The City Council, in cooperation with government agents from A Vague Yet Menacing Agency, is asking all citizens to stop by the Night Vale Elementary School gymnasium tonight at 7 for a brief questionnaire about mysterious sights that definitely no one saw, and strange thoughts that in no way occurred to anyone. Because all of us are normal, and to be otherwise would make us outcasts from our own community.
Remember, if you see something, say nothing, and drink to forget.
And now, a look at the community calendar.
Saturday, the Public Library will be unknowable. Citizens will forget the existence of the library from 6 AM Saturday morning until 11 PM that night. The library will be under a sort of renovation. It is not important what kind of renovation.
Sunday is Dot Day! Remember: red dots on what you love, blue dots on what you don’t. Mixing those up can cause permanent consequences.
Monday, Louie Blasko is offering bluegrass lessons in the back of Louie’s Music Shop. Of course, the shop burned down years ago, and Louie skipped town immediately after with his insurance money, but he sent word that you should bring your instrument to the crumbled, ashy shell of where his shop once was, and pretend that he is there in the darkness teaching you. The price is $50 per lesson, payable in advance.
Tuesday afternoon, join the Night Vale PTA for a bake sale to support Citizens For A Blood Space War. Proceeds will go to support neutron bomb development and deployment to our outer solar system allies.
Wednesday has been cancelled due to a scheduling error. And on Thursday is a free concert… and that’s all it says here.
The Night Vale Business Association is proud to announce the new Night Vale Stadium! Next to the Night Vale Harbor & Waterfront Recreation area, the stadium will be able to seat 50,000 but will be closed all nights of the year except November 10, for the annual Parade Of The Mysterious Hooded Figures— in which all of our favorite ominous hooded figures, one that lurks under the slide in the Night Vale Elementary playground, the ones that meet regularly in the dog park, and the one that will occasionally openly steal babies and, for reasons no one can understand, we all stand by and let him do it… all of them will be parading proudly through Night Vale Stadium.
I tell you, with these new facilities, it promises to be quite a spectacle! And then it promises to be a vast, dark, and echoing space for the other meaningless 364 days of the year.
Hello? Radio audience…
[Ominous rumbling continues.]
I come to you live from under my desk, where I’ve dragged my microphone and am currently huddling in the fetal position.
[Roaring shriek.]
Did you write letters? You should not do this anymore. Station Management has opened its door for the first time in my memory and is now roaming the building.
I don’t exactly know what Management looks like, as that is when I took cover under my desk— and I can only hope that they are not listening to what’s going out right now, or else I may have sealed my fate. I can hear only a kind of clicking footstep, and faint hissing sound, like releasing steam.
An intern went to see what Management wanted, and has not returned. If you are related to Jerry Hartman, afternoon board operator at Night Vale Community Radio, I am sorry to inform you that he is probably dead, or at least corporeally absorbed into Management, permanently. Jerry and Chad, the interns, will both be missed, but we will surely see them in the Thanksgiving Day Dead Citizens Impersonation Contest, which this year will be in the employee lounge under the Night Vale Mall from 11 AM to 9:45 PM. There will be a cash bar and two Twister boards.
[Louder ominous rumbling. Cecil gasps.]
I’m going to see if I can make a break for the door. If you don’t hear from me again, it has truly been a pleasure.
Good night, Night Vale. And goodbye…
This Friday, at Night Vale High’s Memorial Stadium, it’s the annual softball showdown between the Night Vale Fire Department and the Sheriff’s Secret Police. Proceeds from the game will go to support development of nuclear weaponry for a strongly religious Indonesian militia that is looking to overthrow their heretical government, as well as to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. So even if you don’t like softball, come on out and support a couple of great causes.
Last year’s game ended in a rout, as the Secret Police hit three home runs in the eighth and ninth innings. The firefighters claimed that there was some foul play involved— pun intended, dear listeners— as their entire bullpen was assassinated in the middle innings with blow darts. Those murders remain unsolved and completely uninvestigated. Our hearts go out to the families of the deceased relief pitchers. Rest in peace.
It should be a fun one! Expect a real revenge-minded fire department to take the field on Friday. Tickets are only $10, or $5 if you bring enriched yellowcake uranium. Black helicopters will be mind-scanning the town on game day, hunting down those who do not attend. The first 500 fans receive surgically applied working gills.
Hello there. As you well know, faithful listeners, it is Night Vale History Week, in which we all learn a little bit about what made our bustling little town what it is. Or, as the official motto released by the City Council goes: “Poke about in the black recesses of the past until it devours our fragile present.”
