41 - WALK

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 welcome to nightvale.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 Die Hard fan, and you, the Night Vale 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 welcometonightvelle.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 US plus Toronto tours right now at welcometonightveld.com slash live.

And hey, see you soon.

If you're dying for the next batch of Wednesday

The Wednesday Season 2 official Woecast is already here.

Dive deeper into the mysteries of Wednesday with the Ultimate Companion Video Podcast.

Join the frightfully funny Caitlin Riley along with her producer, Thing, as she sits down with the cast and crew.

Together, they'll unravel each shocking twist, dissect the dynamics lurking beneath, unearth Adam's family lore, and answer all of your lingering questions.

Guests include Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Hunter Doohan, Steve Buscemi, Fred Armison, Catherine Zeta Jones, the Joanna Lumley, also show creators Al Goh and Miles Miller, and of course, Wednesday herself, Jenna Ortega, plus many, many more.

With eight delightfully dark episodes to devour, you'll be drawn into the haunting halls of Nevermore Academy deeper than ever before.

But beware, you know where curiosity often leads.

The Wednesday season 2 official woCast is available in audio and video on todoom.com or wherever it is you get your podcasts.

At a loss for words,

here's a few you can use.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello listeners.

We have some news that will affect your morning commute, so let's dive right into it.

Walk signals across the whole of Night Vale are malfunctioning.

Of course, usually they show either a graphic photo of a runover pedestrian, indicating you should wait, or time-lapse photography of flowers wilting, indicating that it is safe to cross.

But this morning, commuters all over Nightvale are reporting that, bafflingly, they now all have just the word walk

in bold white letters.

Citizens are standing by the side of the road, unsure of whether they are allowed.

Cecil!

Cecil, it's Dana!

Oh, it's so good to be able to communicate again.

Cecil?

Where'd he go?

I don't think he can hear me, but I'll keep talking just in case.

Cecil, I have been in this desert for months now.

Years, maybe.

Get enough minutes, and you have days, have months, have years, have the whole of your life.

There's never a great shift, only a gradual sliding downwards.

I can see the blinking light up on the mountain.

I looked into it and my head went one way while my mind went another.

Alurch outside of all that seems to be.

I moved my head just a touch to the left, a glance in a world of perspectives, and I was here in your studio.

Well, not here here.

I don't know how it happened or how long this vision in which we all pretend to be real will last.

I am pretending as hard as I can.

When I first got here, being a good mountain unbeliever, I turned my back to it and marched directly into the flat desert.

But soon enough, I had somehow come back to the mountain.

I turned and marched away again, but ended up right back here.

There's a blinking light up on the mountain, and I blink in and out of its vicinity against my will.

Occasionally I see huge masked figures, warlike, towering, but also distant and listless.

They haven't seen me, or if they've seen me, they haven't cared.

Or if they've cared, they haven't done anything with that feeling.

I'm not scared of them.

There are so many things in this world to be scared of.

Why add to that number when the only cause is you know nothing about them and they are huge?

It would no sense.

I found a door out in the desert, but it was chained shut on the other side.

From behind it, I thought I smelled that particular night veil smell, the smell of home, like sour peaches and linen, like freshly cut wood and burnt almonds.

I knocked and knocked, hoping someone from back there would hear it and let me through, but it never opened.

I wasn't even sure which side was supposed to open.

I knocked on both sides, but nothing.

I kept walking and found myself back at the mountain.

There is a blinking light up on the mountain, and so there is nothing else for it.

It is time for me to climb.

The face of the mountain is steep and lined with sharp ridges and crumbling ledges.

This will not be easy.

I wonder if anything ever will be.

Hopefully I will know something when I am up there that I did not know when I was down here.

Elevation must equal knowledge.

It must.

Because nothing else has.

Cecil, I will keep trying.

I don't have to keep trying.

There is no obligation for me to not just give up, just slump down until I fall away and join the inanimate matter of this strange other world.

I don't have to keep trying.

Remember that, I say to myself, as I keep trying.

I don't know if you've heard any of this.

I'd like to think you did.

I'd like to think that I'm home.

I like to think that mountains aren't real, even though I know now, without doubt, that they are.

I will see you again, perhaps, from up there, wherever that is.

Just me, always me,

but from higher up.

Goodbye, Cecil.

Unable to stop walking.

Walk,

the signals say,

and the pedestrians walk, in unison, arms swinging in a rigid rhythm.

This is the worst malfunctioning of walk signals Night Vale has seen since the time all their light bulbs were accidentally replaced with poison gas dispensers.

More on this story as it looms closer to us.

And now, a word from our sponsors.

A balding grassland beneath a low cliffside.

There is a monk.

Picture what a monk looks like.

A bell rings, from his hand, maybe.

Then he takes a small step.

Then there's that bell again.

It will take him a long time to make it from this bit of grass to whatever there is beyond it.

An entire lifetime it will take him.

And even then, he will die unfinished, undone in midst of doing,

having gone slowly to nowhere much.

