Mostly Void, Partially Stars

by Joseph Fink

  And now, a look at the community calendar.

  Saturday, the public library will be unknowable. Citizens will forget the existence of the library from six a.m. Saturday morning until eleven p.m. that night. The library will be under a sort of renovation. It is not important what kind of renovation.

  Sunday is Dot Day. Remember: red dots on what you love. Blue dots on what you don’t. Mixing those up can cause permanent consequences.

  Monday, Louie Blasko is offering bluegrass lessons in the back of Louie’s Music Shop. Of course, the shop burned down years ago, and Louie skipped town immediately after with his insurance money, but he sent word that you should bring your instrument to the crumbled, ashy shell of where his shop once was, and pretend that he is there in the darkness, teaching you. The price is $50 per lesson, payable in advance.

  Tuesday afternoon, join the Night Vale PTA for a bake sale to support Citizens for a Blood Space War. Proceeds will go to support neutron bomb development and deployment to our outer solar system allies.

  Wednesday has been canceled due to a scheduling error.

  And on Thursday is a free concert. That’s all it says here.

  New call in from John Peters, you know, the farmer? Seems the Glow Cloud has doubled in size, enveloping all of Night Vale in its weird light and humming song. Little League administration has announced that they will be going ahead with the game, although there will be an awning built over the field due to the increase in size of the animal corpses being dropped. I’ve had multiple reports that a lion, like the kind you would see on the sun-baked plains of Africa, or a pee-stained enclosure at a local zoo, fell on top of the White Sand Ice Cream Shoppe. The shop is offering a free dipped cone to anyone who can figure out how to get the thing off. The Sheriff’s Secret Police have apparently taken to shouting questions at the Glow Cloud, trying to ascertain what exactly it wants. So far the Glow Cloud has not answered. The Glow Cloud does not need to converse with us. It does not feel as we tiny humans feel. It has no need for thoughts or feelings or love. The Glow Cloud simply is. All hail the mighty Glow Cloud. All hail.

  And now, slaves of the Cloud, the weather.

  WEATHER: “The Bus Is Late” by Satellite High

  Sorry, listeners. Not sure what happened in that earlier section of the broadcast. As in, I actually don’t remember what happened. Tried to play back the tapes but they all are blank and smell faintly of vanilla. The Glow Cloud, meanwhile, has moved on. It is now just a glowing spot in the distance, humming east to destinations unknown. We may never fully understand, or understand at all, what it was and why it dumped a lot of dead animals on our community. But, and I’m going to get a little personal here, that’s the essence of life, isn’t it? Sometimes you go through things that seem huge at the time, like a mysterious glowing cloud devouring your entire community. While they are happening, they feel like the only thing that matters, and you can hardly imagine that there’s a world out there that might have anything else going on. And then the Glow Cloud moves on, and you move on, and the event is behind you. And you may find, as time passes, that you remember it less and less. Or absolutely not at all, in my case. And you are left with nothing but a powerful wonder at the fleeting nature of even the most important moments in life, and the faint but pretty smell of vanilla.

  Finally dear listeners, here is a list of things:

  • Emotions you don’t understand upon viewing a sunset

  • Lost pets, found

  • Lost pets, unfound

  • A secret lost pet city on the moon

  • Trees that see

  • Restaurants that hear

  • A void that thinks

  • A face, half-seen, just before falling asleep

  • Trembling hands reaching for desperately needed items

  • Sandwiches

  • Silence when there should be noise

  • Noise when there should be silence

  • Nothing, when you want something

  • Something, when you thought there was nothing

  • Clear plastic binder sheets

  • Scented dryer sheets

  • Rain coming down in sheets

  • Night

  • Rest

  • Sleep

  • End

  Goodnight, listeners. Goodnight.

  PROVERB: Men are from Mars; women are from Venus; Earth is a hallucination; podcasts are dreams.

