backstage lounge.

I didn't even tell you about this.

Yeah.

I caught that janitor kid backstage.

What, the kid that was banned?

Yeah, the one that was banned during the show.

He's backstage.

I'm out for a cigarette.

I see him standing.

How'll he get back in?

That's the thing.

I don't know.

So, hey, hey, hey.

Us, right?

I mean, so I'm about to throw him out.

Right.

You know what I'm saying?

He's like, if you let me stay, I'll tell you where Mr.

Cameron gets the acts from.

First of all, he's full of shit.

And you believe it.

And that was a horrible, that was a horrible thing.

That's exactly what he sounds like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is exactly what he sounds like.

So, 10 minutes, I come back to him, and I go, all right, kid, time to pay up.

What's the secret?

Right.

He won't tell me.

Yeah.

So I push him around a bit.

You're a tough guy.

Hey.

Hey, tougher than anyone here.

You know that.

All right, Rocky.

All right, Rocky.

Pull it in.

Pull it in, Rocky.

But get this.

Yeah.

He goes, even Mr.

Cameron doesn't know.

I can't tell you.

I'm like, really, kid?

Mr.

Cameron doesn't know where to get his own acts from?

Hello, this is Drew Callender.

It's so good to see you again.

Yes, I can see you.

This November, the janitor is cleaning venues in the northern U.S.

and he invites you to run away and spend a night with the Orbiting Human Circus.

Come visit us by going to orbitinghumancircus.com/slash shows on tour now.

And on behalf of the orbiting human circus we want to say hello and thanks to hellofresh.com for supporting us.

Hello hello fresh and thanks and listeners you can get $35 off your first week of deliveries when you go to hellofresh.com and use the offer code OHC.

We're very happy to have Rocket Mortgage as our sponsor because they're not like traditional banks offering traditional loans, and we're not very traditional here at the Orbiting Human Circus.

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And now, please sit back and enjoy episode 3.

Broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the orbiting human circus of the air.

The orchestral starts us off with its version of Wagner's Put No Pork in My Pork by Hap, featuring North the incredible singing saw.

And as the earnest hardware saw sings its little heart out, they are listening.

in the fashionable restaurants beside the Seine.

I'm so glad that Gaston put on the radio, darling.

You know, everybody's talking about that story the cricket was telling.

Cricket, darling.

Listening in the bagel bakeries of Brooklyn.

The craziest thing happens.

The crickets tell that story.

The crazy word they got playing, the music swoops down and attacks the cricket.

Just like that.

Just like that.

Listening in the taxi cabs of Leningrad.

And at the switchboards of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation itself.

They are listening.

Hello, Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation.

We're sorry.

Still no news on the cricket.

Oh, Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation.

I'm very sorry, sir.

No.

Yet beside the stage, we see our host, John Cameron, in the final throes of exhaustion, and the janitor himself standing despondently beside him.

And what's this?

In the janitor's hands.

A cricket-sized casket carefully made out of toothpicks lined with cotton balls?

But But what's happened?

We take you back to 4 a.m.

this morning.

The janitor wanders the empty passageways of the Eiffel Tower, desperately in search of the cricket.

Oh, please, Cricket, where are you?

Cricket.

Suddenly, he hears footsteps.

And

bumps into host John Cameron, who, his normally immaculate suit dirty and crumpled, staggers dangerously close to the tower's outer railing.

Oh.

It's you.

Mr.

Cameron, what are you doing here?

It's late.

I'm trying to find the cricket you lost.

So sorry.

I thought I locked the cage.

I didn't know the orchestra was gonna get out.

Do you know what I had to do earlier?

Pump the orchestral stomach.

Cricket wasn't in there.

Oh my god.

Why did I even trust you?

What's happened to my life?

What are these acts?

I have no idea where they come from.

Everybody wants to know if they're real.

I have no idea.

Maybe none of this is real.

Maybe I'm just having a psychotic break.

The janitor's eyes widened.

That's what happens when you base your life on lies, when you take credit for something you don't deserve.

There wasn't even an act today at the show.

This is the first time it's ever happened to me.

I looked everywhere.

