by Joseph Fink
KEVIN:Good for them. Protecting our community.
CARLOS:No, but, I was trying to explain that the other army was marching perpendicular to us. They were not marching toward us. This desert is filled with small armies always marching in different directions. We can’t attack them all for no reason. And now my kitchen counter is demolished.
KEVIN:Oh, it’ll grow back. So, I’m so excited to learn more about your research into the strange properties of this region. I think you once called this desert otherworld “the most scientifically interesting community in the U.S.”
CARLOS:Well, no, my exact words were—
KEVIN:So when do you expect the results? Sounds like whatever you come up with could possibly be a monumental shift in how we perceive thermodynamic laws.
CARLOS:I’m at my lab right now, hunched over my computer waiting for it to complete its final report. Then comparing its results to my thousands of handwritten notes from the past year, I believe I can pinpoint the exact source of this desert’s energy. It shouldn’t be long. Please don’t rush me.
KEVIN:Great. Let us know soon, though. While Carlos does that, perhaps I can tell you all a little bit about our new radio station—take you on an audio tour, if you will. We have a tall broadcast tower made of stones and adobe. Those zig-zaggy electrical bolts visibly shooting outward from the top of the tower? Those are actual radio waves!
Inside the building itself, we have a small broadcast booth with a couple of new mics. Some of the members of the masked army of giants helped me decorate my studio, too. It was so empty and bloodless before. It required a lot of lizards and rodents, but it’s finally starting to feel like home.
I’ve got a producer’s booth just off to my right. I can see my old intern Vanessa in there. Hi, Vanessa! We’re a bit understaffed, so Vanessa has been having to act as my producer as well as head of sales and marketing and even answering phones. Good thing she has a doppelgänger to help out! Most people kill their double, but that’s such a waste of a good opportunity. The more, the merrier, the more productive, I say.
Oh, and we’re hiring right now. If you have experience in any of the following areas—ad sales, graphic design, office management, entomology, Fortran programming, falconry, or sports law—please send your resume to “Radio Station c/o Kevin.” We have no postal service in the desert otherworld, nor any mailboxes, so it’s important that you carefully reread The Secret by Rhonda Byrne in order to wish your resume into my office.
Sounds like Carlos is back on the line now. Did you get the results from your—
CARLOS:Doug and Alicia are back.
KEVIN:Oh, good. So wonderful to have dear friends around to be a part of your brilliant achievement.
CARLOS:They are in no condition to celebrate the great strides of scientific study right now. Most of the army returned from fighting but there are more than a dozen who did not. Alicia lost two fingers and Doug is bleeding quite badly because of a compound fracture in his forearm.
Everyone who returned is in treatable condition. I believe they’ll be fine, but they’re wounded and need lots of rest [off mic, as if shouting to people in the room] AND NO MORE FIGHTING FOR A LONG TIME. [back to phone] It’s a mess over here.
KEVIN:Good thing they have such a good and helpful friend in you. So tell us about your study on the strange energy here in the desert.
CARLOS:I can’t yet. The army came in so quickly, dropping their weapons everywhere along with some detached limbs that I don’t even think belong to them. And all of my journals, which I had left out and open on my desk, have been rendered unusable. There are broken beakers and blood-soaked composition notebooks everywhere. I don’t even know where to begin cleaning up all of this blood.
KEVIN:[slightly pleased sound]
CARLOS:I’m sorry did you say something?
KEVIN:Nope. I just like your story. Carry on.
CARLOS:[off mic] DOUG! DOUG! Come back. [on mic] Kevin, I have to go. Doug just constructed a makeshift splint out of rocks and snakes. He grabbed his axe and ran out the door. And there goes Alicia. [off mic] Stop going to war! You need rest! [on mic] Call you back, Kevin. They can’t go on like this.
KEVIN:Listeners, I’m getting word of strong winds out of the east, stirring up dust devils and hurling plant debris and weak-willed animals through the air. This is a rare sunless day for our otherworld desert. While Carlos tries to get his notes unbloodied, let’s have a closer look at the weather.
WEATHER: “Pyramid” by Jason Webley
Wow, that weather report was informative. I had no idea how dangerous a storm that was until I heard that report. To be a radio broadcaster who gets to tell stories about things that make us unhappy thrills me to my bones. Because by telling people about all that can make us unhappy, I prepare them to truly enjoy those happy moments when they come.
Once, my hometown of Desert Bluffs had a deadly outbreak of throat spiders. Hundreds were diagnosed with this usually treatable disease, but it was a particularly virulent strain and many people died or were left without voices and lower jaws when it was all over. Almost a day wouldn’t go by where you didn’t hear a fit of strenuous coughing punctuated by a muffled pop, only to turn around and see a cascade of tiny spiders pouring over the craggy ledge that used to be a person’s lower teeth.
Each day I got to report these upsetting stories, but the best part about it was when Desert Bluffs residents eventually stopped losing part of their faces to throat spiders and we all rejoiced in our newly healthy and happy lives. As the saying goes: It’s always dawn.
Oh, and speaking of sunshine, Carlos just arrived here, live in the studio with me. Carlos, did you go out in this weather? You’re covered in dust and those look like friction burns in the shape of lab goggles on your face. Are you okay? Did Doug and Alicia make it back?
CARLOS:Not yet . . . They . . . What’s this all over your studio? Is that barbecue sauce?
KEVIN:Oh that? That’s just blood. And some old bones and loose teeth and beaks and things. I finally decorated. Thanks for noticing. And I just noticed you have a piece of paper in your hand. That must be your final report! Look at how we both notice things about each other! I love that!
CARLOS:I . . . I . . . Well . . .
KEVIN:You sound sad, which is great news because it means you’ll be happy again eventually. It’s a tough day, what with all the weather and the wars and the blood. But your boyfriend will soon be moving from Night Vale to come live here with you.
CARLOS:Well, about that. . . .
KEVIN:And. AND! You finally have the scientific results of your hard scientific work.
CARLOS:I don’t. I don’t have results, Kevin. When the army marched out again, I went back to trying to recover my notes. I had just gotten the lab desktops clean when Alicia’s large dog bounded through the lab and out the front door, sending every glass tube and jar crashing onto the floor. When I bent over to see the damage, I saw my computer there too, on the tile, snapped nearly in half, a tuft of white fur covering the keyboard, singed slightly by the smoke streaking out of the broken monitor. I lost it all, Kevin. My entire year of study is gone.
KEVIN:What’s the paper then? Did you at least learn some of your results?
CARLOS:This is nothing. It’s just a letter I wrote to a . . . to a friend.
KEVIN:Oh, I love letters! Letters are so fun to receive!
CARLOS:Not this one. It’s a sad letter. A letter about regrets. About mistakes. You know how sometimes you spend a lot of time with someone and you think that someone makes you happy, but then suddenly, one day, you realize maybe you weren’t happy at all. Maybe you both would be better off doing what you love, in different places. Without each other. Maybe neither of you were as happy as either of you thought.
KEVIN:That is a sad-sounding letter. I don’t understand or like that at all.
CARLOS:I have spent the last year all wrong.
KEVIN:I believe in you, Carlos. Don’t let destruction, blood, and war hold you b
ack. You’re a brilliant scientist.
CARLOS:I realize I need to start everything over. Rededicate myself. I need to do it right this time. No more distractions. I can’t spend another year like this one. So, it pains me to carry this letter, but I wrote it to set my boundaries.
KEVIN:So you know, there’s no postal service here yet.
CARLOS:I know. That’s why I’m hand-delivering it.
KEVIN:Remember, no one should ever be sad. Choose not to be sad, Carlos. In fact, choose to be happy. Perhaps your letter is the first step to choosing happiness, even while it makes someone else sad.
CARLOS:I understand. Listen. I should go. I’m headed to Night Vale one final time. I need to talk to Cecil about . . . well about some changes.
Thanks for everything, Kevin. You’ve been so kind to me in this difficult year.
