The Buying of Lot 37

by Joseph Fink

  Another issue was that in my original draft of the episode, the problematic animals in question were deer. After all, when thinking Night Vale, who doesn’t also think deer? When editing the episode, however, Jeffrey rightly pointed out that there had been a lot of deer in the show and this might be overkill, so he suggested replacing them with another animal while keeping the story’s same basic structure. I agreed and suggested rabbits, which seem similarly benign and innocuous at first glance but, even on their best behavior, would be really alarming when more than six thousand are running around a college campus. Jeffrey did a bit of editorial work on this episode in general—all to the good, in my opinion. Overall, I think some of its strongest moments are his additions—most notably the ultimate fate of the bunnies, which I found particularly morbidly hilarious. If I had to pick a favorite bit of this episode that I contributed myself, though, I would say it’s the conservative dry cleaner eating his plastic hanging bags. Something about it just tickles me.

  —Ashley Lierman

  Home is where the heart is. We found it one day in the sink. It hums things late at night, but they are not songs.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE

  If there’s one thing I’ve learned as a proud citizen of Night Vale, it’s that horses are incredibly susceptible to suggestions from government satellites. But I’ve also learned that Night Vale is a community that cares about education. Night Vale is a community that fears education. Night Vale is a community that allows education to happen the way terrified campers allow bears to eat their food. Education is important, say whispers with no obvious source we all hear every night.

  College graduation rates in our little town are above the national average. We bravely continue to promote literacy in spite of the terrible dangers associated with books. Our truancy rates have significantly declined due to the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s program of humane, low-fatality taserings.

  So I know we can count on all of you to support the Night Vale Community College Capital Campaign, which was launched this past Monday to fund the establishment of a new science center for students. Science, I especially believe, is very important.

  College President Sarah Sultan announced, “In our present, rapidly changing technological environment, it is more important than ever to encourage students to consider study and careers in all the sciences. Except astronomy,” she added, pretending she was coughing. “Nobody cares about astronomy,” she said obviously under a cough.

  Reporters stood quiet and confused about how President Sultan could make such an announcement, as she is a smooth, fist-sized river rock, and has no visible mouth and likely no internal organs, muscles or passageways that can create a human-sounding voice.

  “Telepathy,” President Sultan said without a cough. “It’s telepathy, you guys,” she said in all of our minds.

  Fundraising opportunities like these can make a huge difference to small local colleges, so please, Night Vale, consider making a contribution. As always, you can give to the capital campaign by burying your check, cash, or credit card donation in warm, wet earth and whispering, “I know what you did. I do not forget.”

  I’ve gotten a lot of calls and emails and telegrams and sympathetic glances the past couple of weeks from people who are wondering if Carlos the scientist has returned from the otherworld desert he is trapped in. And here I remind you that he became trapped there while saving our city from treacherous, dark forces. I remind you he is a hero. I remind you that my boyfriend is a hero.

  Sadly, Carlos is still in the desert, the same desert our new mayor was once trapped in. Fortunately, as Dana discovered, cell phone batteries last forever there, and there’s pretty good Wi-Fi despite there being just vast amounts of sand and, apparently, a mountain.

  But if our mayor can make it out fine, I think a scientist can, too. Scientists are always fine.

  Listeners, I’ve been seeing all the reviews for that new restaurant, Tourniquet. Sounds like executive chef LeSean Mason has created a real culinary hit. It’s almost impossible to get a reservation there. I tried to get a table (for . . . for just one, of course) and the nearest available date was not for another two months. And even then, it wasn’t a reservation for Tourniquet, but for Applebee’s.

  Actually, you know what? I think I’ve been looking at the Applebee’s website. It’s very easy to misspell tourniquet.

  Anyway, Gia Samuels’s review in the latest issue of the Night Vale Daily Journal mentioned Tourniquet sous chef, Earl Harlan. And that surprised me. He was a childhood friend of mine, and I had no idea he was a professional chef. It also surprised me because he was dragged away screaming by the herd of mute children at last year’s Eternal Scout ceremonies. Very few ever survive Boy Scout courts of honor, especially not those dragged away by the mute children.

  So, it’s good to see Earl back home and safe, and likely returning to his volunteer duties as Scout Master. I hope one day I can get a reservation to his fine restaurant. Let me see. Nothing. Oh wait. Yes! Yes! I got one. I . . . oh no. No, I’m on the Applebee’s website again. Never mind.

  An update on the progress of the Night Vale Community College Capital Campaign. Thanks to the generous donations of Night Vale citizens, the campaign has already reached 30 percent of its target goal.

  A particularly notable gift was made by local eccentric recluse and proud alumna Mrs. Sylvia Wickersham. The college fundraising staff was caught off-guard by this donation, as no one has heard from or seen Mrs. Wickersham in over a decade. Also the gift was a fine porcelain vase filled with two dozen English Angora rabbits.

  College representatives expressed their gratitude for Mrs. Wickersham’s generous and super cute contribution, of course, but would like to remind the greater community that it is preferred that donations be made via cash, check, credit card, spinal columns, or other common negotiable currencies.

  “Money,” college representatives added helpfully, through the narrow crack of a slightly lifted manhole cover on Main Street. “You know, the kind you use to procure goods and services, when you still have a physical form?” they added in spray-painted bubble graffiti on the side of an abandoned warehouse near the train tracks.

  More on this, as there is more on this.

  Night Vale, our new leader is almost here!

  This Friday is inauguration day for new mayor, Dana Cardinal, who used to be an intern at this very radio station. Dana may, in fact, be the most successful intern this station has ever had. So few of our interns have ever gone on to do anything important.

  Inauguration of new mayors includes a swearing-in ceremony that takes place behind a thick velvet curtain. The curtain is raised a few inches, and all the press and public are shown a few shuffling feet and hear loud, high-pitched shouts. The mayoral swearing-in ceremony is the one point in Night Vale’s political calendar where citizens may voice their opinions and beliefs without risking reprisal or imprisonment. They are, in fact, encouraged to shout even the most forbidden beliefs and thoughts during the ceremony, openly, and without fear.

  The event will take place in an undisclosed location two hundred miles from downtown Night Vale, and will be exactly two minutes long.

  Former mayoral candidates the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home and Hiram McDaniels, who is literally a five-headed dragon, have both declared this a botched election and are filing for a recount by shouting their complaints into the side of a canyon wall they think might be Hidden Gorge. No one can tell exactly where Hidden Gorge is, which is how it got its name: Gorge.

  It doesn’t matter. I’m ecstatic for our new mayor. It’ll be weird having a former intern as a leader, but I just think she’ll do a wonderful job. Congratulations, old young friend.

  I’ve just been informed that Mrs. Sylvia Wickersham has made another large donation to the Night Vale Community College Capital Campaign: this one consisting of one thousand live and extremely fluffy rabbits.

  The Capital Committee is beginning to have difficulty
finding space on campus to house her donations. What foliage existed on campus has been immediately devoured, several of the botany program’s greenhouses have been broken into and ransacked, and many of the rabbits have reportedly entered the student center, refusing to wait in line before ordering at the snack bar and taking way more napkins than they need.

  In an effort to make the most of this impressive endowment, the Capital Committee is currently discussing the possibility of repurposing some of the rabbits toward Residence Life operations.

  English Angora rabbits are well known for their thick, soft, silky wool so the College’s Student Housing Office feels this presents an opportunity to make new blankets and rugs and hats and blindfolds for students, as well as winter cloaks for the coyote-faced advisers that lurk about the Student Programs Office.

  Representatives have attempted to contact Mrs. Wickersham to discuss the possible redistribution of her generous gifts, but without success. More curiously, when attempting to visit Mrs. Wickersham’s home, Committee Members were informed by her neighbors that they have never actually seen Mrs. Wickersham but they often have dreams of her.