  EPISODE 3:

  “STATION MANAGEMENT”

  JULY 15, 2012

  THE ACT OF RECORDING AUDIO NARRATION IS A RATHER LONELY PURSUIT. Locked in a soundproof booth with noise-canceling headphones amplifying everything including your own heartbeat, the narrator relies on a director or a sound engineer to help shape a performance. In the summer of 2012, we, the creative team behind Welcome to Night Vale, had none of these things.

  Episodes were recorded in my cramped West Harlem apartment on free software in the occasional silences between door slams, police sirens, and giddy children called by the siren song of the neighborhood ice-cream truck. I recorded Night Vale (and still do) without direction or quality control by an outside ear, relying on my instincts as a theater performer and love of the horror genre to guide me. After each take, I would close my eyes and listen intently to what I had just recorded, hoping that my performance was interesting enough to hold the listeners’ attention while capturing the underlying creepiness of this little desert town. If everything sounded good, the episode was sent off to Joseph to stitch together with music and special effects.

  A few weeks after recording episode 3, I ran into Joseph in the lobby of the Kraine Theater on East Fourth Street and he told me that he had the completed, unreleased episode on his phone, and asked if I’d like to hear it. In that first listen, I became aware of why this episode was so special and marked a turning point in the series as a whole: it was the first time the main conflict involved the as-of-yet unnamed Cecil on air and in the present moment. The horror of confronting the Eldritch Abomination that is Station Management was happening live and was not being reported secondhand. Cecil was not safely tucked away in his booth, passively observing the horrors of life in Night Vale, he was facing them head-on. Supported by the ethereal music of Jon Bernstein, a.k.a. Disparition, and the sound effects Joseph had found through open-source sites (featuring “monster noises” made by digitally manipulating the sounds of drinking straws against plastic lids of all things), I realized that my lonely recording sessions were part of something larger, more terrifying, and more entertaining than I could have anticipated.

  —Cecil Baldwin, Voice of Cecil Palmer

  The Arctic is lit by the midnight sun. The surface of the moon is lit by the face of the earth. Our little town is lit too, by lights just above that we cannot explain.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

  The Night Vale Daily Journal has announced that they will be cutting back their publication schedule to Monday through Thursday only, due to the economic downturn and a massive decline in the literate population. The Thursday Daily Journal will now be called the Weekend Edition, and on Sundays, newspaper kiosks usually filled with important newsprint will be filled with two-percent milk. When asked why milk, the Journal’s publishing editor, Leann Hart, said, “It is important that we maintain an unbiased approach to news reporting.”

  The Night Vale Business Association is proud to announce the new Night Vale Stadium, next to the Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. This stadium will be able to seat fifty thousand, but will be closed all nights of the year except November 10 for the annual Parade of the Mysterious Hooded Figures, in which all of our favorite ominous hooded figures—the one that lurks under the slide in the Night Vale Elementary playground, the ones that meet regularly in the Dog Park, and the one that will occasionally openly steal babies and for reasons no one can understand, we all stand by and let him do it—all of them will be parading proudly through Night Vale Stadium. I tell you, with these new facilities, it prom
ises to be quite a spectacle. And then it promises to be a vast, dark, and echoey space for the other meaningless 364 days of the year.

  Here at the radio station, it’s contract negotiation season with the Station Management again. That’s always an interesting time. Now, obviously I’m not allowed to go into details, but negotiation is tricky when you’re never allowed to glimpse what you’re negotiating with. Station Management stays inside their office at all times, only communicating with us through sealed envelopes that are spat out from under the door like a sunflower shell through teeth. Then, in order to respond, you just kind of shout at the closed door and hope management hears. Sometimes you can see movement through the frosted glass, large shapes shifting around, strange tendrils whipping through the air. Architecturally speaking, the apparent size of management’s office does not physically make sense given the size of the building, but it’s hard to say, really, as no one has ever seen the actual office, only its translucence.

  Look, I’ve probably said too much.