In the interest of civic participation, Night Vale Community Radio will be pitching in with short lessons about some points of interest from our town’s history, starting with 4000 BC. Archaeologists believe that this is the earliest date of human settlement in Night Vale. Little remains of these ancient inhabitants, except a few cave paintings of their towns and their hunting practices, and of the dark shapes that would watch them in the distance… inhuman, shimmering shapes that never came closer or farther away, but whose presence could be felt even with eyes shut tight, huddled in fur and the company of another human’s naked skin.
Or so I’m extrapolating from the evidence. The cave paintings mainly resemble smudges now, after their original discoverer attempted to power-wash them off the wall because he, on religious grounds, did not believe in the past.
And now, traffic.
Crews from the Department of Public Safety will be repainting highway lane markers this week. The common white dashes and double yellow lane dividers will be replaced with colorful ceramic mosaics depicting disgruntled South American workers rising en masse against an abusive capitalist hegemony. The protective steel barriers along curves in the road will be taken down to make room for some really lovely and provocative butcher-paper silhouettes of slavery-era self-mutilation, reflective of centuries of slow genocide and dehumanization by Western imperialists, designed by contemporary art darling Kara Walker.
Also, Exits 15 to 17 along Route 800 will be closed for the next two Saturdays because of the biennial Lee Marvin film retrospective. So, please watch for working crews this weekend, lower your speed, and don’t forget to tip the DPS shift leaders. 20% of your current mileage is standard. Lack of tipping is the leading cause of sinkholes in the U.S.
Next Saturday is the big lottery drawing, listeners, right out in front of City Hall, and your community radio station has put together a few helpful tips for winning. The lottery is, of course, mandatory, but how can you get the best odds for drawing a blank white paper, and not one of the purple pieces that means you’ll be ceremoniously disemboweled, and eaten by the wolves at the Night Vale Petting Zoo & Makeshift Carnival?
I know to some of you young people, this lottery seems like a barbarous, outdated tradition, but if not for municipally planned citizen sacrifice each quarter, how else would we find satisfactory meats to feed those sad, scrawny animals? So here now are the three “I”s of playing the lottery.
I one: Identify. Learn to sense colors. Purple has a grittier emotional aura than white.
I two: Ignite. Set fire to your home. While it’s not true that wolves refuse to eat arsonists, it’s a scientific fact that they’re unable to detect the presence of one.
I three: Imitate. If you happen to draw a purple piece, impersonate someone who drew a white piece. You might be mistaken for a person who is color-blind. This, of course, will lead to months of painful color re-education at City Hall. But in most cultures, that’s better than being eaten by wolves.
Also, make sure to visit the food truck festival, which will be downtown as part of the lottery festivities. Popular truck treats include Korean barbecue, vegetarian chili, and veal ice cream.
Let’s have a look at the community calendar.
This Sunday afternoon, the Night Vale Fire Department will be holding its bi-weekly Fireperson Appreciation Parade. All of the town’s firefighters will be riding through main street on their bright red engines, which will be turned into floats depicting some of the greatest fires in Night Vale’s history. One of my personal favorites is the 1983 earthquake dust fire, when tremor-initiated fires became so intense that the airborne sand burst into deadly flames. Nearly the entire city population was lost, and the FDNV does a fantastic job capturing the drama with streamers and papier-mâché.
The Fire Department would like to remind Night Vale citizens that the parade is free, and to check your coffee makers and gas stoves before you leave home, because they will not fight any fires while the parade is happening.
On Monday, the staff of Dark Owl Records will be wearing sweater vests.
Tuesday night is the Boy Scouts’ Court of Honor. The BSA will name its first-ever Blood Pact Scouts, the rank just above Eagle Scout. So far, no scout has attained the coveted position of Eternal Scout, but we have heard that two local boys, Franklin Wilson and Barton Donovan, have earned the Invisibility Badge, which is a prerequisite for the rank. Well done, Frank and Barty!
Wednesday afternoon is the city-wide Fitness Fair at the rec center. Last year’s event was canceled, as it was held on the same day and time as the Fried Chicken & Cigarette Fair. This year’s event, however, promises to be a huge success, as they have secured a large corporate sponsorship from the Intelligence Group International, who will provide free prostate screenings, mammograms, and surgically embedded government monitoring devices.
Thursday morning, the National Weather Service and National Security Agency have scheduled a giant sandstorm.
Friday is an oasis. Only a metaphor for something unattainable. A haunting dream of meaning for our lives, but don’t look. Turn your head. Your life is here. Stay here. You are alone. You are so peacefully alone. That’s it. Yes. Good.
A reminder to all Night Vale citizens that the annual Sorrow Songs Sing-a-long 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 sorrow song 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 Sorrow Song, as indicated by our audience participatory Weep-O-Meter, will be ritualistically drowned in a pool of our own townspeople’s tears. Good luck!
Night Vale Public Library 