1.5 – Pilot

Just a reminder to all the parents out there: let’s talk about safety when taking your children out to play in the scrub lands and the sand wastes. You need to give them plenty of water. Make sure there’s a shade tree in the area.

And keep an eye on the helicopter colors. Are the unmarked helicopters circling the area black? Probably world government. Not a good area for play that day. Are they blue? That’s the Sheriff’s Secret Police. They’ll keep a good eye on your kids and hardly ever take one.

Are they painted with complex murals depicting birds of prey diving? No one knows what those helicopters are, or what they want. Do not play in the area. Return to your home and lock the doors until a Sheriff’s Secret Policeman leaves a carnation on your porch to indicate the danger has passed. Cover your ears to blot out the screams.

Also, remember, Gatorade is basically soda. So give your kids plain old water, and maybe some orange slices, when they play.

6.11 – The Drawbridge

Good news for radio-controlled airplane hobbyists. Those unidentifiable black metallic trees that suddenly appeared by the library back in June and caused all airborne objects above thirty feet to catch fire— well, they’ve finally been cleared away, as a new strip mall and parking lot are being developed.

The Night Vale Airport, local birdwatchers, and that nice epileptic couple who run the Emergency Services helicopter are just pleased as pleased can be about the news. Several petitions, however, have cropped up from neighborhood improvement organizations. Juanita Jefferson, head of one such organization, Night Vale Or Nothing, said, “Treeees. They are us.” Jefferson then paused for several minutes without blinking and whispered again, “Treeees,” before collapsing into tears and loud moaning. Jefferson was then taken by helicopter to Night Vale General Hospital, where she is reportedly in stable condition. This morning, Jefferson’s lawyer issued a statement saying, “My client fully recognizes the irony of this helicopter trip, but she stands by her earlier pronouncement, ‘Trees, trees, they are us.’”

Meanwhile, I hear from trustworthy informants that there will be a Pinkberry at the new strip mall. Delicious!

13.8 – A Story About You

The crate is in your kitchen where you left it, and you get down on your knees to embrace it more fully. It has grown warmer, even hot. It still is not ticking. It had taken you no time to get back home. Now that you think about it, were there any other cars on the road? Where did all the cars go? The man with the semaphore flags explaining the speed limit – he wasn’t there either. Your heart pounds.

Without allowing another stray thought to wander through your mind and delay you, you grab the crate and throw it in your trunk. You turn the ignition, and your car radio comes alive with a pop, just as the announcer says that your car radio comes alive with a pop.

Where to now? You don’t know, but you go there anyway. A pair of headlights, a pair of eyes, and two shaky hands, speeding through the silent town. Behind you, you see helicopter searchlights sweeping down onto your trailer. There are sirens. A purplish cloud hangs over the town, glittering occasionally as it rotates. The whole works.

You drive past the Moonlite All-Nite, still aglow and full of people eating what sounds good only late at night, and Teddy Williams’ Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex, which has taken to not only locking but barricading its doors at closing time. You pass by City Hall, which, as always, is completely shrouded after dark in black velvet.

Moving farther out, following the pull of the distant, uncertain moon, you pass by the car lot, where the salesmen have been put away for the night, and Old Woman Josie’s house, where the only sign that the unassuming little home could be a place of residence for angels is the bright halo of heavenly light surrounding it, and the sign out front that says “Angels’ Residence”. And the town is behind you, and you are out in the scrub lands, and the sand wastes. By the road you see a man, holding a cactus in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. He shakes both at you as you pass, and howls.