by Joseph Fink
Listen: Listening is dangerous. Talking more so. Things aren’t looking so good for quiet existence either.
In an unrelated report, yellow helicopters have continued to disappear from their place in the sky, along with the pilots who were presumably inside. The helicopters are disappearing almost as fast as our beneficent sponsors Strexcorp can supply them. Strexcorp management released a series of flares from the darkened horizon that spelled, in Morse code, “We love the enthusiasm you have for our products, but those helicopters are for your own good and productivity. Please stop taking them. Don’t make us ask again, or we will have to do a number of unproductive things with your human form.”
Also, and I don’t even know why I’m bringing this up, there was a new woman drinking coffee at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner this morning. She smiled twice and frowned once, and her fingers tapped out a rhythm. There was nothing unusual about the rhythm. She ordered a second coffee. She—
[Electrical humming, his voice changes]
The woman from Italy is arriving today.
Nothing can stop her from coming this way
She will not hear pleading, she cares not for succor.
She is the woman from Italy, bow low before her.
All the children in town know to hide in their rooms
The adults have forgotten, they’ll recall all too soon.
Her hands are like storm clouds, with lightning quick talons.
All before is a murmur, all after is silence.
[Humming ends, voice back to normal]
—ate the last of her eggs. Nothing more to report on the woman at this time. I don’t even know why I reported what I just did.
The vague yet menacing government agency would like to address the lights and sounds seen in the scrublands just off of Route 800 yesterday. Many townspeople reported seeing a great craft alight on the ground, and disgorge spindly creatures of enormous size, wavering up into the darkness, with limbs that’s angle and attachment met none of the criteria of human biologic knowledge. The Agency would like to inform you that what you mistook for the scrublands was actually your grandmother’s house; that what you mistook for a great craft was your grandmother, with whom you have a tense but ultimately loving relationship; and what you mistook as enormous spindly creatures were the words you and your grandmother exchanged, pleasantries and reminiscences to avoid discussing all the hurt that lies behind you, and the ultimate ending to your shared past that is foreshadowed by her every forgetful moment, every tremble in her hand. There is no such thing as aliens, says the vague yet menacing government agency. Your grandmother is dying. And so are you. You have this in common. Celebrate it.
A memo from the owner of the Ace Hardware on 5th and Shay Street: They will no longer tolerate baristas lining up for day jobs in their parking lot. Every morning at dawn, dozens of baristas with newsboy caps, waxed mustaches, and knit ties tucked into buttoned sweater vests continue to crowd the parking lot, foreheads beaded with desperation and hoping to be picked up to operate unlicensed espresso machines. This is scaring away the legitimate Ace Hardware customers, and the baristas will be required to return to their caves just on the outskirts of town, near the Sandwastes, in the barista district.
Some great news to all of you out there who adopted kittens from Khoshekh, the cat floating in our station bathroom. Well, it’s been several months, and the kittens have just been growing like you wouldn’t believe. They’ve molted twice, and some of them are already getting their grown-up kitty spine ridges. Which brings me to my grave warning. As we all know, the spine ridges of adult cats are highly poisonous. If you are coming to see a kitten that you have adopted, it is important that you check for the location and severity of the spine ridge before attempting any petting. Also, keep your hands away from their mouths. A few of them have developed their venom sacs. We lost two cat adopters already this month, so . . . let’s just be careful people. And let’s take care of these cute little kitties. Who’s my adorable little kitten with your adorable tendril-hub? It’s you! It’s you!
I’m not even sure why I bring this up, but the new woman is wandering down Main Street, checking out the various knickknack stores and antiques shops and chanting dens and food wallows that have been springing up with all this new money flooding into Night Vale from one single, uncomfortably efficient source. She is window-shopping but hasn’t found one she likes yet. Bay windows, stained glass, a car window taken from a 1983 Honda Odyssey, but she bought none of them. She gnaws softly on the side of her thumb. She—
[Change of voice]
The woman from Italy is with us this evening.
We hide and we shudder, but there is no deceiving.
She exhales must and steam, she poisons the air.