There was always something waiting for me.

There was nothing.

Everybody would know the truth.

Then I saw you, you, and the cricket.

I thought, my god, an act, I've been saved.

Saved?

Haha, I'm ruined.

But I want to help you.

Help me.

Don't you understand?

You're the janitor!

You're not part of the show!

I'll find the cricket.

Don't you ever come near me or my show again!

I know how you find the axe!

No.

Push me off the tower.

Just push me.

I'll just stand right here by the edge with my eyes closed.

It's okay, Mr.

Cameron.

Horrified by his words' effect, the janitor tentatively puts a hand on John Cameron's shoulder.

I mean, I mean, I know how anyone can find acts like that.

What?

How?

Well, it's all about how you look at things.

Like, take the tap-dancing mouse, for instance.

Yes, yes.

If you see a mouse

and you look at it like you want to hit it with a broom or you're scared it has diseases, it'll just run away from you.

But if you love it and you keep really still,

it'll come right up to you.

How else are you gonna find out if a mouse can tap dance?

You know, it's good that you can live and work independently.

Thank you.

Get away from me!

But get away!

Holding back tears, the janitor continues to search, but it's hopeless.

Finding one lost cricket in the hole of the Eiffel Tower?

He studies every inch of the floor, examining every piece of lint, growing more and more depressed.

Please, please, come on, come on.

Sunrise.

The morning mail is delivered at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

John Cameron sleeps, draped over an observatory telescope on the top observation deck.

Suddenly, he is startled!

Mr.

Cameron!

Mr.

Cameron!

There he is!

Over there!

By the boxes!

I chased him down here.

What?

The cricket!

Over there on the floor!

I give it up, and there he was!

The cricket!

You're sure that's the one?

Yes.

How?

I saw him shaking his fist at the orchestral.

Thank God.

Mr.

Cameron.

Oh, hello, Jacques.

You'll never believe it.

A hundred bags of mail just arrived.

They're all about that cricket.

I bet he's just about the most famous cricket on the earth.

Yes, I imagine he is, Jacques.

No, here's the crane with the lettuce.

Hey, you want the mail over here, right?

Wait, no, no, the cricket!

No, no.

No!

All leading to the present moment where our host John Cameron stands holding the tiny toothpick casket, glancing woefully from it to a large group of thespians costumed seemingly to perform William Shakespeare's Immortal Macbeth.

That was the orbiting human circus orchestral featuring North, the singing saw.

Ladies and gentlemen, I know many of you are here tonight in the hopes of seeing a certain cricket.

Where's the cricket?

Bring out the cricket!

However,

however, it is important to remember in times like these with our flashy modern entertainments like tap dancing, mice, singing saws, and yes, storytelling crickets, it's important to do honor to the high art that is the genesis of all that graces the modern stage.

The immortal classics, ladies and gentlemen, that paved the way for the superficial diversions of the now.

We present to you our performance of Shakespeare's Scottish Play.

Bring out the critics!

Yes!

Well, please do put your hands together for a play which is sure to turn your laughter laughter into tears.

Where's the cricket?

We give you Macbeth.

Macbeth, ladies and gentlemen, Macbeth.

When shall we three meet again?

But in the audience, they are not listening.

The word cricket whispered in chorus throughout the house.

And in the fancy cafes beside the Seine, they are not listening.

Well, with all this build-up, I'm simply not going to enjoy my dinner.

They don't find that cricket.

Don't be so demanding, Lily.

In the stage hands lounge behind the broadcast ballroom, they are not listening.

Okay, if they riot Pierre, I need you stage left, Jacques.

I need you stage right, and I will shield Jean.

Yep, Miss Saltier, yep.

And even in his seat beside the stage, John Cameron, our host, is not listening.

He slumps despondently in his chair beside the stage.

His eyelids growing heavy, he drifts and drifts.

note.

What's to be done?

I've done the deed.

Does thou not hear a noise?

But what's this?

Like the doberman pincher of showmanship, he is, John snaps to attention.

What was Lady Macbeth saying?

These pots full of pastries.

Are greedy, greedy, greedy.

And why was she straddling a mechanical bull?