KEVIN:Good-bye, Carlos. Well, it’s a shame that our huge scientific breakthrough didn’t quite happen today. As the old phrase goes, “The best laid plans of mice and men are completely different kinds of plans all together. Very different creatures, those two.”
But it’s not a total wash, our next show should feature spine-tingling adventure stories about today’s desert battles.
We have so much to do, us. So much to explore and understand. So much to make here in our great desert otherworld. Say, we really do need a name for this place. Things without names don’t really exist.
So, I’m going to call this . . . well . . . I’m going to call it Desert Bluffs. Desert Bluffs was the name of my hometown, and by naming it Desert Bluffs, this place becomes my new hometown. We are in my home. We are in Desert Bluffs, no matter where we are in space or time. What is a town but a name, right?
Until next time, new Desert—
Oh! It looks like Carlos left behind that letter he was supposed to hand deliver. I better not read it. No. better not.
Until next time, new Desert Bluffs, until next time.
[sound of paper slowly opening; Kevin reads Carlos’s letter explaining he’s never returning to this desert otherworld, leaving Kevin alone; away from mic]
Oh. Oh no. This is so sad. No. I don’t like this. I am sad. No. No.
PROVERB:A rose by any other name is called something else.
Episode 70B:
“Review”
JUNE 15, 2015
IN 2015, I WAS STARTING TO WORK ON A NEW PODCAST IDEA THAT would eventually become Within the Wires. The first season of Wires is told entirely in the style of relaxation cassettes, which slowly unfold over the course of ten episodes to reveal a much deeper story about who you, the listener, are and what the narrator is really trying to get you to do. The second season was told as museum audio guides that slowly unravel the mystery of a missing artist.
I’m not sure what sent me down this way of thinking, but when writing this episode, I was really interested in couching a fictional story as something other than what it was about. Episode 70B is quite a bit more straightforward than Within the Wires in its narration and plot revelations.
But rather than have Cecil simply say, “Okay, gotta tell you a bunch of stuff that happened last night,” I wanted to couch it as a review of the new opera at the recently re-opened opera house. Cecil’s critique quickly goes sidewise because that’s what happens anytime Cecil tries to deliver news.
Another thing to look for here: more mention of Lee Marvin and a reference to the confrontational theatrical stylings of the Italian Futurists, who often referred to their stage works, not as plays but as battles. They would do things like triple-sell seats or perform plays in whispered gibberish or fail to open the curtain more than a few inches, in order to cause audience confusion and incite some kind of anger. This is kind of cool sounding on the surface. Very avant garde! But let’s remember also that they hated Jews and women and loved war (“the earth’s hygiene”).
They also wrote manifestos on how to eat pasta. (It involved sandpaper.) So let’s pace ourselves on how cool they really were.
—Jeffrey Cranor
“I was terrified, yes, but like everyone, I’m usually terrified.”
The year-three finale of Welcome to Night Vale is so vast in scope, it had to be split into two separate episodes, released simultaneously: While Episode 70A deals with Carlos and Kevin in Desert Bluffs (boo, Desert Bluffs), 70B is all about the intrigue going on back in Night Vale: murder, conspiracy, mistaken identity, mind control, mystic visions, reconciliation, family, and of course, love.
The backdrop for all this operatic sturm und drang is, appropriately, the gala premier of the new Old Opera House. All the usual suspects are in attendance, dressed to the nines, like a scene out of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, but of course opera in Night Vale is nothing like it is in our part of the world. (In a cool little theater-history Easter egg from the writers, the opera performance described in the episode is actually lifted from historical accounts of real plays performed by Marinetti and the Italian Futurists, the fascist avant-garde from the early twentieth century.)
In a previous episode (“Lot 37”), Cecil Palmer himself had been purchased at auction; the person who controls him, as well as their intentions for him, only now come to light, and Cecil finds himself being controlled as the instrument of some external design, like a character in someone else’s drama. It’s a sort of nightmare—or maybe it’s the human condition, I’m not sure which.