  “I mean she never looks like herself,” each of the neighbors stated. “Generally she appears as a hovering green box that pulses with light, and her voice sounds like an oboe playing a whole note, but, like, in this dream kind of way where I totally know it’s her,” they concluded.

  Some Committee Members raised questions about how an incorporeal dream being could donate wild animals, and also if maybe she could stop doing that. Those members were quietly removed from the room by other Committee Members.

  In any case, Night Vale, let us hold Mrs. Wickersham in our thoughts and of course dreams, and hope for her safe return. Or, possibly, for an end to her rabbit donations. Both would be nice, but let’s not be greedy, Night Vale. We all take what we can get in this life, you know?

  We take what we get.

  Bad news from the Night Vale Community College, listeners. A donation of five thousand English angora rabbits in the name of Mrs. Sylvia Wickersham has just arrived at the College’s fundraising headquarters. It’s uncertain how they found their way there, as said headquarters had already been relocated to the underground Emergency Fundraising-Related Disaster Bunker, constructed in the 1970s by Dr. Erliss Badermyer, the Community College’s all-time second-least-popular president.

  As of last report, the rabbits have invaded and taken over control of fundraising headquarters: using dedicated telephone lines to make personal calls, uttering insensitive remarks about the body types of students and staff, and tilting the vending machines in clear violation of safety labeling.

  Simone Rigadeau, the transient who lives in the Earth Sciences building, says these are typical behaviors for this breed of rabbit and that she is not surprised. She also repeated her claim that the world ended more than thirty years ago before grunting some French cuss words and disappearing into a small round hole in the wall.

  The 6,800 rabbits—more rabbits now than students—are running amok throughout campus. They have disrupted lectures and shown flagrant disrespect for faculty. They have joined academic and social organizations and engaged in irresponsible drinking. There are even reports that these vulgar, cuddly rodents broke into the College President’s office, and licked viciously on President Sultan for several minutes before her administrative assistant could free her.

  Listeners, this is an urgent situation. These rabbits—well, all rabbits, really—are a menace, and they now have access to all the advantages of higher education. I advise you to lock your bookshelves, eat your diplomas, and place any vulnerable stones or rocks in your home on high, inaccessible shelves. If you see a rabbit, do not attempt to engage it in debate on post-structuralism, semiotics, gender politics, or sporting events.

  Even as I speak to you, college officials and the Sheriff’s Secret Police are desperately searching for Mrs. Wickersham, hoping to mitigate some of the damage that is being done. I hope that they find her, Night Vale. I hope that the rabbits do not find us. I hope that we all find something, or someone, that can keep the light on a little longer against the endless, pressing dark.

  And in the meantime, I take you now to the weather.

  WEATHER: “Ghost Story” by Charming Disaster

  We have received information that agents of the Sheriff’s Secret Police broke down the door to Mrs. Sylvia Wickersham’s neo-Victorian home on the east side of town. Their search of the house found it completely empty and uninhabited, with the exception of a small, green tree lizard sunning itself in the front parlor.

  The Sheriff’s Secret Police grabbed the lizard and were on the verge of eating it, as none of them had had lunch that day—I mean some raisins and a few roasted almonds, but that’s not really a full lunch—and lizards are a complete protein. But the Capital Campaign Committee stopped them.

  “This is Mrs. Wickersham,” said a Committee Member.

  “This is Mrs. Wickersham?” said the Secret Policeperson.

  “Yes,” the Committee Member said, explaining further that Mrs. Wickersham was a high-level donor to the college. At certain levels, donors receive benefits like mugs or tote bags or names carved into bloodstones. At higher levels, donors receive very special benefits like being able to invade the dreams of their neighbors, or having all of their belongings taken from their home, or being transformed permanently into a tree lizard.

  “Most of our benefactors choose a Gila or skink or chuckwalla,” the Committee Member said, quoting from the College’s own fundraising brochure, as the lizard form of Mrs. Wickersham dangled and squirmed above the Sheriff’s Secret Policeperson’s gaping purple maw.