What was this?

Some horrid modernist deconstruction?

Good lord, not on his watch.

I've crazy glued my eyelids, so not me.

Cause I've crazy glued my eyelids.

I crazy glued my eyelids!

Woo!

Blait like a shake!

Man!

And hang twins, my bad!

But why was Lady Macbeth suddenly being played by his aged and annoying Aunt Helma?

Those aren't the lines.

And Macbeth himself.

That's Morty the mechanic from the garage down the block, and he's

smacking a newborn baby.

No acrobats, but I throb to kiss a whale.

So white, so white.

To kiss it and give it ice cream, of course.

But all I have are pastries.

Greedy, greedy pastries.

Give me your mustache.

And at last, the dream grows peaceful, and John relaxes and watches tiny Macbeth bubbles drift all around his weary head.

Suddenly, a tap on his shoulder.

Mr.

Cameron, wake up!

Wake up!

What?

John Cameron awakes in his seat beside the stage, on which he hears Macbeth being played correctly

to find the janitor yelling and gesticulating wildly.

The cricket!

I was all about to bury him, and the top of the casket opened, and he sat up and started chirping.

He's right here, in my hand.

Look.

What?

Listen, I brought you the machine.

He'll He'll tell you himself.

Oh, Mr.

Cameron, when I saw all of those beautiful letters all of those nice people wrote, I fainted dead away.

My God.

But then I came to, in the beautiful bird-proof bed you made for me, out of toothpicks lined with cotton balls.

It was the nicest thing anybody has ever done for me.

Oh, well.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I have not slept so securely in a very very long time.

My God, it's a miracle.

A modern radio miracle.

John Cameron hugs the janitor.

And he hugs the little cricket.

One thing I must ask you, when the radio broadcast is over, may I keep

the bird-proof bed?

With the compliments of the Perpetual Broadcasting Corporation.

Oh, thank you.

John Cameron turns and rushes onto the stage, where Macbeth continues.

Tomorrow and tomorrow.

And tonight, we bring you a small soul who needs little introduction.

That's right.

Put him down and turn on the machine, Julius.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And so the cricket begins to tell the shocking conclusion of the story the whole world was waiting for.

We will will return with our cricket and our feature presentation.

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That's OHC for orbiting human circus.

And now we return you to our cricket and the conclusion of our feature presentation.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And so the cricket begins to tell the shocking conclusion of the story the whole world was waiting for.

That of Ladislaw, genius clockmaker who realized that clocks run more accurately counterclockwise, but whose clocks no one wanted.

Who, hungry and broke, could not work for the noise of the poor children upstairs constantly begging their parents for dolls, and who found himself suddenly making from scraps two dolls, which he gave the children to their absolute delight.

And as soon as this act of kindness was done, it seemed as though a miracle happened.

His counter-clockwise clock suddenly became popular.

As a joke, it broke his heart, and he smashed his clocks and closed up his shop and never came out.

But then, months later, the shutters on his windows suddenly went up, revealing a wondrous doll shop.

His dolls spread all over Bucharest until one day he disappeared.

Because this is what he had done.

On every doll was hidden a tiny catch beneath a layer of varnish that would rub off in a year's time.

This catch, once exposed, would trigger when bumped, causing the doll's facial expression to change forever to a look of such hatred, such hideous pain and vile, it would give the children of Bucharest nightmares to last a lifetime.

And what happened?

I give you our cricket on the air.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

When brutally attacked, I was telling the story of Ladislaw Kovschkovsky.

He has filled all Bucharest with his horrible dolls, and so he has to run away before the first catch is sprung.

He flees to Paris.

He turns to alcohol.

He ends up on the street.

Here, at last, Ladislaw feels he belongs.

At least he thinks a man who had done what he has done deserves to be frozen, deserves to die slowly, and here, at last, he would.

But he does not die, quickly or slowly.

His constitution proves surprisingly robust, and so he lives.

Wishing to die nearly every moment.

Ladislaw lives and lives.

And then, one night, he has a dream.

He is with a little girl, and that little girl is his.

The little girl looks up at him with a look of love such as no one has given him in all his life.