And then comes the most Martin Scorsese moment in all of Night Vale: a long limo arrives to pick Cecil up after the carnage has ended, and in my mind, I picture it as the ultimate long-take Steadicam shot, the camera gliding past all the characters of Night Vale, everyone that Cecil loves and feels at home with. In the recording, you may notice this is the first time Cecil mentions Steve Carlsberg without sneering. This is a celebration of family and community, petty squabbles can wait for another time. And then, of course, there’s the fate of our two star-crossed lovers (no spoilers!).
After a year of dramatic upheavals and frayed relationships, this episode achieves what all good season finales strive for: a satisfying resolution to stories known, and laying the seeds for stories yet to come.
—Cecil Baldwin
CECIL: If you love something set it free. If it doesn’t come back, it probably died of sadness because it thought you loved it.
WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
It’s difficult to say good-bye to your hometown. Difficult, indeed.
We’ll get to all of that soon, but first, we bring you the item of, I’m sure, most interest to all of you: a review of last night’s opera, the inaugural performance of the new Old Night Vale Opera House, a tribute to the building which once stood proudly in this town for decades before succumbing twenty years ago to an unchecked puppy infestation.
The new Old Opera House is luxurious and stylish. I had no idea what opera was until last night, so my expectations for the building were pretty low. I mean, I don’t know what you think opera is. I was expecting something like fenced in yards full of filthy straw occupied by hundreds of heavily drugged wolves, but it turns out that opera houses look nothing like petting zoos. This place had a chandelier and velvet seats and lush red curtains and a snack bar and people wearing just the fanciest clothes you could imagine: tuxedos and ball gowns and balaclavas and shin guards.
Old Woman Josie and all of her tall, winged friends who go by the name Erika and who claim to be angels were there. They were the driving force behind the building of the new Old Opera House.
It was only fitting then that before the performance, Josie gave a toast from the stage. She toasted opera and Night Vale and all of the donors who made the opera house possible. Finally she toasted old friends, and when she did, she looked at me and grinned. I blushed and looked down at my shoes, which were tasteful sponge clogs that matched my tights perfectly.
Okay, so I’m sure you’re asking the same question I’ve been asking for years: What even is opera? I don’t have any training in opera, but I’ll do my best to describe it.
Basically, opera is kind of like theater, but they don’t raise the curtain all the way up, so you only can see feet shuffling about while you hear high-pitched wailing and combustion engines. This particular opera was called “Amara.” It was composed and conducted and mostly performed by acting legend Lee Marvin. It was about a young girl who goes on some kind of . . . adventure?
It wasn’t clear, because opera is super interactive and entirely nonlinear. Sometimes people from the audience throw old fruit at the stage and then actors jump into the audience to wrestle these people. Audience members are encouraged to yell out things they think the performers should do and performers often vocalize their distaste for the audience. At one point in the first act I shouted, “Sing a song about old love and new horizons, about wanderlust and uncertainty!” and then a member of the chorus spat at me and moments later I felt someone handcuff me to my armrest. It was super fun.
They did raise the curtain all the way once, revealing a detailed set of a storm-tossed ocean, upon which a great ship lurched skyward atop a curling, monstrous wave. The details of the painting and the carpentry were flawless. I have never been in such awe of a stage set as I was then, but I think the stage manager recognized the error in allowing the audience to see this and quickly lowered the curtain to just a couple feet off the floor.
I didn’t recognize most of the performers because they kept the curtain so low and the stage lights so dim, but I did note that Frank Chen was in the cast, looking every inch the normal human with, I can only assume, a normal number of heads.
At the start of the second act, I sensed a blurry motion in my periphery. I felt a cold touch on my chained hand.
“Nice handcuffs,” a whisper said. “Looks like you won’t be able to save your friend Dana tonight.”
I was terrified, yes, but like everyone, I’m usually terrified. I also felt rage. Rage at the Faceless Old Woman whispering behind me. Had she handcuffed me so that I could not save my former intern, my former friend, my current mayor, Dana Cardinal from whatever evil deeds were coming her way?