  I can see down the hall that an envelope just came flying out. I pray it’s not another HR retraining session in the Dark Box, ah, but what can I say? I’m a reporter at heart. I can’t not report.

  [Sound of envelope tearing open and paper unfolding]

  Oh. My. Let’s go to the seven-day outlook.

  [Sound of paper shuffling on desk, a bit frantic/hurried]

  Your daily shades of the sky forecast. Monday: turquoise. Tuesday: taupe. Wednesday: robin’s egg. Thursday: turquoise-taupe. Friday: coal dust. Saturday: coal dust, with chances of indigo in the late afternoon. Sunday: void.

  The City Council has asked me to remind everyone about the new drive to clean up litter. Night Vale is our home, and who wants to leave trash all over their home? Put it in the garbage can, listeners, and if you see any trash around, pick it up and throw it away! Do your part. Unless the trash is marked with a small red flag. The council has asked me to remind you that any litter marked with a red flag is not to be picked up or approached. Remember the slogan: “No flag=goes in the bag. Red flag=run.”

  Listeners, we are currently fielding numerous reports that books have stopped working. It seems that all over Night Vale, books have simply ceased functioning. The scientists are studying one of the broken books to see if they can understand just what is going on here. The exact problem is currently unclear, but some of the words being used include “sparks,” “meat smell,” “biting,” and “lethal gas.” For your own safety, please do not attempt to open a book until we have more information on the nature and cause of these problems. The City Council has released only a brief statement, indicating that their stance on books has not changed, and that, as always, they believe that books are dangerous and inadvisable, and should not be kept in private homes.

  Another warning for Night Vale residents. Sources say that the used and discount sporting goods store on Flint Drive is a front for the World Government. This is based on extensive study of the location, and also because it has a helicopter pad on which black helicopters regularly depart and land, fairly unusual for a used and discount sporting goods store. We sent our intern, Chad, to try buying a tennis racket, and have not heard back from him for several weeks. This brings me to a related point. To the parents of Chad, the intern: We regret to inform you that your son was lost in the line of community radio duty, and that he will be missed, and never forgotten. May you all feel blessed to have the family that you have, and if you’re looking for sporting goods, check out Play Ball! right over by our own Night Vale Community Radio Station. Play Ball! is only a front for the Sheriff’s Secret Police, and so can be completely trusted.

  Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, reported that a creeping fear came into Night Vale today. He felt it first as a mild apprehension, then a growing worry, and finally a mortal panic. It passed from him to the employees at the car lot, who crouched behind their cars and cast fearful eyes at the empty sky. It did not affect Old Woman Josie, presumably because of her angelic protection, but it went from there to the rest of the town, until we all were shivering in anticipation for a terrible thing that we could not yet see.

  I myself was frozen, sure that any movement would lead to death, that any word would be my last. Of course, that also could have been the contract negotiations with Station Management and the hideous envelope I just received. Also, I’m battling Lyme disease.

  Meanwhile, the creeping fear passed, first leaving Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, and then the car lot, where they went back to offering gently used cars at affordable prices, and finally the rest of us, who could go back to living with the knowledge that, at any given moment, we will either live or die, and it’s no use guessing which. It is not currently known where the creeping fear will go next. Hopefully to Desert Bluffs. It would serve them right.

  Two hawk-eyed listeners sent in reports that Carlos, our curious scientist visitor, was seen getting his beautiful, beautiful hair cut. He was having his gorgeous hair shorn. Cut! Cut short—so very short—from his perfectly shaped, brilliant head.

  Listeners, I am not one to gossip (even if it IS a local celebrity), but please explain to me why Carlos would strip away, decimate, any part of his thick black hair (not to ignore the dignified, if premature, touch of gray in the temples)? What treacherous barber would agree to such depravity? Who takes mere money, or even soulless joy, in depriving our small community of such a simple but important act as luridly admiring Carlos’s stunning coif?

  Reports, from two intrepid sources, are that it was Telly the Barber. Telly, who likes sports and has posters of combs. Telly the Barber seems to be the one who betrayed our community. Telly the Barber.