Then a bell will ring, from his hand, maybe, or from somewhere else, and then

nothing.

Mountain dew

do

the dew

and now back to our hello Cecil

Cecil can you hear me?

Damn it

Cecil it is beautiful here

It is empty here.

I found a lighthouse up on the mountain tall maybe 40 feet Built of brown stone and about 15 feet in diameter.

Beyond the lighthouse, I found a settlement of sort.

It was bound inside the stone walls of a tightly wound gorge.

I hope to find answers in this settlement.

I hope to find anything.

Here is what I found.

Dust, mostly.

Emptiness.

A sense of loss as I thought about the distance between myself and those I love.

An interesting rock, but I can't find it anymore.

I miss my brother.

A sense of loss loss as I thought about the people who never returned home to the settlement.

If they no longer exist to feel loss, then I shall feel it for them.

Also, there were strange drawings along the walls of the gorge.

Orange triangles growing bigger and bigger as I traced my way deeper into the spiral.

There was a soft light just around the edges of the triangles.

When I looked at them, I felt the light in my head and it pounded like a migraine against the back of my eyes.

I could not look at them.

I could not look away.

I was lost in the spiral.

It was built by good people, but they were gone, taken by something larger and stronger than them, much larger and stronger even than the masked warriors I saw before.

I worried about what

who would be taken next.

My eyes hurt, so through my subjectivity the entire world hurt.

and then a bright blackness from somewhere beyond the spiral that was when I realized I had forgotten that there was anything outside of the spiral

it had become the entirety the totality all of that

but I followed the bright blackness a near blinding beam of pure darkness And it led me back out again.

The orange triangles grew smaller and smaller until they were little dots, a freckled rock face.

There is something coming, Cecil.

I feel it in the air.

It's like a hot wind blowing, but not hot, deathly cold.

And not a wind, a vast creature.

And not blowing.

rushing at us out of the gaps in time and memory with which we hold together our lives.

When I look to the horizon, I see light, like the light in the spiral.

I feel it push against the back of my eyes.

It is the unraveling of all things, the great glowing coils of the universe unwinding.

I wish I could tell you more.

Communication is difficult.

It is impossible, some say,

communicating the idea of its impossibility to others.

I feel myself slipping.

I'm getting fainter now.

No.

No.

You are.

Which I haven't done, by the way, in years.

Or at least days.

Or at least I'm not doing it right now.

Thursday is a lost cause, but we will keep on fighting.

We will get up, say, yes, today is a different day than before.

Believing this against all evidence, eating food like that matters, going to jobs that mean the same thing as they did before, but cast in a new light by our own optimism, which will slowly drain away until all that is left is the movements and thoughts we've had before.

Echoes of ourselves.

Underlined to emphasize the lack of emphasis.

Coming home, drifting home, aimless homeward wandering into a kitchen that is too small for our needs, and eating food that isn't what we imagined it would be, and watching television that means more to us than our jobs, and finally, falling asleep, in which we dream of the Thursday that could be

if only we lived Thursday to the full potential of its Thursday-ness,

not expecting it to be anything but Thursday, embracing every inch of its Thursday reality and living each Thursday moment anew, only to wake the next Thursday and again impose unsuccessfully our imagined Thursday onto the unyielding frame of Thursday, our Thursday, a lost cause.

This has been the Community Calendar.

The crowd amassed by the walk signals is now marching down Route 800, apparently advancing on City Hall.

When reached for comment, the city council said that they were definitely at city hall, ready to receive the concerns of their constituents, and not,

say,

hiding in a hastily dug hole in Mission Grove Park, keeping as still as possible and breathing through their dirt gills until this all blows over.

Incidentally, their comment continued, if you happen to see a conspicuous pile of earth in any parks, maybe just throw some leaves on it or put a bench over it to make it less obvious.

No, Biggie.

Just if you get a chance, that'd be cool, the council concluded, their voices noticeably muffled.

Fortunately, the effect of the walk signals only reaches those who are looking at one, and I myself

hey, what

how did that get in here?

Um, listeners, there is a walk signal in my studio.

Walk, it says,

I must walk.

The signal is saying so.

I will have to leave my desk in order to do that.

And so, before I go, I take you to the walkthrough.

The walkthrough the walk

walk

walk

walk

If you're gonna fool around

Why don't you keep it out of town

Don't give me all the details.

I don't wanna know,

don't wanna know

what have they done to you now.

I guess you better keep your pants

on.

There's no more tables left to dance on

I used to carry you home

I don't anymore

Won't anymore

What have they done to you now?

Oh

for me,

friends

to fill

your

heart

with grief

and agony.

A little friendly conversation,

Character assassination

I just don't care anymore

And I don't wanna know

Don't wanna know

What have they done to you now

I'm Amy Nicholson, the film critic for the LA Times.

And I'm Paul Scheer, an actor, writer, and director.

You might know me from the League Veef or my non-eligible for Academy Award role in Twisters.

We come together to host Unschooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-sees, and in case you missed them.

