46 - Parade Day

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Act natural.

Act like all of nature.

Act like the entire cycle of life and death and change and rebirth.

Welcome to Night Fail.

Guess what day it is today, listeners?

It's parade day.

Remember how I told you about the not-at-all secret parade today at the location we discussed via radio?

Remember I publicly announced today's parade at that specific location?

And I announced it not in a tapped out code underneath the basketball highlights, but completely in a clear and spoken language.

We want

everyone at today's parade, at that time and place

we discussed.

There will be lots of things happening.

Planned things, strategic things.

There will be some special guests that are not teenage fugitives named Tamika Flynn.

She won't be there.

and thus could not possibly organize any community insurgency at all.

She's a fugitive.

Wanted for destruction of Strex Corp property.

And we wouldn't want her to show up and ruin our parade day by leading a helicopter rebellion against what she calls, her words, not mine,

a dystopian corpocratic regime.

Nope.

I would never want to bring down the malevolent.

benevolent corporation that owns our station.

In fact,

if you see Tamika Flynn, you should probably follow her and listen closely to what she says to you.

Not so you can help overthrow Strexcorp, of course.

Not that at all.

Follow Tamika Flynn.

See you at Parade Day.

In other news,

a series of one-sided doors have begun appearing around town.

Tomas Perez, Head of Perez Accounting, said an old oak door with a brass knob appeared overnight in his office.

It's right in front of the doorway of the supply closet.

He said he went to get supplies this morning for a staff meeting.

Pens,

markers, a legal pad, some anti-venom.

But accidentally opened the wrong door.

revealing several men and women standing in a bright desert hellscape, holding swords and sticks and even a few rifles.

Tomas stared at them.

They stared at Tomas.

One of the barbaric figures put a finger to her lips and shook her head.

No.

Another reached in, grabbed the door, and slowly closed it.

keeping eye contact with Tomas the whole way.

Claire Wallace, a freelance photographer, sent in photos of a door that appeared in the empty lot across from the rec center.

In one photo, the door is cracked open and there is an elderly woman near it.

I cannot see her face.

She is putting up a sign that reads, Future home of the old nightvale opera house.

And in another photo, she is walking toward the door.

Her face is still obscured.

In the last photo, the door is shut, and she is gone.

I can see the words, Josefina Contractor's Ink, in small print across the bottom of the sign.

Juanita Jefferson, Head of neighborhood improvement organization Night Vale or Nothing, said one such door appeared in her backyard.

One side seemed to be an old oak door with a brass knob.

On the other side there was...

nothing.

She could see no door at all.

Juanita said she opened the door from the visible side and saw a vast, sandy wasteland and nearby mountains, which are just illusions, she added.

Atop one of the mountains in the door was a lighthouse.

She said she couldn't see any trees.

Trees,

she said sadly.

They

are us,

she added, waving her hand lazily in the air as if to shoo away a very slow bee.

Reporters then noticed a very slow bee spiraling sluggishly but recklessly away from the scene.

And now a word from our sponsor.

Take a look at your life.

What do you see?

Nothing, right?

You can see nothing at all.

Oh, sure, you think you see a series of flashes and flickers, of shapes and shades of color.

You think you see familiar things like faces and letters and walls and your own hands.

Those aren't familiar at all.

You've never seen any of that before.

Your hands aren't even your own.

Whose hands are they?

Who are you?

Is this what it is like to die?

Are you dying?

If not, when?

And where will you die?

When and where were you born even?

Wait.

How did you forget your place and date of birth?

I understand you can't comprehend the relentlessness of existence, but your own birthday is pretty easy to remember.

You've got more problems than we thought, listener.

Okay,

fine.

Your birthday is July 3rd, and your birthplace was Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Feel better?

You don't, actually.

You feel nothing, because your hands were never your own.

You are imagining everything,

and perceiving

nothing.

At least you smell nice.

We can at least tell you that.

Irish Spring.

Whose hands are these?

Now,

let's have a look at traffic.

There are roads.

Upon those roads are cars.

Some moving in straight or gently curved lines.

Some idling in long, narrow crowds.

And inside those cars are people.

People who are moving or idling with their cars.

One, with their vehicles.

Sitting quietly, peacefully in plush chairs, hands resting outward on a circle that dictates direction.

From the side, and seen without the car, they would look almost fetal.

So

vulnerable, these people,

nestled in their protective outer shells.

