40 - The Deft Bowman

and I don't just write Welcome to Nightville, we also write books that are not about Nightville, and here are some of them.

Alice Isn't Dead, a lesbian road trip horror love story for fans of Stephen King.

The Halloween Moon, my book for kids of any age about a Halloween where things really start to get weird for everyone.

The First 10 Years, a memoir from me and my wife about our relationship told year by year without consulting each other about our differences in memory.

And from Jeffrey, You Feel It Just Below the Ribs, an apocalyptic novel that takes place in the same universe as the Within the Wires podcast.

No matter what you're looking for, we've written a book just for you.

Find them where you find books.

Okay, bye!

Summer is turning to fall, which frankly, rude of summer to do, but don't worry.

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I also got myself a mulberry silk sleeping mask, and every night since has been a luxury, I have never gotten better sleep than with mulberry silk draped upon my eyes.

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The riddle says, he walks on four legs in the morning, he walks on two legs at midday,

and at night, he slithers from dream to dream effortlessly like the air we breathe.

breathe, and we love him.

Welcome to Night Vale.

In response to our town's steadily declining tourism industry, the Night Vale Tourism Board addressed our town's complete lack of appealing destinations like uncensored art museums, hotels with door locks, and snake-free restaurants.

NVTB Executive Director Madeleine LaFleur said some travelers think they need to see things like monuments, or the majesty of nature, or spectacular musicals, or eat regional/slash cultural foods in order to have a good time on vacation.

But they don't.

You don't need attractions to have a good time, she added.

Just use your imagination.

In fact, come to Night Vale, where we will show you fun in a handful of dust, as the new NVTB slogan says, LaFleur then became transfixed by the midday sun.

There it is again, she whispered to a confused crowd.

It's beautiful, so beautiful.

Why do you think it keeps circling back like that?

Good news, listeners.

The telephone service has finally fixed the telephone booth behind the Taco Bell.

The telephone that was always ringing and never had a dial tone, you know the one.

When you picked it up, it clicked and hissed and sometimes played notes that seemed to come from a music box.

You did not recognize the tune, but it was familiar.

as if from another time and place.

Since no one uses telephone booths anymore, I'm not entirely sure why they did this, but the telephone booth is working.

The telephone service dispatched a crew of men who would not be missed.

They wore wooden suits, climbed up the nearby pole, and clattered around like so many bamboo wind chimes filled with hamburger.

After several hours, they climbed down, furtively smoking cigarettes, and departed in their unmarked black van, removing the out-of-order sign from the booth shortly before leaving.

Some say they've seen strangers of varying heights and aura magnitudes speaking into the telephone in a hushed tone, in words that might have been Russian, staring at the horizon with cold determination.

And as the strangers all departed quickly, all in separate pedicabs, witnesses reported a detached human hand crawling up the inside of the booth.

Was this lone visitor to the phone booth the young Meghan Wallaby?

Megan was born as a detached hand of an adult man, so it seems like this was probably she who slowly but desperately picked up the telephone as the sun began to set.

We may never know for certain, but at least we know the telephone you'll never bother to use

is working again.

Ah, speaking of telecommunication, listeners, I've been receiving some odd text messages.

My phone claims they are from former intern Dana, who was trapped in the forbidden Dog Park several months ago and is now traversing an unknown plane of space and or time.

Here are some recent texts from her.

Found a mountain.

Mountains not real?

Huh.

Log those.

Dang it, lighthouse.

Sorry, stupid autocorrect.

There's a lighthouse up on the mountain and atop the lighthouse a blinking red light.

And then no more texts.

And it's been several days.

I tried texting back, but my touchscreen just displayed a photograph of my face that began to slowly rot, the eyes deepening until they were sunken holes, long white hair growing rapidly, insects crawling from my slackened, decayed maw, and then the words undelivered text in all caps below it.

I decided maybe this conversation was one not meant to be.

More good news, listeners.

A submarine has arrived from Nulgorsk, a tiny fishing village in Russia.

Nulgorsk was a longtime sister city of Nightvale.

We shared pen pal letters and gifts for many years.

But beginning in 1983, Nulgorsk stopped changing the dates on their letters.

