The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (6 page)

Stay tuned next for our countdown of last words, from “Stop telling me how to drive,” all the way to “It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.”

Good night, Night Vale. Good Night.

PROVERB: A bar walks into a bar. The bartender is a snake eating its own tail. The windows look out only onto the face of the one who looks.

EPISODE 29:

“SUBWAY”

AUGUST 15, 2013

COWRITTEN WITH RUSSEL SWENSEN

D
O YOU RIDE A TRAIN TO WORK
? I
USED TO
. T
HE FORTY-FIVE-MINUTE
R train ride from 95th Street, Bay Ridge, to Prince Street, SoHo, was my daily commute for most of my first decade in New York City.

And when I used to perform regularly with the New York Neo-Futurists, we did a late-night show in the East Village, so Friday and Saturday nights at 2:00
A
.
M
. that simple R train ride was less simple. Take the F train from 2nd Avenue to Jay Street-MetroTech, transfer to the N, which runs local late night. Take the N to 59th Street, Sunset Park, where the R train runs a limited shuttle (every thirty minutes) to 95th Street, Bay Ridge.

My forty-five-minute commute into lower Manhattan was closer to ninety minutes late night (once it took two hours and thirty minutes with no announcements of interrupted or delayed service). Nearly half of that was standing on a platform waiting for trains.

The PA systems on the older New York City trains sound like the adults from a Peanuts TV special getting nearly electrocuted and then screaming about their pain into a broken subway train PA system. So confusion is the norm late at night when nothing works like it should—as opposed to the daytime when everything works like it shouldn't.

I cowrote this episode with Russel Swensen, whom I met on Twitter and later in real life at his poetry reading/book release event in the East Village back in 2012. I loved how floral and self-destructive his phrases were, and I thought this confounding dichotomy of beauty and pain would work well in the Night Vale world.

Same goes for the confounding dichotomy of expensive, tightly scheduled mass transit and noisy, analog frustration. Let's take all that and make a Night Vale episode where an underground train system suddenly appears in town.

And because it's fiction, the Night Vale subway system works way better than New York City's subway system.

—Jeffrey Cranor

Our black suns move erratically, like drunken bees, and each of them stings. Now more than ever we are full of blood and honey.

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

We start our program with some good news, listeners. Several Night Vale residents have reported seeing subway entrances popping up all over town. These brightly lit stairwells into the underground have been showing up on several street corners over the past few days.

But the Secret Police have denied knowledge of any subway system. According to our station's research into the issue, there are no records of the Night Vale Transit Authority ever creating a subway system, or getting one approved, or even having discussed building one. Nor has there ever existed a Night Vale Transit Authority. The only hints can be found in the brochures littering the entrances, describing the ease with which we will now commute, the hungers we will sate, the time we will travel, the times we will travel, the happy memories we will never be able to shake loose even when we wake up screaming.

I'm looking at one of the new subway brochures right now. There is no logo. Just smiling faces, with teeth unusual in their shapes, colors, and spacing, but otherwise quite normal-looking teeth. And the phrase “Oh, the place you will go!” written in heavy sans serif font across the eyes of smiling train riders, clutching tightly to bags and metal rails and each other.

I'm looking more closely at these transit brochures, and the paper stock is quite strange, listeners. The pages are scaly, brown, and translucent. I mean, I usually just have Intern Dylan make our radio station flyers on colored copy paper, say a twenty-four-pound goldenrod, but these brochures are so lush, like wings of a majestic insect.

The text also just grows increasingly garbled. For instance, here it says that our new subway system will streamline the rush-hour commute, but about halfway down, it's a series of nearly indecipherable glyphs our experts insist hint at “non-Euclidian emotions” and “appeasement” (though we think this may be a euphemism for “fares”). Finally, there's a crudely drawn map of our new transit system, all routes resembling spasming tentacles, and all passing at least once through a common point deep beneath the center of Night Vale.

No one yet knows where the subways came from or where they go to, but as a city dweller, I am certainly happy to hear that Night Vale is embracing mass transit. This is a fantastic way to unclog our highways, reduce pollution, and accidents, and, most importantly, subways allow us to interact with each other. Make eye contact. Acknowledge each other as fellow creatures. Cars are impersonal machines that close us off from humanity, and with the rising cost of gas and the large iridescent tongues that have been growing from Route 800, I think the subway will be a positive addition to our community.

We'll have more on this breaking story soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, I want to talk to you now about a popular new service in town that delivers feelings. Whether you want them to or not. This service has no name or contact information. It simply delivers feelings. You do not choose the feeling—though Yelp! reviews say “tingling horror” and “as though electrocuted I stood before him” are the most popular so far. It is unclear where on Yelp! you look for these reviews. I, myself, have received a few feelings so far, such as “blood feud” and “frustrated origami novice,” and I'm looking forward to receiving more. I'm crossing my fingers for “should have left the party hours ago, before I could disappoint her.” I would also settle for “overcast Wednesday and trampled by horses.” This is my own endorsement, listeners, not a sponsored ad. I wouldn't even know which company or person to bill for airtime. I just really enjoy having feelings delivered straight to me without having to worry about choosing which feeling and why and when.

