7.12 – History Week

This next installment in our exploration of Night Vale’s storied past takes place in the future. The year 2052. The scion of the Dark Order will descend, realize he mistimed the prophecy, and re-ascend. The seventh siege of the great Night Vale Temple will rage on. The plague of buzzing boils will kill thousands, and annoy thousands more with its buzzing. The City Council will reveal its true form and eat half of Night Vale’s population. Approval ratings for the mayor will hover in the low forties, which will be surprising, as there will have been no mayor for over thirty years.

And now, the weather.

[“Despite What You’ve Been Told” by Two Gallants.]

9.6 – “PYRAMID”

An update on the pyramid reported on earlier. Word is in that the pyramid has spoken. It is broadcasting, on low-wave frequencies, a repeated message. The message is the following.

I will place within some of you questions. Within others I will place answers. These questions and these answers will not always align. The questions I provide may have no answers, and the answers I provide may have no questions. I will study the effects of these questions and these answers. Some of you will hurt others, and others will heal. Grow my seeds inside you, and let them flower.

The Flaky-Os marketing department must be complimented for the best use of viral marketing in Night Vale since Stan’s Pawn Shop released a virulent strain of ebola back in ’98. And, as a communicator by trade, I applaud their ingenuity.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police has responded with surface-to-surface missiles, which, they say, will “silence the dark heart of the beast.” So far, they have not so much as created a smudge on the pyramid’s broad, shiny surface.

10.3 – Feral Dogs

This Friday afternoon, the Parks Department will be spraying pesticide in all public park areas, and in neighborhoods with dense foliage and predominantly Irish heritage. Night Vale is making a strong effort to reduce the mosquito population, and the dangerous diseases they carry. Last year, mosquitoes were responsible for outbreaks of West Nile, influenza, panache, elephantiasis, and Fanny Bryce Approximation Syndrome.

Please stay indoors from 1 PM Friday to 10 PM Saturday to avoid dermal contact with the pesticide, which has been known to cause skin abrasions, epilepsy, super-epilepsy, and organ inversion. The Parks Department also notes that the pesticide has a half-life of 2100 years, which means we’ll be safe from those annoying mosquitoes for a long time.

10.5 – Feral Dogs

The Night Vale Medical Board has issued a new study indicating that you have a spider somewhere on your body at all times, but especially now. The study said that further research would be needed to determine exactly where on your body the spider is, and what its intentions are. Only that it is definitely there, and that it is statistically likely to be one of the really ugly ones. Let’s go now to community health tips.

Listeners… are you suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome? Are you enjoying carpal tunnel syndrome? Are you surprised by carpal tunnel syndrome? Are you enraged by carpal tunnel syndrome? Do you feel a throbbing sadness that you almost cannot stand from carpal tunnel syndrome? Do you feel a bounty of love and appreciation for your fellow human beings traveling through this confusing and finite lifetime with you, from carpal tunnel syndrome? Do you get sexually aroused by carpal tunnel syndrome? That would be weird. Not to be judgmental, but— it would be weird.

This has been community health tips.

11.2 – Wheat & Wheat By-Products

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 advised 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 and wheat by-products.

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 and/or its by-products.

Trying to patch a leaky roof? We have just the thing for you, and we also have its by-products.

Wheat and wheat by-products: by Americans, for Americans, in Americans, watching Americans.

12.2 – The Candidate

First, the news. Old Town Night Vale residents are complaining about extremely noisy sunsets. Several agitated citizens are pushing for the City Council to do something about the solar shrieking every evening for the past few weeks. One homeowner described the sound as ‘the parched cries of sad buzzards or perhaps even the unholy voice of Old Scratch himself’.

The City Council, speaking in unison at a televised press conference, said that the noise is just the windmill farms that litter the unfortunate wastelands of Desert Bluffs, and that the noises do not fall under Night Vale jurisdiction. Walton Kincaid, president of the community group Soundproof Old Town, said that the windmills can’t possibly be the source of the noise, as they are non-existent and also don’t work, because of Desert Bluffs’ staggering incompetence. The City Council called a second press conference, wherein they all wordlessly stared down Kincaid for fourteen uninterrupted minutes. Their dark eyes tore holes straight through the community spokesman, metaphorically speaking, until his soul was compacted into what looked like a partially chewed black-eyed pea. Literally.

To date, only Old Town residents have reported hearing these inconceivable noises every evening as the sun crosses the indifferent horizon. And the noises seem to be taking their toll. There have been two heart attacks, twelve cases of significant muscular atrophy, and at least two dozen claims of folks growing third eyes, including Kincaid himself, who had an arachnid-like eight eyes when he spoke before City Council yesterday morning. No other neighborhood can hear the sounds.

I spoke to Simone Rigadeau in the Earth Sciences building at Night Vale Community College about the scientifically fascinating story, and she called it a simple case of celestial ‘just desserts’. Full disclosure, listeners: Rigadeau does not work in Earth Sciences. She is a transient living in the recycling closet of the Earth Sciences building, and she collects cans as pets. There is another hearing scheduled at 4 a.m. tomorrow, on the highest ledge overlooking Skeleton Gorge, which can only be accessed by government helicopters. All previous endeavors to scale the cliffside by rock-climbing enthusiasts have failed in extravagantly gory fashion. The Council issued a statement wishing Kincaid luck in attending this mandatory meeting.