Mostly Void, Partially Stars Page 9

  And now a word from our sponsor.

  You come home. The lights are off. You get an uneasy feeling. Suddenly, the phone rings. You remember that you do not have a phone. It rings some more. You do not know what to do. Then, you remember that, yes, you do own a phone. Why wouldn’t you own a phone? Everyone owns a phone. The phone is still ringing. Ha ha ha ha. How silly to think you didn’t own a phone. It rings again. You smile and shrug and answer the ringing phone. It is still dark. “Hello,” you say. “They are waiting for you,” a whispery, gender-indeterminate voice tells you. “It is your time,” it says. You turn on the light. You laugh again, wondering why it took you so long to turn on the light. “Gosh, it was dark,” you think. “Hello?” the voice asks. You hang up, glad you remembered to buy Tropicana orange juice at least.

  Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice is made from the freshest oranges with no added flavors or preservatives. Also, you should get caller ID. It’s the twenty-first century. How do you not have caller ID? Really? Tropicana.

  This just in: Two more school children were attacked by the wild dogs this morning near the playground at Night Vale Elementary School. One of the boys was taken to Night Vale General with treatable leg injuries. The other boy, we understand, was unharmed because he was a better boy, and more loved by the angels. We’ve also received confirmation that a handful of mangy curs broke into the senior center, stole their televisions, and made the Internet stop working.

  This has gotten out of hand, ladies and gentlemen. We simply cannot live in fear for our safety because of wild dogs. Allow me a brief editorial here, if you would. First off, please have your pets fixed. It’s an inexpensive and quick process. You can take your dog or cat to the Night Vale SPCA, to your local veterinarian, or to Big Rico’s Pizza. Rico studies taxidermy as a hobby, so he’s happy to help out in whatever way he can. Second, many of these dog packs are formed by dogs that are not raised to be loved but bred to fight. Trainers are teaching these dogs everything from jujitsu to kickboxing to knife work. This is simply unacceptable. Dog fighting is illegal, cruel to animals, and a danger to society when these dogs are untethered. But, we are a strong, united community here in Night Vale. We must stand up to violence.

  Our town was founded by peace-loving, imperialist conquerors who, to escape taxation, overwhelmed a potentially violent race of indigenous people and founded this beautiful city on principles of family, fortitude, fence building, and friendly propaganda. Let’s not forget our long-standing town motto: “We have nothing to fear except ourselves. We are unholy, awful people. Fear ourselves with silence. Look down, Night Vale. Look down, and forget what you’ve done.” That is the motto of a determined, unified community!

  And now the weather.

  WEATHER: “I Know This” by Rachel Kann

  Ladies and gentlemen, good news. Mayor Pamela Winchell called a press conference moments ago declaring an end to our dog-pack terror. The mayor announced that the dogs were not actually dogs . . . just some plastic bags caught in the breeze that people mistook for wild dogs. There are no wild dogs in Night Vale, she said. And if there were, they’d be sweet little dogs with big, meaningless eyes and tongues like flypaper. The plastic bags, meanwhile, have been safely returned to the Dog Park, from whence they came, and which is to remain unknowable and unremembered.

  Journalists asked about the injuries and aftermath of this morning’s dog pack–related crimes. The mayor responded with a hollow stare. She promptly shook the podium off its base and whispered through gritted teeth: “Plastic bags. Plastic. Bags.” The Sheriff’s Secret Police then ethically kettled the pool of reporters, gently coercing them with pepper spray. Most were taken away peacefully in handcuffs and black hoods.

  Thank goodness it was all a misunderstanding. Dear listeners, I don’t want to say I told you so, but wasn’t I right when I said we were a determined, resilient little town? In the face of wild beasts, we did not crumble. We did not back down. We stood eye to eye with violence and it blinked first. Stand proud, Night Vale. Be afraid on the inside, of course. You are, after all, your own downfall. But stand proud against those predators that would harm your family.