The Secret Police, in cooperation with a vague yet menacing government agency, would like to remind you that here in Night Vale no one is eating each other. They remind you that this is a friendly reminder. The Secret Police added their assurance that they see no reason to alert us to the not-at-all increasingly common practice of grill parties and consensual cannibalism. “It would be pretty terrible of us to conceal that, right?” a heavily cloaked spokesperson said distractedly, deeply engrossed in a game of Drop7 on his or her iPhone 4S. “But listen, the important thing here is we are not . . . hang on . . . darn . . . warning or alerting anyone and I think you should remember to thank us for that.” The cloaked figure then double tapped his or her phone and a horse rose up from the floor beneath him or her and they flew off into the sky.

The City Council has now officially denied any involvement in our fantastic new subway system. We have this direct from a fair-haired and hollow-eyed child they've sent with the denial tattooed on his inner lip (“never approved” it reads).

Just a quick aside, listeners. We'll get back to the subway news in a moment, but would anyone like a child, because I'm never quite sure what to do with the messenger children the City Council sends us. I'm not even sure if the child is completely sentient. This one just stares blankly ahead and, oh, he's wandered off. Never mind.

Also, we're getting reports that a press conference was just held in front of the ashen shell of the public library, which of course was burned down last night, and it is only a matter of days before we'll need to burn it down again. Several masked figures, having called the press conference, claimed responsibility for the subway system. Their masks had the countenance of very concerned deer. One of the figures spoke to reporters. “We took matters into our own hand, even without approval. We don't need approval of the City Council or the Mayor,” the spokesperson explained. “We do and say what we please. That shirt looks awful on you, by the way.” (Apparently here they pointed to
Night Vale Weekly Gazette
writer Lauren James, who usually wears very nice shirts. It's really her bangs that don't work, I think. I like bangs, but they just frame her face too dramatically, especially with those thick-rimmed glasses.)

Press conference attendees said they could see something moving behind the spokesperson's deer mask. I am told that the black-charred grounds of the library are covered in roaches, as well. Also that perhaps the deer masks are not concerned, but disapproving. Or maybe merely world-weary and under a lot of stress.

Listeners, I am now being told by a different dead-eyed child in my studio, via complex facial expressions, that if you are anywhere near the site of last night's victorous fire at the library, please DO NOT step on the roaches. We recognize that there are tens of thousands of these vermin, but we've been informed by inside sources and this really unsettling zombie child that these are proprietary roaches. If you look closely at the many cockroaches crawling up your arm you'll notice they have slogans scrawled across them: “ride the trains,” “everything is fine,” “tenderize yourself as needed.” We repeat DO NOT HURT THE ROACHES. We are receiving several reports that the roaches are PRECIOUS AD SPACE. And if you hold one up to your ear, it is true—they sound like sizzling butter.

And now a look at the financial markets. You will turn yourself inside out. Your sadness will know no bounds. Ladybugs will flee you; wolves run wild in you. You will hear the wind chimes like shattering. The sun will drip ichor. Whatever peace you find will be taken from you. Nothing will be the same. Nothing has ever been the same. “Past performance does not guarantee future results,” you will whisper to the rising moon as you hear several foxes fleeing your vicinity. This has been business news.

The Greater Night Vale Medical Community would like to remind you to become an organ donor. It's a simple process that only takes a moment, and you could save a life. You can visit the DMV to pick up the appropriate form. It only requires that you check a box, sign your name, and turn it in. The Greater Night Vale Medical Community would also like to say thank-you to those citizens who have already become registered organ donors. They remind you that collections begin this Tuesday at 4:00
P
.
M
. Please hold still and wear loose-fitting clothing that day. They also advise that you not eat anything after 8:00 the night before. They are particularly in need of kidneys and skin. A representative was quoted as saying something that resembled a hiss and then quickly biting the reporter's ankle.

It has come to our attention that some Night Vale residents are getting off the trains . . . transformed. Mayor Pamela Winchell described these commuters as “thinner somehow, spiritually, like you think it's the afternoon but it's almost evening. That's what they're like.” Carlos, caring and reliable Carlos the scientist, thinks maybe the riders' DNA has been washed out, emptied, completely drained of its content. Listeners, I'm also being told that some people are not getting off the trains at all.

I'm looking out my studio window now, and a new subway entrance has just appeared across the street during this very broadcast. I have seen dozens enter and few exit those stairs. I have grave concerns, Night Vale.

I have just been handed a press release by another small child. He has such deep blue eyes and so many freckles. He is smiling and there is something dark moving behind his teeth. The press release is covered in roaches. Now the boy is leaving and I hear a rapid, but faint clicking sound.

According to the release, the City Council says we owe today's increased productivity to our glorious new mass transit system that just appeared this week. It goes on to say that Night Vale could eventually become a true travel destination, like Japan or Brazil or Singapore or Luftnarp or Svitz.