We're talking Parasite the Home Alone, From Grease to the Dark Knight.

So if you love movies like we do, come along on our cinematic adventure.

Listen to Unschooled wherever you get your podcast.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

I can't seem to get hold of Cecil.

I'm trying to tell him something important, but just as I showed up here again, he announced the weather.

The weather is beautiful here.

Cecil cannot hear me, and I do not remember what I wanted to say.

I remember the table at my grandfather's house.

It had carved legs in the shape of a myriad of animals spiraling around each other, whole ecosystems within each leg.

But it was also well used.

We ate there, we talked there, We lived around it in rows and columns delineated by chairs and space.

I remember diagonals of sunlight in the late afternoon drawn across its flat expanse, transversed by my grandfather's hand as he swept it through whatever story he was telling to highlight the words with motion, to motion us closer to the words.

I remember my mother as wrapped as I was.

I remember my brother as wrapped as I was.

I remember that I haven't seen my mother or my brother for months now.

And in some ways, I miss that table more than I miss them.

We are all of us only one life each.

But that table is all of our lives added together, a delicate, tangled problem we never wished to solve.

But life solves all our problems against our will.

I remember I am Dana, or I am Dana's double.

One of us killed the other with the stapler, even I don't know which one.

I have these memories, but memories prove nothing.

Experiences also prove nothing.

There are many proofs for nothing.

It is the concept of which we are most certain.

I'm sorry.

I'm trying to remember something important and I am failing.

My grandfather died a long time ago.

A few months ago, I killed my double.

These facts have no symmetry.

They are disconnected.

I must find a way back to you, listeners.

I must protect Night Vale and Cecil and my mother and my brother and whoever I am, I must protect them from what is coming.

The unraveling of all things.

This winding gorge spirals around itself, an empty ecosystem within the mountain.

Beyond it, the desert is a flat expanse with diagonals of sunlight transversed by my my passing.

I am sweeping through my own story, highlighting the words with motion, motioning us closer to the end.

This is not what I wanted to tell you.

Listeners, look past the things you think you see.

Move your head just a touch to the left, a glance in a world of perspectives.

and then you might see it.

An entire universe in the corner of your eye.

I have seen this lighthouse with its red beam rotating out into the desert distance.

I have seen the dog park and its infinite, bland secrets.

I have seen the settlement in the gorge and I do not wish to see it again.

I have seen Cecil,

but I have not seen my mother.

I have not seen my brother.

Life solves the problems we hope it won't.

You may hear from me again.

I'm afraid, no, concerned,

no,

afraid that you will not.

I wish I could stay, but the noise of the approaching

whatever it is has gotten louder, closer.

I must go.

This is intern Dana.

Sister, daughter, or not.

Dana with a question mark.

This is me or my double signing out.

I miss you, Nightvale.

Goodbye.

And so we are all saved again.

I'll be honest, Nightvale.

That was the most worried I've been in some time.

And how we were saved was so unlikely and miraculous that I feel that to day will become one of the standard tales told every year

on Frightening Day.

Certainly, it is a story I will never forget.

Here is where I leave you.

Not to walk away.

I think I will avoid walking for a while, but certainly to go somewhere to see someone.

And I don't know.

If he suggests a walk, I might change my mind.

He can be as persuasive as hypnotic malfunctioning city equipment sometimes, as the old saying goes.

Stay tuned next for the noises of my hurried retreat, echoing first as sound and then as memory, and maybe, then again, as part of tonight's fractured dreaming.

Good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of commonplace books.

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

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Dana was Josica Nicole.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was What Have They Done to You Now by Daniel Knox.

Find out more at danielknox.com.

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

Check out commonplacebooks.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 of you.

Today's proverb, please move your brain so we can get to the drugs and stop leaving it there.

We've talked about this.

Olivia loves a challenge.

It's why she lifts heavy weights

and likes complicated recipes.

But for booking her trip to Paris, Olivia chose the easy way with Expedia.

She bundled her flight with a hotel to save more.

Of course, she still climbed all 674 steps to the top of the Ivy Tower.

You were made to take the easy route.

We were made to easily package your trip.

Expedia, made to travel.

Flight-inclusive packages are at all protected.

Hey, Jeffrey Kraner here to tell you about another show from me and my nightvale co-creator, Joseph Fink.

It's called Unlicensed, and it's an LA Noir-style mystery set in the outskirts of present-day Los Angeles.

Unlicensed follows two unlicensed private investigators whose small jobs looking into insurance claims and missing property are only the tip of a conspiracy iceberg.

There are already two seasons of Unlicensed for you to listen to now, with season three dropping on May 15th.

Unlicensed is available exclusively through Audible, free if you already have that subscription.

And if you don't, Audible has a trio membership.

And if I know you, and I do, you can binge all that mystery goodness in a short window.

And if you like it, if you liked Unlicensed, please, please rate and review each season.

Our ability to keep making this show is predicated on audience engagement.

So go check out Unlicensed, available now only at Audible.com.