By 1997, it became apparent that Nulgorsk would never stop existing in 1983.

And without being able to openly discuss the complexities of Michael Jackson's career arc, Nightvale stopped corresponding.

So, for this single reason, and no other, the arrival of a Nulgorskian submarine in our desert was unexpected.

The Nightvale PTA and the management of the local Pinkberry released a joint statement, saying the arrival of the submarine from Nulgorsk may represent a renewal of long ago international hostilities caused by simple misunderstandings over how to use a calendar properly.

Seeking to allay these concerns, the Sheriff's Secret Police's genderless spokesbeing with the smoothly beautiful features explained in that voice that calms animals.

Decades ago, when you were a child and lived beside the sea, you would go down in the afternoon and stand in the water, warm as blood, and pluck clams from between the rocks.

Your grandfather would cook them over his stove until they opened, and you would listen to the radio together.

The ships would come in the afternoon, piled high with cod and herring, surrounded by seagulls, carrying tales of adventure and peril in the sloshing boots of every fisherman.

Some things

don't come back,

the spokes being continued.

They can only travel in one direction, like mountains travel through the centuries.

Yes, mountains.

You were with grandfather when the voice on the radio rose in alarm.

Grandfather stood up.

There was fear upon the monument of his face.

This was not supposed to happen.

Not here.

Do you remember the light so bright you could see it through the wall?

Then nothing.

Then dark.

And a ringing telephone.

But we are here and now.

And this is not there

and then,

concluded concluded the sheriff's spokesbeing.

The spokesbeing responded to follow-up questions by cocking their head and slowly blinking their milk glass eyes, like an animal watching an insect crawl across the floor.

Further inquiries were directed to the jade statue of a cat who hums almost inaudibly in the sheriff's secret police's secret garden.

The Secret Police plan to open the hatches of the submarine and look inside at any moment.

We'll report back as we learn more.

Listeners, many of you know I have a bit of a delicate relationship with our new station management, and recent events have caused some concern for many of you.

But rest assured, while management and artists are often at odds about how to run a business, here at the station we all have one thing in common.

We

love

radio.

I just met our new program director, Lauren Mallard.

And you know, she's a delight.

In fact, she's joining me in the studio right now.

I thought it would be a good time to introduce you to the kindest, most gentle manager we have ever had at this station.

Lauren, it's great to have you here.

It's great to have you here.

I know change is difficult, both for the talent and for the listeners, but our focus is always on good radio.

And Cecil, you are the best at good radio.

Aw, thank you.

Listeners, please know that I really do think things are looking up.

I'm really excited about the new direction we're under with Lauren.

Well, I can't wait to be more involved.

And I just love your show.

I've loved every moment of it.

I love your informative reports.

I love your beautiful voice.

I love the way you talk about the town.

You clearly love your city, Cecil.

It shows in your work.

I even love your scientist boyfriend.

What's his name again?

With his perfect hair and teeth like a military cemetery?

He's always looking into the scientific mysteries of Night Vale.

He even broke the story, as you reporters might say, about the trans-dimensional oranges our farmers had developed.

Well, that sure was a good thing he was looking into our oranges, or we could have harmed a lot of people on our way to making a ton of money.

So very much money.

What's a few lives?

So much money.

He's a good scientist, you have there.

What's his name again?

Um, Carlos?

Right.

That's right.

Carlos.

Okay.

Good talking to you.

Gotta go.

Bye.

Oh, uh, okay.

Well, thank you, Lauren.

Goodbye.

And now a public service announcement from the Night Vale Marine Biologists Association.

The ocean is full of things that would like to kill you.

And other things that would ignore or not understand you and then eventually kill you because they do not have the same understanding or valuation of life and death as humans.

There are still other things that you would probably kill simply because you think they are beautiful and you want to possess beautiful things because

you believe that beauty and sentience are mutually exclusive.

Never go to the ocean.

It is a confounding place.

It is is full of death and strife and terror.

We're marine biologists and we won't even go to an ocean, so you know it's bad, the PSA reads.

Maybe just take a nap and think about clouds until they find your body.

This has been a message from the Marine Biologists Association.

The Sheriff's Secret Police Police have opened the hatch of the submarine from Nulgorsk.

Onlookers describe a curious crack of pressure, as if peeling back the pop-top of a can of old soda, and a smell of something regurgitated.

Wisps of steam were observed to rise from the open submarine.

The Sheriff's Secret Police drew their daggers, and a junior secret detective was encouraged to volunteer to be the first to explore the vessel.

There was silence as she climbed through the hatch.

Gentle listeners, the screaming began almost immediately.

It was described as a sort of high-pitched shriek that deepened moment by moment until it was only an agonized moan, then rising back up in pitch again, then falling.

Onlookers remarked that they had never quite heard a scream like that before,

not even that time in the barn.

The junior secret detective reappeared after those few harrowing moments, but she was not the woman who went inside the submarine.

Her hair was long and gray, and her limbs were withered with age.

She tumbled out of the hatch and was taken off to the hospital where she is listed in ancient condition, though expected to fully recover.

Further volunteers discovered the body of an enormous, bald-headed man with some faded flower tattoos and a left arm that stopped in a rough stump just above his wrist.

The Sheriff's Secret Police also discovered a postcard depicting the painted houses and beautiful clear water of Nulgorsk.

Written on the back was a message in Russian.

One adult man,

missing hand,

and the other items, it read, according to Google Translate.

The other items in question included a rotary dial phone with no receiver cord, a large tin full of hard tack, a wrapped parcel, which was carried away by a man who was not tall,

a thick book, which was carried away by a man who was not short,

and a front-page article from the September 24th, 1983 issue of the Night Vale Daily Journal, written by foreign correspondent Leanne Hart.

The headline of this article was,

Sister City Nulgorsk, decimated by nuclear attack.

No

known survivors.

Listeners, this is simply not true.

I had Interns V pull up that very issue, and the front page article is by City Beat reporter Leanne Hart.

And the headline reads, City Council OKs book ownership for randomly selected students.

Which is the truth, listeners?

I cannot comprehend what has happened to our old pen pals from Neolgorsk.

Who were we talking to for all those years?

Were they destroyed in 1983?

I'm going to get Sve's article to the secret police.

The correct historical truth must be validated and all false histories brutally repressed.

And until that time, the only truth we will have is the weather.

This is the time

we live

on the night.

Our heart rates

will blood through our mind.

of love.

Oh, this is why we work hard.

Another day to discover.

Oh, this is why we work hard.

Work hard, we work hard.

But there's this conscience that we fight so hard against.

This is our own birth

of spirit

of the night

Our heart of praise

of love

Oh, this is why we look for

another

day

is come

Oh, this is why we were

fired.

But there's this power that we find somewhere against.

This is our own burden of

race.

This is our over.

This is our over.

This is our over.

Oh, this is what's leading our own

brother day together.

Oh, this is what

we're

going to

do.

Hey, it's Jeffrey Kraner with a word from our sponsor.

You're on a desert island, but not a deserted island.

Someone else is there.

Something else is there.

In the water, surrounding you lurks a mythical beast with two large eyes and many long arms.

You're just now hearing of this beast, but you're not afraid because you don't plan to swim.

Though that water looks nice, you're good at talking yourself into things, and soon you are in the sea, frolicking and splashing.

You even squeal, thinking you're all alone.

But you forgot what I just said.

You're not alone.

Something wraps itself around you.

It lifts you high in the air, waving you about at dizzying heights.

You look down and see the mythical kraken.

You start to scream, but in its other tentacles are bottles of kraken black spiced rum and kraken gold spiced rum.

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It's bold, smooth, and made with a blend of spices.

You high five the beast as it sets you back down on the island, along with the bottles of Kraken Rum.

It winks and tells you Kraken Rum is ideal for Halloween cocktails and disappears back into the dark, briny depths.

Visit the official sponsor of Welcome to Night Vale, Kraken Rum.com to release the Kraken this Halloween.

Copyright 2025, Kraken Rum Company, Kraken Rum.com.

Like the deepest sea, the Kraken should be treated with great respect and responsibility.

You chose to hit play on this podcast today.

