Welcome to Night Vale

Chapter 4

Diane had not seen Evan or Dawn at the office for a while. Days really.

Diane rarely talked to Evan. She sometimes talked to Dawn. They were not friends. They liked each other just fine. Dawn worked in marketing. Diane technically worked in marketing too, but she just ran a database.

The database was a list of names. It was also a list of personal details associated with names. It was also a series of personalized photos and histories connected to each name. It was fun to take each life and compact it to a single numerical ID and set of subtables. Because while hugely impersonal and reductive, when combined with tens of thousands of other numerical IDs and their hundreds of thousands of sets of subtables, a database could tell you a lot about how people behave.

Sometimes when she had a little extra time—she often had some extra time at work—Diane would look up information about people in her database. She would do research to find photos or stories or videos about them and index those data in their files. This wasn’t necessarily helpful to anyone so much as it was a good way to get to know people. Between her work and raising Josh, she had limited time to make new friends or go on dates.

When the marketing department needed data from Diane’s database, they could use extremely personal information in their mailings to not only customize a sales pitch to that person but also let them know “we care about you so much that we looked up everything we could find about you in real life.” Customers were often so flattered by this gesture that they would send thank-you notes like “How did you find all this out?” or “Who are you people?” or “I have never told anyone this fact, so how did you know?”

Diane’s boss, Catharine, read these letters and would sometimes let Diane know how happy everyone was to receive their marketing mailings and what a valuable asset Diane was to their company. Sometimes Diane wanted to ask Catharine what their company actually sold, but she knew it was not her place to ask a question like that.

Most people in Night Vale know there is information that is forbidden or unavailable, which is almost all information. Most people in Night Vale get by with a cobbled-together framework of lies and assumptions and conspiracy theories. Diane was like most people. Most people are.

Her desk was not in the same set of cubicles as the rest of the staff. Her desk was down the hall next to the server room. Her office outsourced their IT help, so it was just Diane alone near the constant hum of the servers.

This was nice because Diane could do personal work or make personal calls when she wanted. She rarely did this, but it is certainly nice to have the freedom to do what you want, when you want, especially if you are not the type to abuse this freedom.

Diane was not the type to abuse this freedom.

But because her desk was far away from everyone else, she often felt out of the loop. She certainly was invited to participate in regular office activities, like low-stakes betting pools on major sporting events (the Super Bowl, the Absurd Bowl, knifeball, poetry, et cetera), or birthday cake, or going-away parties where the exiting staffers would take swings at a piñata filled with bees.

But she was not part of the normal casual conversation of office life. She did not discuss the latest news topic each morning. Diane did not experience this camaraderie with her co-workers. She knew Martellus had a baby last year. She knew Tina liked to cross-stitch prayers written in long-forgotten languages. She knew Ricardo distrusted birds. But her interactions were limited by office geography.

She could have made an effort, over the years, to leave her desk and engage with her co-workers, but she had not done this. She was not shy, but maybe lazy socially. Not willing to seek out situations and connections that were not already part of her routine. Or maybe she was shy. How does a person discover whether they are shy if they never have the time to meet new people?

She worried often that, without another parent to provide a different example, Josh would learn only her shyness, and in fact he seemed to have trouble making and relating to friends. But better, she supposed, that he learn awkwardness from her than learn anything at all from his father.

Diane took the job six years ago because her job at the counter of Big Rico’s Pizza was not making enough money to raise Josh on her own. The company took Diane because they needed someone who understood databases. Diane did not understand databases, but she figures things out quickly, so she lied to get the job.

The job market in Night Vale is difficult, what with mysterious hooded figures already doing many tasks (parking attendant, cartographer, dog watcher) that are more traditionally done in other towns by humans for pay. Like most citizens of Night Vale, Diane found this situation frustrating, but was also gripped with an unspeakable, trembling terror that kept her from complaining about it.

Her first weeks on the job involved taking her work home and teaching herself database management. This was difficult because she did not yet have a license to turn on her computer at home, plus it took her attention away from Josh. Josh had tried to talk to her during those early days of her work, something about a concert he wanted to go to, and she had told him she was busy and to go away. She needed the job more than she needed Josh to like her.

Later she understood databases, having become the person she’d lied about being, and could get all of her work done during work hours.

When people asked what she did for a living, Diane would say, “I work in an office. What do you do?” And then she would guide interesting conversations about their lives, or she would talk about Josh. Raising Josh was what she did for a living, and the office work just allowed her to do that.