  It is Telly the Barber, at the corner of SW Fifth Street and Old Musk Road, with the red-and-white spinning pole and the sign that says “Telly’s.” Telly is about five foot nine with a small mustache and a thick potbelly. He talks with an accent and sneers. Telly the Barber cut Carlos’s beautiful hair.

  According to reports.

  Telly.

  Now, while I gather myself, let’s have a look at traffic.

  Oh, wow.

  Well, that looks pretty good.

  Yep . . . Yes . . . Okay, not too bad there, either, I see.

  Oh, that gentleman needs to slow it down. It is not a race, my friend.

  (Not a literal one, anyway.)

  That has been traffic.

  [Worried] And now for an editorial.

  I don’t ask favors much, dear listeners. That you know. But I’m asking all of you now to conduct a letter writing campaign to Station Management, which was not pleased with my discussion of their physical attributes and behavior, and is now threatening to shut down my show, or possibly my life, for good.

  Their wording was kind of ambiguous.

  Obviously we will not be able to deliver the letters directly to the Management, per se, as no one has ever opened their door, but we can shout the content of the letters outside their office, and we presume, given an anatomy that includes ears, they will be able to hear what you have to say. So if you like this show, and you want to hear more of it, then we need to hear from you. Make your voice heard to whatever it is that lies in wait behind that darkened office door.

  [Sound of a great rumbling]

  Oh, um . . . I’m sorry, dear listeners. We’ll be back after this word from our sponsors.

  This segment has been brought to us by Big Rico’s Pizza. Listeners, we are proud to have Big Rico’s as a sponsor of our show.

  You will not find a better pizza joint in all of Night Vale than Big Rico’s. Just the other night I stopped by Big Rico’s. I was in the mood for a delicious pizza slice, and since Big Rico’s is the only pizza place in Night Vale that has not burned to the ground in an unsolved arson case—and did I mention is also the best pizza in town!—I ordered a single Rico slice with two authentic toppings.

  And boy was I satisfied. The flavor was scrumptious. The taste was also scrumptious. And it was warm, the
pizza slice. I have been told that even the hooded figures eat there. The waitstaff looked like they avert their hollow gazes quite a bit.

  Even the City Council offers its ringing endorsement of Big Rico’s: All Night Vale citizens are mandated to eat at Big Rico’s once a week. It is a misdemeanor not to!

  Big Rico’s Pizza: No one does a slice like Big Rico, folks. No one.

  [Whispered, afraid] And now, sweet, sweet listeners, the weather.

  WEATHER: “Bill & Annie” by Chuck Brodsky

  [Still afraid] Hello, radio audience. I come to you live from under my desk, where I’ve dragged my microphone and am currently hiding in the fetal position. Did you write letters? Maybe you should not do this anymore. Station Management has opened its door for the first time in my memory and is now roaming the building. I don’t know exactly what Management looks like, as that is when I took cover under my desk, and I can only hope that they are not listening to what’s going on right now or else I may have sealed my fate. I can hear only a kind of clicking footstep and a faint hissing sound like releasing steam. An intern went to see what Management wanted and has not returned. If you are related to Jerry Hartman, afternoon board operator at Night Vale Community Radio, I’m sorry to inform you that he is probably dead or at least corporeally absorbed into Management permanently.

  Jerry and Chad the interns will both be missed, but we will surely see them in the Thanksgiving Day Dead Citizens Impersonation Contest, which this year will be in the employee lounge under the Night Vale Mall from eleven a.m. to nine forty-five p.m. There will be a cash bar and two Twister boards.

  [Hissing sound]

  I am going to see if I can make a break for the door. If you don’t hear from me again, it has truly been a pleasure. Goodnight, Night Vale. And good-bye.

  PROVERB: There’s a special place in hell. It’s really hip. Very exclusive.

  EPISODE 4:

  “PTA MEETING”