Its feeling

fills all his soul.

He

is happy.

But then he realizes the little girl is holding one of his dolls.

He sees the face hasn't changed yet, but the varnish, it's rubbed away.

The catch, it will spring any moment.

He struggles madly to take it from her, but cannot reach it, as if space and time become quicksand.

And then it happens.

He hears the catch strike.

His heart runs cold.

He turns his eyes to the doll.

But the doll's face has not switched.

The girl's has.

And her face has switched to such a...

to such an inhuman mask of pure hatred.

Ladislaw's hatred.

Terrifying cruelty.

Ladislaw's cruelty.

He feels as if everything he has ever loved in the world has been snatched away from him, never to be given back.

All goes cold.

So cold.

Ladislaw wakes up in the act of vomiting and lets loose a scream of such horror it is heard that night on both banks of the River Seine.

He walks the Paris streets that night like a ghost, feels apart from all things on the earth.

He wants to be beaten, to be punished.

He wants to return to Romania and take all of the abuse that would come.

Be sent to prison and be hated by everyone, grown-ups and children alike, for what he really is.

He sets out, as if in a trance, on the journey home.

When he reaches Bucharest, he expects a massive outcry.

He makes it all the way across the city, and no one noticed.

At last arriving at the first house whose children he had given his horrid dolls.

He wants to cry.

Like a child, he is terrified.

So afraid.

The time has come.

He reaches the door.

He manages to knock much too loud.

The turning of the doorknob from within.

The creaking of the hinges.

The opening of the door.

And then the face peering out at him.

It was the mother.

And then the look upon her face.

Horror.

Ladislaw Kovskovsky!

My God!

What's become of you?

In her voice, warmth, concern.

Come in, my cotton, come in.

She takes his hand, leads him inside.

My dear, it's Ladislav Kovskovsky.

Ladislav Kovskovsky?

The man answers in shock.

Here!

They sit him down, bring him water, and then their little girl appears.

Look, Romika, it's Ladislaw, the man who made your dolly.

I know who he is, Mommy.

Everybody does.

Ladislaw looks at the doll clutched in the little girl's fingers and sees the doll's sweet face, and it's just as it was, unchanged.

But he can see the varnish has rubbed off and the tiny catch exposed, waiting to trigger.

The girl looks to him so like the girl in his dream.

Panicked, he reaches for the doll, but unlike his dream, he is able to touch the doll.

He pulls it from the little hand so hard that the doll smacks against the table.

Expecting it to trigger, he buries the doll in his chest to shield the girl from its change.

But still, he hears no click.

The face did not change.

Amazed, he bangs the doll on the floor twice more, just to see.

Still, it does not open.

And as he looked at it, feverishly, madly, he realized this catch would not open, could not open.

It was at least a sixteenth of a centimeter too long,

too big for its opening.

It could never be struck.

They give him food and a bath.

Ladislaw could barely talk.

His mind is swimming.

He stumbles out of their house and he brings himself to the next house.

In house after house, he finds the same reaction, the same treatment.

The catches had not opened.

They'd all been made too long.

Each and every last one.

In each house, he is given a hero's welcome.

The children look at him with reverence, and the parents treat him as an honored member of their family.

He finds that in Romania, he is considered a great man.

His dolls a national treasure, but one to be played with, to be passed down from generation to generation.

It was by this measure that he marked the time of childhood for an entire country.

So,

what had Ladislaw Kotzkowski done?

He had not brought nightmares to the children of Romania.

He was a man who, late for an important appointment, loses his keys and searches for them madly when all the time they were right there in front of his nose.

How often in those cases is the appointment not one on which we really wish to go.

It is said that in Ladislaw Koskowski's time, all children in Romania were his children, his dolls, outliving him in their hundreds.

And buried deep inside some, gone forever, and smothered by a visage of love.

was all the pain and frustration of a man who had been a great failure, hurt and rejected, with no idea at all

of the hero

he would become.

Broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the orbiting human circus of the air.

Thank you, thank you, thank you,

thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Well, that's it for this week, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm John Cameron, and I'm

broadcasting from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

The orbiting human circus wishes you a good night.

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