Welcome to Night Vale

THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE

CECIL: “… the hospital, which of course closed down years ago and is not being run by recognized medical professionals, or even by anyone who is, or ever was, alive. Do not go in there. Do not go,” the press release for the new Ralphs deli counter concluded. Well, I for one can’t wait to get a sandwich there.

And now a look at traffic.

There is a man with a gray pin-striped suit covered in dirt. His hands are more dirty than the rest of him, but they are differently dirty. They are covered in rust-colored streaks. The last few days have been unclear to him.

There was a time when his life had seemed like a hallway proceeding to a door. Now it was a garden littered with rocks.

How did his hands get dirty? He couldn’t remember. But the question made him drive faster in his nice car, even as he did not know why.

He was in a desert. He kept looking at the mirror, which only showed him where he had already been. He wasn’t sure why he was doing that either.

Looking at the sky, he saw, much closer now, a planet of awesome size, lit by no sun. Or he didn’t see it anymore. It was there, and it wasn’t. It was some ratio of literal and metaphorical. He drove faster. How fast can a nice car drive? How much longer could he keep driving faster before he was driving the fastest?

There seemed to be a city up ahead. There definitely was a city up ahead. It was a definite city, and at the speed he was going, it would not be up ahead much longer. He looked again in the mirror. Only a landscape unmarked by his passing. Only a road going back. Nothing he didn’t already know. He knew nothing already.

This has been traffic.

An update on the flamingo situation. The flamingos are extremely dangerous and appear to put you completely out of sync with reality if touched. You think it’ll be fun being out of sync with reality? It won’t be. You’re wrong about that, person who I just imagined disagreeing with me.

Old Woman Josie said that she and her non-angelic friends named Erika who live with her are trying to track down all the flamingos scattered all over Night Vale. She had put some in the pawnshop earlier, but she has been unable to reach pawnshop owner Jackie Fierro. Since the pawnshop’s doors are removed and buried whenever the shop is closed, Josie and her not-at-all heavenly friends were able to easily walk in and reclaim the flamingos even with Jackie not around.

Meanwhile the City Council announced that the flamingos sure seem like a serious situation, and probably they’d look into it someday.

“Yeah, definitely,” they said in a monotone unison, swarming out of the shadows of the council chambers with eyes like flames, and mouths like flames, and bodies like flames, basically they were just giant flames. “We’ll get RIGHT on that. Haha sure. It’s a big thing for us and we’re taking it superseriously. It’s just that, ugh, we hate to bring this up. But today is the day where a human sacrifice is made in our honor. And, while the flamingo situation seems dire, it would be superdire to interrupt something so important as the sacrifice to the City Council. So yeah…” the monotone univoice concluded.

We will update you with more news about the flamingo situation as we know things and feel compelled to speak those things aloud.

Sheila, the woman who marks people down on her clipboard at the Moonlite All-Nite, came by the studio. She is now sitting outside my booth, looking at nothing in particular, and doodling listlessly on her clipboard. I asked her why she came here.

“I just needed to do something different,” she said. “Even one different thing will end this cycle I’m in. I can’t go back through my life again. I don’t even remember what a life is like. I only remember a series of scripted events. I don’t remember ever coming to this station before though. I think maybe if I just quietly sit here long enough, not doing what I’m supposed to do, then finally I will be free.”

I told her I’m fine with her sitting there. I’m here to serve the community. That’s what I said.

Oh boy, she must really be in a state. Here I’ve been talking about her for a whole minute and she hasn’t looked up once. Sheila? Sheila? Okay. Sorry, listeners. I need to go make sure she’s all right. I take you now to the sound of a human stomach digesting, heavily amplified and electronically distorted.