  And that is our show. Thank you for listening, listeners. Stay tuned next for the popular advice program Dr. Brandon. This week, Dr. Brandon offers a step-by-step on how to remove your own appendix without surgery.

  The sky tonight is a soft, quivering green. The wind is calm, but prepared. Get your sleep, Night Vale. And don’t forget to dream. Goodnight.

  PROVERB: Eating meat is a difficult moral decision, because it’s stolen, that meat. You should apologize.

  EPISODE 11:

  “WHEAT & WHEAT BY-PRODUCTS”

  NOVEMBER 15, 2012

  MANY EPISODES OF NIGHT VALE START WITH A SINGLE PHRASE OR IMAGE that gets stuck in my head and stays there until I write a podcast script to get it out. This episode is one of those.

  The phrase “wheat & wheat by-products” occurred to me one day and would not let my mind go. I loved the sound of it, and what it implied about the food system that would advertise “wheat by-products.” I had no real plot arc in mind when I started the script, and the chaos caused by the wheat as well as the solution (remember writers, if you’re stuck, just have something mysteriously vanish) all were improvised as an excuse to keep using the phrase over and over.

  For some reason, in my head, the phrase “wheat & wheat by-products” had to be written with an ampersand. When I asked Jeffrey to change it to that in the title on the feed, the addition of the ampersand somehow caused a bug in the code and crashed our whole feed. Which is when I learned that my own private insistence on writing stuff out a certain way maybe wasn’t worth sharing with the world.

  Bread is deeply important to me. I make it from scratch and by hand regularly. Nothing is as calming as kneading dough and then putting it in to rise. If I had to live in a world without wheat & wheat by-products, I would be very, very sad.

  —Joseph Fink

  Today’s air quality is mauve and speckled.

  WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

  Representatives from the greater medical insurance community announced this week that major insurance providers would no longer cover government-disseminated illnesses. These ailments were created to control undesirable populations and include AIDS, most cancers, irritable bowel syndrome, telekinesis, tingling, and any kind of food allergy.

  Doctors advise that the best way to avoid acquiring any of these conditions is to limit questionable public activities. Try not to be in a lower economic class, and give regularly to an approved religious organization. Take these precautions and you should live a healthy (or at least medically insured) life.

  In other health news, the Night Vale Council for Commerce reminds you to regularly consume wheat & wheat byproducts. By doing so, you are directly supporting the local Night Vale farmer, as well as the local Night Vale commodities conglomerates. Looking for a snack? Try wheat or a wheat by-product. Dinner? Wheat &/or its by-product. Trying to patch a leaky roof? We have just the thing for you, and we also have its by-products. Wheat & wheat by-products. By Americans, for Americans, in Americans, watching Americans.

  New information on the Apache Tracker, who you might remember as that white guy who wears the cartoonishly inaccurate and offensive Indian headdress, and who disappeared some weeks ago after investigating the strange occurrences at the Night Vale Post Office. Well, word is in that he has reappeared, except it now seems he is actually Native American. Witnesses say his features are still recognizable, but during the disappearance he has transformed into that which he always absurdly claimed to be. More explanation of course is needed, but the Apache Tracker is also now only able to speak Russian, and I did not bother to get his statement translated. Apparently he has taken to leaning on the hood of an old Honda Accord in the parking lot of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, shaking his head slowly and checking his watch. Does his complete racial transformation make his previou
s actions less offensive, listeners? Write us a letter telling us what you think, and then put it away in a drawer for ten years. Reading it again, you’ll get a little pang of nostalgia for the person you used to be, once upon a time.

  The City Council today issued a strong warning against the manufacture and sale of discount bloodstones. They say that these bloodstones of inferior design and construction have the potential to cause major accidents in even common, day-to-day chanting rituals. These accidents have included, in just the past few months, locust swarms, pus tornadoes, and the creation and subsequent obliteration of a mirror version of Night Vale, forcing all of us to watch our identical counterparts perish and thus confront the inevitability of our own futures. Anyone caught selling these bloodstones will be put into the Dark Box, pending erasure from recorded history. The lesser charge of buying or possessing them will be met with mere summary execution. Critics charge that the City Council is lying about all of this, due to the fact that the council owns the only certified bloodstone factory in town, but the council has vehemently denied this charge, by gibbering, howling, and knocking over microphones.

