Welcome to Night Vale

THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE

CECIL:… fate worse than death. Most fates are. This has been health news.

Listeners, I’m excited to have here in my studio this afternoon two of my favorite people, Old Woman Josie and Carlos.

Josie, you have been a lifelong resident of Night Vale.

JOSIE: Everyone in Night Vale has been a lifelong resident of Night Vale.

CECIL: Not everyone, Josie. A certain handsome scientist comes to mind, as he often does. But anyway, you headed up the board of the Night Vale Opera for many decades until the puppy infestation in the late 1990s. You claim to know several angels.

JOSIE: They’re here in studio with me today. Say hi, Erikas.

ERIKAS: [off mic, distant] Hi. Hello. Good to be here.

CECIL: You are all very tall with beautiful wings. I do not believe in angels, of course, no one does or can, but if I did, I bet they would look a lot like you.

We also have here today Carlos, who is a scientist.

CARLOS: Hi, Cecil. It’s good to be here.

CECIL: An attractive scientist who is a good cook.

CARLOS: Stop.

CECIL: An attractive scientist who is a good cook who maybe can pick up some toothpaste and paper towels on the way home this evening?

CARLOS: Already done. Also dog food.

CECIL: Scientists are so vital to our community. Now, Josie, you’re here today with Carlos because of something to do with flamingos?

JOSIE: Right. Plastic lawn flamingos. Everyone is familiar with these things.

CARLOS: Flamingos, a common desert bird, have six long legs, and are well known because of their bright pink feathers and double beaks and many eyes.

JOSIE: These plastic ones are basic, cheap lawn decorations.

CECIL: Josie, you garden quite a bit. You bought these ornaments for your place?

JOSIE: Yes, we were going through that new place, Lenny’s Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, trying to find something new for the garden to replace the buried idol dedicated to long-dead gods we had recently taken out. It’s fun to collect those idols, but the long-dead gods demand so much worship and sacrifice, and if you don’t do it, they start throwing a real fit, causing the idol to float and speak to you and sending terrible visions to your dreams. Blegh. Not worth the bother just to have something decorating your lawn. It was Erika over there who discovered the flamingos.

ERIKA: [off mic, distant] Hey.

JOSIE: They were just too adorable to pass up, and they seemed like they couldn’t possibly be as much trouble as those damn idols.

Erika over there—

ERIKA: [off mic, distant] Hey.

JOSIE: Hi, Erika. They took the plastic flamingos from Erika to put them in the grass, and as they lifted their mallet, Erika disappeared from our view. Just vanished. Only to reappear what seemed like a few minutes later standing next to us. Erika said—Erika, tell everyone what you said.

ERIKA: [off mic, distant] I said, “Hey, y’all, what’s up?”

CARLOS: Erika had jumped back in time and also in space after touching the flamingos.

JOSIE: Right.

CARLOS: And at other times, Erika jumped forward in time and into a different physical space. Josie called me to run tests and experiments. So we brought all of the flamingos to my lab.

JOSIE: There were more than two dozen of them now. Every time Erika jumped in time, the flamingos duplicated.

CECIL: How did you get them to the lab? Does anything that touches them become affected by their… what’s the scientific word for it… weird magic?

CARLOS: That’s not the scientific term for it, but it’s cute. So we’re examining the time-shifting pink flamingos and—

JOSIE: Oh, to answer your question, Cecil, we had to wrap them in blankets and towels and marley, which is the rubbery material modern dancers perform on. Erika was not pleased that we took up part of their rehearsal studio floor, but science is important.

CARLOS: Right, and we took them to the lab and I hooked the plastic flamingos up to a wall-size computer that was covered in blinking lights and big red, green, and yellow buttons while a single strip of paper filled with numbers came out of a small slot on the front.

CECIL: Science is remarkable. So complex and mysterious. I’m always in awe of what you and your team can do.

CARLOS: Thanks. But it’s pretty simple. We just follow the scientific method. No matter how advanced the scientific field gets, the foundation of scientific discovery is the scientific method we all learned in elementary school.

CECIL: I’m not sure I ever learned that.

CARLOS: Oh, it’s easy. Here, I’ll tell you and your listeners right now. The scientific method is four steps:

\1. Find an object you want to know more about.

\2. Hook that object up to a machine using wires or tubes.

\3. Write things on a clipboard.

\4. Read the results that the machine prints.

CECIL: Of course. I totally remember this now.

JOSIE: What Carlos found was that the flamingos were from another place, and obviously another time. They must have been brought here by an outsider.

CARLOS: Their parts are not made of materials indigenous to Night Vale. Plastic does not grow naturally here in the desert, nor do long, thin metal stakes.

JOSIE: The reason we wanted to come on the air with you today was to let others in Night Vale know about the danger these plastic flamingos pose. We’ve managed to gather a lot of them up, but there could still be more about town.

Before I knew what they were, I had tried giving them away and selling them, but they kept reappearing.

If you see a plastic flamingo, do not touch it. Call Carlos at his lab and he’ll come get it.

CARLOS: Yes, I have a storage locker next to my lab where I am safely keeping them all. We are managing to get them all off the streets. Fortunately, we have locked away all of the ones we could find in my lab storage so that they can no longer threaten Night Vale. We’re pretty certain we’ve found them all, but just in case you find any, do not touch them. I repeat, do no—