Say you have a family, say it! She doesn’t care.
The woman from Italy delights in your pain
She asks just one favor but asks again and again
Do you think you could, no rush, just a moment
Give in screaming to eternally burning torment?
[Voice back to normal]
—sang an impromptu song to the delight of everyone who heard her. No one heard her.
And now traffic.
Think of a number. Any number. That number is how many thousands of years old a certain rock is. That number is how many times someone has cried in their life. That number is the lucky number of an unlucky man who has yet to realize he is unlucky.
Think of a number. No, think of numbers. Picture all of these abstract representations of human thought, all of them forming an imagined pattern, as all patterns are imagined, and picture how those abstractions describe, in specific ways, real moments that exist. Picture numbers.
There is a woman who lives at 531 Beechwood Street. Her phone number starts with a three and ends with a five. She smiled eighteen times yesterday. She is currently thinking of three things she needs to do. There are actually four things she needs to do. She has forgotten one of them. She touches the doorknob two times before committing to its turn. She has two eyes. She has two hands. She has two more chances to make her life what she thinks it should be, but she doesn’t know it yet.
Think of a number. Yes. That’s the one. That’s the one that describes an infinity of disparate truths about our disparate universe.
Also the roads are looking clear.
This has been traffic.
And now a word from our sponsors.
Filler text to be replaced with actual material. Replace with copy before sending to radio station. Talking points go here. Something about coffee. Something about the bright start of a hypothetical day. Something about secret boxes locked in secret soundproof rooms. Maybe make it a song. Look into that. Then slogan goes here. Starbucks. Copy and paste slogan again here. Also just reminding the future me that comes back to rewrite this that I need to grab some milk. I think the one in the office fridge is starting to turn. As long as I’m reminding myself things, I’m a good person, worthy of love, both from myself and others, and writing press releases and ads like this is just the start of a great writing career. You have a novel in you, kid. You have a novel in you.
This has been a word from our sponsors.
In economic news, the White Sand Ice Cream Shoppe has gone out of business, and will never open again. The owners, Lucy and Hannah Gutierrez have gone bankrupt, and, as is usual for bankruptcy cases, have had their lives confiscated by the nearest friendly large business, which in this case was Strexcorp. “We were only too happy to help,” Strexcorp carved into a large slab uncovered this morning out in the Sandwastes, and dated to several thousand years ago by reputable scientists and experts. The carving continued: “Lucy and Hannah are valuable members of this community, and now their value has been added to our value. We are even more valuable now. Everyone wins, even if it seems like some of the everyones are gone or absorbed or dead. This is just part of the natural process of winning.” Archaeologists were baffled when presented with the content of the
carving and evidence of its age, saying that just moments ago they were working in a museum in Los Angeles and they have no idea where they are or how they were so suddenly brought here. Let us go home, they said to the person presenting the carving. Please let us go home.
In a story that will interest no one, the new woman is sitting on a bench in Mission Grove Park, reading an old paperback copy of a book apparently called Bridge of Birds. Her hair flutters a bit in the breeze. She turns a page in the book, and crosses her legs as she leans back and relaxes into the story she is reading. She—
[Change in voice]
The woman from Italy, oh end of all things.
She has seen the fall of Babylon, she has drunk the blood of kings.
Her robes are shadow, her eyes are dusk.
Her voice is amber and chalk dust and rust.
The woman from Italy has honed in on your scent
She seeks out your refuge, oh yes, she knows where you went.
It’s your skin that she wants, bound and browned into leather
But first, pre-decease, I give you the weather.
WEATHER: “Penn Station” by The Felice Brothers
Welcome back, listeners. Usually after the weather I am here to tell you about how we have been saved from some world-ending danger that for whatever reason has failed again to end our world. But today I have no such report because there is no such danger. Or there is an infinitude of such dangers: rocks hurtling unseen from space, gamma ray bursts created by chance and utterly destroying by chance, disease, war, hunger, or the slow dissipation of it all, not by the sudden but by the gradual always.
But now is not the time for such lighthearted, childish thoughts. Now is the time for me to talk.