  Oh dear. I apologize listeners. We at Night Vale Community Radio are experiencing the following technical problems: the need for air, eye movement, and gooey stuff inside. Please stand by.

  [Pause]

  Thank you. These problems have been corrected.

  An update on our previous message about wheat & wheat by-products. You should not eat wheat or wheat by-products, say several frantic scientists waving clipboards in our studio. As it turns out, all wheat & wheat by-products, for unknown reasons, have turned into venomous snakes, which are crawling all over our small city, causing even more chaos than is normal. These snakes have been described as terrifying, loathsome, and probably from the bowels of hell itself. Also, green and three feet long. If you have any wheat or wheat by-products in your home, you are almost certainly already dead. Sorry about that.

  Property taxes are going up again, Night Vale. Several citizens are justifiably upset over this latest increase, but municipal services do, after all, cost money. Schools, public transportation, parks and recreation facilities, and of course the multibillion-dollar pulsar-development facility. Speaking of which, scientists say they are on the verge of developing the first-ever human-made neutron star. Usually the aftermath of a supernova, this pulsar would be roughly four miles in diameter but with a nearly incomprehensible density that makes it about half the mass of our own sun. And to think, this rapidly rotating sphere of radioactive matter will be right here under the sands of Night Vale, producing enough energy to power the earth for billions of years. The city of Night Vale plans to use the pulsar to light the high school football stadium, which still uses whale oil lamps.

  John Peters, you know, the farmer, is particularly upset not only about the pulsar development but also about the higher taxes. As owner of more than 150 acres, John will certainly have to pay a large share. And given that John is a peach farmer in a desert, he hasn’t actually raised a successful crop in ever. His only income is his half-a-million-dollar annual subsidy for imaginary corn, which has been one of Night Vale’s greatest exports. People come from all over (even Desert Bluffs, unfortunately) to buy his imaginary corn.

  I like to butter up a piece of bread and then rub the imaginary corn along it and then sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and cayenne. Boy is that a delicious, and low-carcinogen, summer treat!

  But even our town heroes, like John Peters, you know, the farmer, have to pay their fair share. No citizen is above paying taxes. Well, except Marcus Vanston, but that’s understandable because he’s so wealthy. When you’re worth as much as Marcus Vanston, you have proved your value to society through hard work and determination and are no longer required to show anyone any further proof that you care about anything or anybody else, because you obviously do. Look at all your money. According to some, Marcus is worth over five billion dollars. And that’s five billion reasons Marcus is our town’s greatest citizen.

  Further updates on wheat & wheat by-products. The good news is that they are no longer poisonous serpents. The bad news is that they have transformed into a particularly evil and destructive form of spirit. Please be aware that wheat & wheat by-products are now malevolent and violent supernatural forces, capable of physically moving objects up to two hundred pounds and entering human souls of up to soul-strength 4. The frantic scientists, who are now hopping up and down just outside my recording booth, indicating various charts and figures, recommend creating a simple lean-to out of animal bones and mud, such as you might have made and played in as a child, and hiding there until the spiritual forces of wheat & wheat by-products have passed.

  A reminder to all Night Vale citizens that the annual SorrowSongs Sing-Along is this Thursday. There will be a potluck lunch and the softball team will be selling refreshments to fund things that each of them individually want to buy for themselves. Anyone who has their own SorrowSong they’d like to add to our communal vocal malaise should submit it to city hall by Tuesday at the latest. Remember that low moans and minor key chants do not count. The composer of the best SorrowSong, as indicated by our audience participatory Weep-A-Meter, will be ritualistically drowned in a pool of our townspeople’s tears. Good luck!