  “Mrs. Wickersham takes a lot of pride in her alma mater,” the Committee Member explained, “and she has donated so much to the college. None of it has ever been money, but she is a valued donor to the community,” continued the Committee Member as a brass band somewhere else in the world and completely unrelated to this story played eighth notes quickly, but softly.

  “Why did you make a big fuss about it and call us here?” said the Secret Policeperson.

  “Oh that,” said the Committee Member, shrugging. “It was good publicity for our Capital Campaign.”

  The Sheriff’s Secret Police coaxed the tree lizard into a comfortable vivarium filled with fresh reptile bark, wrote EVIDENCE on the side of it in Sharpie, and removed it to an undisclosed location near the microwave in the Secret Police break room.

  In her absence, Mrs. Wickersham’s next of kin was found to legally be her dry cleaner, Ben Burnham, who was amenable to the idea of retracting Mrs. Wickersham’s donation. More specifically, what he said was, “Yeah, sure, whatever. What do I care? All the colleges’re just factories for little socialist robots these days anyway. Beep boop, free healthcare for everybody, beep boop, I’m a robot.” He then began to, without breaking eye contact, eat the plastic hanging bags on his desk, starting from the top and working his way down.

  The rabbits have been removed and redonated to the Night Vale Petting Zoo. This worked out well, since until today the Night Vale Petting Zoo has only ever housed emaciated wolves. But now, thanks to Mr. Burnham’s donation (on behalf of Mrs. Wickersham) of nearly eight thousand cuddly rabbits, those wolves will not be hungry again for months.

  Despite all interruptions, the Night Vale Community College Capital Campaign has actually surpassed its undisclosed goal, and construction of the science center is slated to begin this coming summer. The Capital Committee would like to extend its thanks to everyone who donated. A community that cares for education, after all, is a community that cares for its future—with all the fear and respect and awe that the future is due. Knowledge may be terrible, but we can only prefer it to ignorance. Light may be terrible, but we can only prefer it to the dark.

  Stay tuned next for a reality that cannot possibly match expectation.

  And as always, good night, Night Vale. Good night.

  PROVERB:Soccer is
also commonly known as football, Canadian baseball, American football, violent jogging, and World War II.

  Episode 51:

  “Rumbling”

  AUGUST 1, 2014

  GUEST VOICE: DYLAN MARRON (CARLOS)

  MY INTRODUCTION TO THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF NIGHT VALE AND fictional courtship with my favorite small-town radio host ran parallel with something else: falling in love off-mic with my favorite human, a human named Todd.

  Before I was invited to join the cast as Carlos, when Night Vale was just a cool town my friends had built in the minds of many, Todd and I happily listened along as fans. We texted each other after hearing the pilot episode and remarked how cool it was that folks across the world could witness an interracial queer couple falling in love set against the backdrop of a sleepy desert town as we, ourselves, an interracial queer couple, happily fell down that same lovely and infinite hole.

  Our stories didn’t always align on the calendar, but the connective lines could still be drawn. Carlos and Cecil moved in with each other first, but then Todd and I beat our fictional partners to the altar. It was never a competition, but a synchronized double date through time and space that transcended the planes of fiction and life.

  In “Rumbling,” we find Carlos still trapped in the desert otherworld while Cecil is missing him back home in Night Vale, or as we might say colloquially in our pedestrian world: long distance. In this way, the podcast served as a precursor two years before Todd and I became a long-distance couple ourselves, like so many modern partners who refuse to trade relationship for career often do.

  Joseph and Jeffrey are especially skilled at writing about love. Their representation of love is not always direct, but rather refracted through the weird-but-deeply-accurate funhouse mirror that is Welcome to Night Vale. In this episode they perfectly capture the obstacle course that is long distance in their own Night Valean way. It is at the same time mundane and profound, while communication across distance is alternately casual and urgent. All of that is present here.