Let’s see, what can I talk about.
Ah, well, that new woman, the one I have been for some reason reporting on, she is leaving town. She has bought a Razor scooter from the pawn shop and is using it to skim her way down the shoulder of Route 800. Destination and origin both unknown, but we know where she is now. Good for us. Any information is impressive in such an opaque world.
Cars honk and swerve. There are a few accidents. A man gets out of his car and looks at his bumper, fists on his hips, his mouth half open, saying, “Well, what is this now? Well, what is this now?” The woman does not seem to hear him, or anything else. She is skimming slowly out of town. Her hand raises. It waves good-bye. Her shoulders bounce slightly with the imperfections of the road. She turns to look back, and we all see her face, and we . . . we . . . we . . .
[Voice changes]
The woman from Italy, oh merciful goddess
Her victims are legion but this evening they’re not us.
We grab grateful breaths from the night-shaded air
Baited breaths, fearful breaths, but breathe deep: nothing there.
The woman from Italy is gone but then, not for always
She waits behind doors and at the end of dark hallways
She follows no logic, exists solely for spite
But you are safe for now, dear listener
So good night, Night Vale, good night.
PROVERB: Your Bitcoin address is your middle name, followed by the name of your first pet and the first street you lived on.
EPISODE 40:
“THE DEFT BOWMAN”
FEBRUARY 1, 2014
COWRITTEN WITH ZACK PARSONS
GUEST VOICE: LAUREN SHARPE
THE TITLE OF THIS EPISODE IS A REFERENCE TO THE ABLE ARCHER 83 MILITARY exercises conducted by NATO that simulated an escalating war and nuclear attack in Western Europe. During the Able Archer exercises, a Soviet computer malfunction nearly triggered a massive retaliatory strike, if not for the cool head of Colonel Stanislav Petrov, who ignored procedures and did not push the big red button that would have ended the world as we know it.
Drawing on this incident, the episode links Night Vale to a sister city in the Soviet Union, in 1983, called Nulogorsk. This quiet fishing village exists out of time and, like Schrödinger’s poor cat, was both destroyed and not destroyed by a massive nuclear exchange. I wanted to expand Night Vale’s world and reach out to an equally weird place in Eastern Europe, imagining how Night Vale might continue to communicate with this place that is no longer a place. Night Vale inhabitants can make calls to it by way of a mysterious telephone and Nulogorsk can send physical things back that appear in the desert as if arriving on a shore.
I will be the first to admit that this episode as I sent it to Joseph and Jeffrey was overwritten with a long intro that redundantly set up Night Vale to people who had presumably listened to thirty-nine previous episodes. It’s probably the episode that has received the most drastic revisions, much of which involved the addition of plots to connect it to preceding episodes. One of the difficulties of guest writing for Night Vale is finding a place for your story in the larger, ongoing events of Night Vale. In the case of “Deft Bowman,” Joseph and Jeffrey went out of their way to help the story find that place.
I think the result is fantastic and I hope to eventually revisit Nulogorsk and its unusual existence in relation to Night Vale. This story also provides a resolution of sorts for Megan Wallaby, who may reappear in Night Vale, but as a supporting character.
—Zack Parsons
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. And we love him.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.
In response to the 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 Madeline 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 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 Megan 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.
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 month
s ago and is now traversing an unknown plane of space and/or time. Here are some recent texts from her:
“Found a mountain.”
“Mountain’s 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. It has been several days.
I tried texting back but my touch screen 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 Nulogorsk, a tiny fishing village in Russia. Nulogorsk was a longtime sister city of Night Vale. We shared pen-pal letters and gifts for many years, but beginning in 1983, Nulogorsk stopped changing the dates on their letters. By 1997, it became apparent that Nulogorsk would never stop existing in 1983, and without being able to openly discuss the complexities of Michael Jackson’s career arc, Night Vale stopped corresponding. So, for this single reason and no other, the arrival of a Nulogorskian submarine in our desert was unexpected.
The Night Vale PTA and the management of the local Pinkberry released a joint statement, saying the arrival of the submarine from Nulogorsk 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.