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Well,

before the Sheriff's Secret Police could could respond to my news article discrepancy, the unconnected rotary phone on the submarine began ringing.

The unidentified man in the submarine answered the phone, speaking his first words, in Russian, of course.

He still has yet to be identified, and no one is certain if he is a survivor or a ghost.

But he spoke to someone on the other end.

Trace the call, an officer shouted to a group of other officers in a nearby van.

Listeners, they traced the call, and it was coming from the phone booth behind the taco bell.

On the other end of the line was an adult man's detached hand named Megan,

the daughter of Talk and Herschel Wallaby.

She was alone,

all

alone,

Except for the telephone booth, as forgotten technologies have been young Megan's only friends.

This

broke the heart of the sheriff's secret police.

This broke the heart of the two men who had skulked away from the submarine.

This broke the heart of the unidentified man from Newellgorsk.

And from this moment came wonderful news, listeners.

The unidentified man told the secret police in stiff but practiced English, I am a gift from Nulgorsk, in appreciation of Night Vale's many years of friendship and kindness.

And the unidentified man offered himself as an organ donor, or rather, a body donor for Night Vale's very own Megan Wallaby.

The young girl, born with congenital hand bodiness, was rushed from the telephone booth behind the Taco Bell.

The unidentified man has been rushed from the submarine in the sand wastes.

Megan has been surgically attached to the wrist stump of the unidentified man,

or rather, the unidentified man has been surgically attached to the single hand body of Meghan Wallaby.

Megan's surgeons have declared the operation a quick and complete success.

After emerging from recovery, Megan even rose from her bed, her face dour, and took a few toneless steps, like a man balancing the weight of a wet overcoat on a failing hanger before collapsing onto the floor of her hospital room while nurses screamed and called for help.

Megan has

a long road of therapy ahead of her, learning how to

everything.

But we believe in her, don't we, Nightvale?

That little girl is going going to enjoy the childhood she feels she has missed out on.

We won't mind if she smashes through a few walls or crushes a few rib cages in hugs.

If this is what she wants, we will support her because she is beautiful.

And the unidentified man from Neolgorsk?

Sadly, We will never see him again,

nor may we ever learn why his truth was so different from our own.

But Megan's truth is

she is finally happy,

happy in the body she was born without.

Maybe one day we will see her,

six foot ten and bald, shambling down the street.

We will say, hello Megan,

and maybe with enough hard work, she will be able to answer back in the sing-song voice of a child, hello Cecil,

as she jauntily waves the hand that used to be her entire body.

Yes, Night Vale, that sounds just about

right.

Stay tuned next for live coverage of college basketball as two universities select a dozen students to perform unnatural physical tasks on a wooden rectangle inside a cavernous scream chamber.

Good night, Night Vale.

Good night.

Welcome to Night Vale is a production of commonplace books.

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

This episode was co-written with Zach Parsons.

His books can be found anywhere you find books that you immediately buy, shouting, I can't wait to read this.

The voice of Night Vale is Cecil Baldwin.

The voice of Lauren Mallard was Lauren Sharp.

Original music by Disparition.

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

This episode's weather was offering by Black City Lights.

Find out more at blackcitylights.bandcamp.com.

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 of you.

Today's proverb: you can't get blood from a turnip.

Listen, you need some blood?

I can totally get you some blood.

Set that turnip down and follow me to the blood.

There's a lot of blood.

i'm amy nicholson the film critic for the la times and i'm paul shear an actor writer and director you might know me from the league veep or my non-eligible for academy award role in twisters we love movies and we come at them from different perspectives yeah like amy thinks that you know joe pesci was miscast in good fellas and i don't he's too old let's not forget that paul thinks that dude 2 is overrated it is

Anyway, despite this, we come together to host Unspooled, a podcast where we talk about good movies, critical hits, fan favorites, must-season, and case you missed them.

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

We've done deep dives on popcorn flicks, we've talked about why Independence Day deserves a second look, and we've talked about horror movies, some that you've never even heard of, like Kanja and Hess.

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

Listen to Unspooled wherever you get your podcasts.

And don't forget to hit the follow button.

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 welcometoenightvale.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 co-workers, 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.