Diane never really spoke to Evan at work. She had seen him many times. They had shared comments at birthday and piñata parties like “Good cake, right?” or “Champagne at work! Great!” or “The sky seemed especially vast and unending this morning.” The usual chitchat.

She didn’t even notice right away that Evan was not at work. Same with Dawn. But as days passed, their absence overtook the mundane humdrum of office talk. Some thought Evan and Dawn had run off together. Diane was not comfortable enough with her co-workers to shame them for their gossiping.

Some speculated that Evan had left his family, that he had a secret life. Some thought he might just be going through personal issues. Some thought he had died and no one had caught the body yet.

Catharine, the division head, called a meeting to discuss the pair’s absence. It was mostly practical, as they had work that needed to get done. Someone offered to drive over to their homes to check on them. Catharine said that would be fine.

Diane almost never thought of Evan. But she was thinking of Evan a lot one morning. Evan was thinking of her too.

Diane looked up that morning. Evan stood a few feet from the front of her desk. He was wearing a tan jacket. His belt was a darker brown than his shoes. His hair was recently cut. His face was clean and smooth. He was smiling, silent.

He was not smiling like one smiles at a co-worker or friend. He was smiling like one smiles for a photo in front of a touristy monument.

His teeth were white. Or, they were almost white. One, his left upper bicuspid, was a little farther forward than any other tooth. His teeth were not white, but they were close.

He was looking toward Diane. He was not looking at Diane, but in her vicinity. She could see his pupils. They were not dilated. They were dots. He was looking toward Diane, but his glance seemed to stop just short of where Diane was. He was smiling.

Diane said good morning to Evan. Evan turned his head slightly.

“It’s good to be back,” he said.

“Where is Dawn?” Diane asked, emphasizing the noun.

“Where is Dawn?” Evan asked, emphasizing the verb. His teeth were stained and crooked.

“Is everything okay, Evan?” Diane asked.

Evan stopped smiling and moved his left foot toward her without putting his weight on it.

Diane’s phone rang.

Evan extended his left arm without bending his elbow. He kept his eyes on the point just in front of Diane.

Diane’s phone rang.

Evan extended his fingers. He bent his right knee still without putting any weight on his left foot.

Diane’s phone rang.

In his fingers was a slip of paper. A small bead of sweat formed along his upper lip. He was not looking at her.

Diane’s phone rang.

Between rings, Diane could hear Evan’s belabored breathing. His whole body was vibrating from the muscular strain. Evan set the small slip of paper on the desk. There was writing on it.

Diane’s phone rang. She grabbed the receiver, interrupting its full ring.

“Diane Crayton,” she shouted into the phone.

“Hi, Diane. It’s me, Evan,” said the tinny voice in her ear.

“Evan?”

Evan kept smiling, unspeaking. He released the paper.

“I can’t make it into work today, Diane,” Evan’s voice on the phone said. “Can you tell Catharine that I can’t make it into work today?”

“Evan,” Diane repeated.

Evan stood up, breathed deeply in through his nose and deeply out through his mouth.

“I am not able to come to work today, Diane. Do you understand me?” said the voice on the phone.

“Yes. I think.”

Evan smiled again. He looked at Diane. She saw the slip of paper on her desk. She could not read what it said.

“Am I being clear, Diane?”

“Evan, I don’t know. Where are you? Where are you right now?”

“I can’t make it in today.”

Diane stared at the slip of paper on her desk. Evan looked toward Diane, smiling. Then he turned, no longer looking toward Diane, but likely still smiling. He walked quickly away from her desk, turning the corner and heading down the hall, out of sight.

“Evan. Hello?”

“Tell Catharine.”

“Click,” the phone said.

Diane hung up. She looked down at the slip of paper on her desk. It was not there.

She hurried to Catharine’s office. On the way she saw Dawn.

“Hey, Dawn. Where have you been?”

“Hi, Diane. I was home sick for a couple of days. Feeling a lot better though.”

“Good. We were missing you around here. Say, did you see Evan this morning?”

“Who?”

“Evan.”

“Who is Evan?”

“Evan McIntyre. Works in sales. Sits in that cubicle right there.”

Diane turned and pointed in the direction of Evan’s cubicle. But instead of a cubicle, there was a fern and an empty chair beneath a framed photo of a cloud. She wasn’t sure which cloud it was.

“I don’t ever remember anyone named Evan ever working here,” Dawn said.

Diane looked toward the cloud. Not at it, just short of it.

Dawn smiled. Her teeth were white. “You okay?”

The cloud did not say anything.