The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (4 page)

Reports also indicate that the Night Vale Private Library will be entirely free of librarians, a fact that will be of little comfort to the many public library–goers who are injured or killed in librarian maulings every year. Remember, if confronted by a librarian while looking for a book to check out, do not attempt to escape by climbing a tree. There are no trees in the library and the precious moments it will take you to look around and realize this will allow the librarian to strike. Don't become a statistic.

All right, news done. So, now let's talk about the date. Carlos and I met up in Old Town. I was wearing my best tunic and furry pants, and he had on a laid-back “weekend” lab coat. We were both beautiful in the late-afternoon sunlight, each other's dreams met in a real-world moment. Our destination was none other than Gino's Italian Dining Experience and Grill and Bar, the fanciest restaurant in town. It was a perfect day, other than the strange blot of darkness buzzing on the edge of town, but that was probably yet another Applebee's under construction.

We went arm in arm into Gino's, and were immediately seated, with no memory of who greeted us at the door or how we got to our table, situated in a classy, understated, and absolutely doorless room. The full Gino's experience. Their menu is somewhat limited after the ban on wheat & wheat by-products, so we each ordered a single portobello mushroom, served rare and bloody, as is the Gino's way. From the window we had a great view of the sunset, and of the buzzing shadow thing, which seemed to have moved closer.

“I've been thinking,” Carlos said.

“Uh huh?” I said.

“Yeah, that's what I've been doing lately,” he said. “Thinking. It's part of being a scientist. What have you been up to?”

And so we talked. Just us, and our bleeding mushrooms, and the buzzing shadow presence, and a blooming haze of romance in the air. Hold on, Station Management is apparently getting agitated, flailing around their office and howling, so I need to do more news real quick.

Violent incidents increased across the entire Night Vale area over the last several weeks, as the people of the miniature city under lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex continue to wage their war against us, with tiny bodies and tinier weapons. Citizens are urged to protect themselves against this army in our midst by stomping everywhere they go and keeping a vigilant watch toward the ground rather than keeping our eyes closed as we usually do. In related news, the City Council has erected a monument to the fallen Apache Tracker, that hero who died for the welfare of us all. The monument will be dedicated in a secret, silent ceremony, attended by no one, and the monument itself will be buried somewhere in the desert where no one will find it, because he was also a racist embarrassment and we don't want our town associated with that kind of thing.

And now, the community calendar.

Monday will be the annual Bluegrass Festival held in the burned-out shell that used to be Louie Blasko's Music Shoppe before he lit it on fire and skipped town with the insurance money. Participants can huddle among the ashen remains, casting haunting looks at each other and sharing some of their favorite bluegrass dirges. Legend has it that if you look into a mirror and say absolutely nothing three times, Louie himself will appear and teach the crowd some simple, easy bluegrass licks before taking your soul back with him into the dark of the mirror.

Tuesday is a holiday. Make sure you have adequate emergency supplies and plenty of clear plastic sheeting. We're not sure which holiday it is, so have all possible antidotes on hand.

Wednesday, the staff of Dark Owl Records are getting a band together. “We know a lot about music,” they'll say, grabbing knives and hammers. “We should start a band.” “Definitely,” they'll continue, over the screams. “Let's get a band together. We should do that.”

Thursday through Sunday will be a blur of routine and practicalities, a series of moments and actions that we will fail to notice as we experience them, and will forget the moment they are gone.

This has been the community calendar.

All right, boring stuff done. Back to the date! We wrapped up dinner at Gino's with a slice of their special invisible, noncorporeal, and tasteless carrot cake, which was as light as air and resembled air in all other qualities as well. Our waiter, formerly a heavyset man with a large mustache, was now a buzzing shadow man defined only by the absence of light in the vague shape of a torso and limbs. Presumably our former waiter was on break. We asked for the check and then made our escape from the doorless room by breaking the window using the brick our waiter had provided for that purpose.

Carlos and I, oh the magic of that phrase, oh the ecstasy of all that a simple conjunction can imply, took a stroll through Mission Grove Park. It was just us, and the trees, and the crowd of our fellow citizens who were all doing the usual recreational activity of pointing at the sky and shouting in terror. I asked Carlos if he wanted to join in for a round, but he said he had already been scared of all that the empty sky implies yesterday, and so was pretty tired.

“If you want,” he said, “we could do some tests on the trees. I've been meaning to do some scientific tests on the trees. They seem normal, but given all that I've observed in this town, it is a significant chance that they are not.”

Well, of course I could not pass up the opportunity to perform real science side by side with my Carlos, and so we approached the nearest tree, an old sagging thing, and begin to perform tests, the nature and purpose of which I am not remotely qualified to describe.

Meanwhile our fellow park-goers had ceased screaming and had taken up being strange buzzing shadow beings. All of them were standing exactly where they had been, but were now defined only by the absence of light in the vague shape of a torso and limbs. I stroked Carlos's cheek. I don't know if he noticed. He said the tests were inconclusive, and also was perfect in face and form.

And now a word from our sponsors.

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And now, a station editorial. Listeners, a lot has been made about the topic of beauty, and I don't think we in the media always do our best to promote healthy self-images.

Movies and magazines and TV shows and advertisers love to use photo and video editing to make people seem skinnier, fairer, more appealing to a false ideal of human beauty. And I think this takes a strong hold of us, especially children.