Are we living a life that is safe from harm?

Of course not.

We never are.

But that's not the right question.

The question is, are we living a life that is worth the harm?

We are all driving towards something.

We are all driving away from something else.

It is the simplicity of physics, the simplicity of free will.

Expect delays as you near the parade day exit, but do not change route.

Stay

your

course.

This has been

traffic.

We're getting more updates about those doors.

In fact, I have a very important scientist on the phone right now.

He's at the very top of his field, a really handsome scientist.

Stop.

Hi, Carlos.

So you said you saw these new doors.

Yes, I'm here with my research team at the house that does not exist in the Desert Creek housing development.

The one that looks like it's there but isn't there.

Our previous attempts to understand the home were futile.

From the windows, it looks completely empty, but when you tried to go inside, there's a fully furnished home and a woman named Cynthia living there.

But today all of the composite fiberglass doors on the house suddenly changed.

They're now all old oak doors with brass knobs and when we opened one we finally saw the empty house that we've been seeing through the windows.

If you go inside the home through these new doors you can explore the house that does not exist but you cannot return unless someone is on the other side of the door you went through.

One of our scientists, Rochelle, went through and couldn't get back out.

We only thought she was inside for about 45 minutes, but when we opened the door back up, she ran out saying she'd been trapped for several hours.

She was sweating and starving and she ate every one of the kalachis Dave made for us.

So now we just need to do more experiments.

We have to be careful because time is weird in Night Vale.

But I'm going to do a bit of exploring in this house and get back to you and your listeners about what is going on here.

Carlos, do be careful.

I'll be fine, Cecil.

I have a team of five talented scientists with me.

They will be here to check on my progress and keep me from getting trapped.

Without them, of course, it would be much more dangerous.

But I am not without them.

Not at all.

Well, you're very brave.

Thanks, Thanks, Cecil.

We're going to get to the bottom of this door story for you, listeners, because we have science on our side.

Outgoing Mayor Pamela Winchell called another press conference today.

Most of her press conferences are not newsworthy, as she calls everything she does a press conference.

Lunch, getting a new end table, screaming into street-side mailboxes, testing the surface tension of low-flying birds.

Basically, any simple activity we all do daily, she is trying to make into news.

This morning, however, while complaining about the unfair mayoral election process in Nightvale, where all votes are discarded in favor of a pronouncement from Hidden Gorge,

Mayor Winchell saw a door appear in her office at City Hall.

When she opened the oak door with the brass knob,

she said

she saw an angel,

tall and beautiful and radiating dark light and operatic music.

Mayor Winchell turned to the few remaining reporters who still attend her press conferences and said,

Angels are real.

I am staring at one right now.

They are real,

okay?

She began to open the door wide to show the press, but the figure, who was certainly not an angel, mouthed, Shut up, Pamela,

at Mayor Winchell.

The alleged angel added, shh, jeez,

and slammed the door.

Pamela corrected her previous announcement by vehemently denying the existence of angels, but hinting that mountains might be a thing.

I don't know.

Think about it, she mused as she continued slicing off chunks of her mahogany desk with a buoy knife.

Parade day has finally begun, listeners.

Come to the parade grounds and see what kind of colors and noise a proud community can make.

I am told now that 13-year-old Tamika Tamika Flynn is in fact at the parade.

She has in fact been at the parade all along.

I am telling this now to my producer Daniel who is throwing chairs in the control room.

I am telling this now to my producer Daniel who I have locked in the control room.

I am showing my producer Daniel that I am running the show from my own mixer as he stares dumbly at the cables he just yanked from the walls.

The parade, as you know, as you have known all along, is at Strexcorp headquarters along the lip of Radon Canyon.

The parade consists of half a dozen yellow helicopters, all of which have been commandeered by Tamika's band of well-read middle schoolers, who left town months ago to train for this moment.

They apparently learned to fly the helicopters by reading books.

Specifically, they learned by reading Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities and a collection of Shirley Jackson short stories.

Never underestimate the power of good literature.

Listeners, this is one of the great moments in Nightvale history, and here is our chance to be part of it.

Not since our town elders first donned soft meat crowns and wrote our town charter in their own blood on the side of a confused coyote, has this town had the chance to witness the birth of a truly new age?

Witnesses are reporting helicopters above Strexkorp.

Witnesses are reporting pre-teens carrying slingshots and wearing several reading achievement chevrons on their left breast pockets.

Witnesses are reporting a bumbling swarm of Strexcorp security agents unable to contain the small revolution.

Witnesses are reporting a dumbfounded and vile institution collapsing under the bloated weight of its own

greed.

I am reporting that I am barricading my door from the Strex-owned station management while making faces at Daniel, trapped in the booth.

And while you fight, Night Vale, for Night Vale, for your town,

for your home,

I take you now, triumphant citizens,

to the weather.

Sun

is up,

a new day is before you.

Sun

is up,

wake your sleepy soul.

Sun

is up,

hold on to what is old.

Take up your speed

and break ground.

Shake off

your shoes,

leave yesterday

behind you.

Shake off

your shoes,

but forget not where you've been.

Shake off

your shoes,

forgive and be forgiven.

Take up your space

and pray

now.

Give

thanks

for all that you've been given.

Give

thanks

for who you can become.

Give

thanks for each moment and every crown.

Take of your state

and break

down.

Break crowd,

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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As usual, Night Vale, a lot happened during the weather.

And we missed it.

Not because I wasn't reporting on it, but because we were not there to experience it.

Witnesses are reporting what they saw today.

But no witnesses joined in.

The witnesses, weak

and watching,

only

witnessed.

Listeners.

Oh,

listeners.

The band of well-read child revolutionaries, including their leader and only hero our town had left,

Tamika Flynn,

have been captured by a Strex Corp security team.

Tamika led a great revolt to rid our town of a terrible evil and restore the original, less terrible evil that preceded it.

But no one showed up.

They only

watched.

She called

to you.

I called

to you,

Nightvale.

But there just weren't enough of us.

The children were all sent to the Juvenile Detention Center.

Which has sat empty for years because of the specially calibrated school lunches formulated by the Night Vale Psychological Association.

Tamika, just before her arrest,

calmly waved a heavily notated copy of Berthold Brecht's Life of Galileo.

She then paraphrased the influential German playwright, saying,

Sad is not the land that has no hero.

Sad is the land that needs

a hero.

An officer took the book and slid it into a plastic bag as Tamika was handcuffed and led into the back of a bright yellow police cruiser with orange triangle logos.

Nightvale.

Nightvale.

I tried to tell you about about this day.

I was very clear.

Tamika was very clear.

We could have done something, Nightvale, but we

chose not to.

Not one citizen outside of Tamika and her band of brilliant, brave children stood up to tyranny today.

We all chose to stand down and hope change would be won for us

and not by us.

By someone else, we believed.

A hero,

we believed.

But belief

is only step one.

Action

is step two.

Fighting for what you believe

is step two.

Solidarity is step two.

Unity is step two.

We did not take step two today, Night Vale.

And now there will be no step three.

We have failed, Tamika.

But worse,

we have failed

ourselves.

I'm

Um.

I've got guests in my studio.

I don't know how they undid my secret barricade made of cardboard signs that said, keep out, and secret room in all caps with an exclamation point, but it's my program director, Lauren, and some men I've never seen before.

But no,

I have seen him before.

Where have I seen you before?

They do not look happy, Nightvale.

Lauren and the stranger are smiling widely.

Their teeth white, lips pink, their eyes full but tight.

Deep dimples making their tiny noses into parenthetical asides.

They are smiling,

but they look very unhappy.

Perhaps it is time to sign off for the day.

I am sure to speak to you again very soon, listeners.

Stay tuned next for the gentle sounds of forgiveness and a lilting melody of wounds healing.

And until next time, good night, Night Vale.

Hey, hey, what do you get?

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of commonplace books.

It is written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Kraner and produced by Joseph Fink.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Carlos was Dylan Marin.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was Take Up Your Spade by Sarah Watkins.

Find out more at sarahwatkins.com.

Also, her band, Nickel Creek, just released a new album and is right now touring, and you should definitely, definitely listen to them too.

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

Check out welcometonightvale.com for more information on this show, as well as all sorts of cool nightvale stuff you can own.

And while you're there, consider clicking the donate link.

That'd be cool with you.

Today's proverb.

If you love something, set it free.

If it starts flying around and chirping, it was probably a bird.

Are you squeamish about horror movies but kind of want to know what happens?

Or Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre?

Join me, Jeffrey Kraner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightvale, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator, Horror Podcast Number 9, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order.

Find, here's the short version, Random Horror 9, wherever you get your podcasts.

Boo.