  Listeners, the City Council, for national security reasons, has replaced the following report with the sound of a burbling brook, followed by the sound of a running blender.

  [The sounds happen as described]

  City Comptroller Waynetta Barnett received a $1.5 billion check from the federal government this week. The check was to support rebuilding efforts from this past week’s massive earthquake, reaching 9.7 on the Richter scale, the epicenter of which was directly below Night Vale. Of course, we experienced absolutely no damage to the town, and nobody reported feeling any effects at all from this enormous seismological event.

  Comptroller Barnett said that she suspects that FEMA just saw the meter reading, declared this a disaster area, and sent a check. She doesn’t think they have any interest in visiting Night Vale, so we can probably just spend the money however we want. Barnett added that those new MINI Cooper sedans are really cute and wanted us all to look at their website.

  We asked Carlos about our inability to experience tectonic shifts. Carlos, lovely Carlos, had previously recorded other massive tremor activity underneath our city. His response was a few seconds of stammering, followed by a sigh and slow head shake. His eyes were distant, distracted, yet beautiful. I asked him where he got his shirt. It fit him so well. He said he would look at his notes and computer models and see if he could figure out what was going on. I don’t know if he listens to me sometimes.

  Ladies and gentlemen, I take you from an unreal disaster, to an un-unreal one. It is my sad duty now to announce that the City Council is officially putting Night Vale under an emergency state, due to the ongoing and life-threatening wheat & wheat by-products situation. The council states that anyone who has come into contact with wheat & wheat by-products and has by some happy miracle survived, should consider themselves infected and proceed to the usual quarantine area, just behind the playground in Mission Grove Park, there to spend the rest of their days in quiet contemplation and weaving. Everyone else should head immediately to the wheat & wheat by-product shelter that has been sitting unused for decades under the public library. When asked why a wheat & wheat by-product shelter already existed, the City Council answered, simply, “prophecy.” May you all be safe. May you all be well. May you be strong, and flexible, with ruddy cheeks and legs like tree trunks. And now, the weather.

  WEATHER: “Cigarette Burns Forever” by Adam Green

  News from Old Woman Josie, out near the car lot. She reports that the angels have gathered in a circle in her living room, blocking her view of the television. They are shoulder to shoulder, facing each other, radiant with holy light. “The bowling alley,” they are chanting. “The bowling alley.” She says that a repeat of The West W
ing she had really hoped to watch is on, and she is quite annoyed by her usually considerate angelic houseguests. More on this story, maybe, if there ever is more.

  And finally, some good news. All wheat & wheat by-products have mysteriously vanished from Night Vale, and the City Council promises that they will be gone forever. This scourge, this siege upon us, this salvo of food-based warfare, is finally over. Never more will we be threatened in our homes by this enemy, or its by-products. We also will never eat bread again, and that’s a pretty big bummer. But this is the balance that must be made, between what we desire and what we fear. Between pain and pleasure. Between wheat, dear listeners, and its by-products.

  Many of you are huddled now (and forever) in the quarantine behind the playground in Mission Grove Park. For this community-minded sacrifice, we thank you. I know you were forced there by martial law, but still, you should be commended for your brave action. Terminal quarantine might seem scary now, but I understand they have a well-stocked supply of canned lentils and the Silver Screen edition of Trivial Pursuit. And of course, you have the radio. I hope you will let my dulcet voice and our humble community station into your ears and hearts until your final wheat-loving breath.

  Dear listeners, stay tuned next for a live broadcast of a man locked in a recording booth, silently staring at the microphone with intense suspicion.

  And, as always, since always, and for always: Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

  PROVERB: Today is the last day of your life up to this point.

  EPISODE 12:

  “THE CANDIDATE”

  DECEMBER 1, 2012

  WHEN I WAS A KID, MY MOTHER WOULD NOT LET ME PLAY DUNGEONS & Dragons. It was a fact, according to television news in the 1980s, that if you played D&D you would become so obsessed with your character that you would either kill other people in real life or yourself.