But remember you are beautiful only when you do beautiful things. Full lips aren't as beautiful as a full laugh. Skinny hips aren't as attractive as a quick wit. Think about treating others right and those others will flock to you in screaming droves.

Just peel back those artificial layers, Night Vale. Unzip that name-brand coat, those skinny jeans, wipe off that makeup, and gently (but very quickly) peel off that skin that's covering up the true you. Look at those exposed eyes, dangling unprotected from their gaping sockets. Look at the blood and sinew slowly uncoiling from quivering bones. Admire that slippery viscera trying to squeeze under those dynamic ribs of yours. You are organic, to be sure, listener. Be proud of who you are.

Speaking of pride, speaking of beauty: more from my date soon. But first, the weather.

WEATHER: “Team the Best Team” by Doomtree

Let's get right back into it, shall we?

After the park, I drove him back to his lab, next to Big Rico's Pizza. The drive was difficult, because at this point it seemed that everyone in town but the two of us had hopped onto the buzzing shadow entity train, and were loping around town as malevolent holes in our reality, emanating an energy that made the hairs on your arm stand and your bowels vibrate. Or maybe that was just the chemistry with Carlos I was feeling. A woman ran at our car screaming, a few of the shadow people chasing her, but before I could even touch the brake she must have changed her mind, because she had already turned into a shadow person herself. It's like, ugh, run from the shadow people or become one. Make up your mind, lady!

We arrived outside of Big Rico's and there was that awkward moment at the end of every date where you pause outside of the person's door and it's like, Should I call the City Council and submit the standard end-of-date report or are you going to? Also I was wondering if he was going to invite me into his lab, to look at all those breakers and humming electrical equipment.

“Well,” he said, pointing to the lab. “This is me.”

“Uh huh,” I said.

“I should probably do something about this buzzing shadow thing,” he said. “A few experiments to see if I can save the town.”

“Oh,” I said. “Do you need any help with that?”

“No,” he said. “A scientist is self-reliant. It's the first thing a scientist is.”

“Oh,” I said again, but softer, sadder.

Which is when he leaned forward and kissed me, just once, just gently, just before slipping out of the car and into the lab. I'll tell you, listeners, I was almost swallowed by a cloud of malevolent shadow energy on the drive home and I hardly even noticed. I was so happy.

I guess Carlos managed to find a way to defeat the shadow energy, as everything seems normal today. A couple neighborhoods are emptied out, sure, with books and food and televisions left where they had been at the time of the sudden vanishing, a tableau of a life that never again will be. But it wouldn't really be a weekend without that happening somewhere, right?

Night Vale, my sweet and only Night Vale, may you find love. May you find it wherever it's been hidden. May you find who has been hiding it and exact revenge upon them.

As the old song goes, “Love is all you need to destroy your enemies.” Finer words were never chanted.

Stay tuned next for Efficiency Hour with our own productivity expert, a reversed voice underscored by hypnotic pulses.

And with all the love in my loving heart, and with a loving voice in a loving and terrifying world, good night, Night Vale. Good night.

PROVERB: Production oversight by Tory Malatea, who is holding a small locket. He is not speaking. He'd just like for you to touch the locket. His hand is twisted. His skin is forming into scales. Just touch it once. Just once, okay?

EPISODE 28:

“SUMMER READING PROGRAM”

AUGUST 1, 2013

COWRITTEN WITH ASHLEY LIERMAN

B
EING A LIBRARIAN MYSELF,
I
WAS ALWAYS DELIGHTED BY
N
IGHT
V
ALE'S
terrifying librarians. When you're in a profession that gets stereotyped somewhere between “matronly prude shushing children” and “obsolete relic of when print wasn't dead,” seeing somebody go for “extremely dangerous Eldritch Abomination” is pretty exciting stuff. So when Jeffrey and Joseph invited me to write an episode, I knew I wanted to do something with the Night Vale Public Library.

I'm a university librarian, not public, and I've never run a summer reading program, but I was a big participant as a kid. The innocent pleasures of stacks of children's books and sticker charts seemed ripe for a weird, creepy turn. With, of course, another reversal at the end—which seemed in line with the rhythm of unexpected twists and hilarious anticlimaxes that are so much of what makes Night Vale special. (Not to mention, on a practical level, if you're invited to write an episode of somebody's show in the world they've created, maybe don't do something that's like “AND THEN HUNDREDS OF CHILDREN DIED.”) Kids in Night Vale must face so much fear and danger daily that maybe they're more dangerous themselves than even a librarian would give them credit for, especially the ones who love reading. They're already clearly brave if they're willing to crack open Night Vale's dangerous books, after all, and adding curiosity and imagination to the mix could only make them tougher opponents.

Anyway, I loved the twist of all those vulnerable kids everyone was worried about coming out gorily triumphant, and I decided I wanted to name a leader to sort of personify all their toughness, brains, resourcefulness, and book-loving in one person. There are always too few black girls who get to be associated with those traits in fiction, but so many real black girls I've known who are all of those things and more, so it seemed like the obvious thing for that leader to be a black girl. I could not be more thrilled that Tamika Flynn resonated so much with so many people, and ended up being woven into Night Vale's story as much as she was. Of course, so much of who she ended up being was Jeffrey and Joseph's doing, but every time she showed up afterward, it was such a pleasure to be able to say: