Joseph Fink - Welcome to Night Vale

Tarantulas are simple creatures, thought PTA Treasurer Diane Crayton today, without ever voicing that sentence aloud to anyone, according to several reliable and invasive spy satellites that were scanning her brain at the time.

We reached out to the tarantula community for a response to Diane’s privately held opinion, and were immediately crawled upon by several of them. I think they are gone, but I am feeling a vague tickling on my back that I am afraid to investigate.

Maybe I’m developing migraines. I should ask Carlos about that.

Listeners, the Sheriff’s Secret Police are out in large numbers tonight in Night Vale. They are not looking for a killer or a missing person. There is no disaster or accident to handle. They are simply wandering around town in large numbers. Some of these police are working, sitting in patrol cars waiting for minor traffic infractions or calls to duty. Some of these police are not working. They are out to dinner with their families, or watching a popular sporting event on a bar television with friends. Some are reading books or catching up on television shows. Some are working late in a secret precinct office probably hidden in that heavy-looking, unmoving cloud.

The secret police are out in large numbers tonight. Nearly every member of the secret police is somewhere in Night Vale. They all exist. We feel very safe.

More news next, but first a brief word from our sponsors.

Pepsi. A refreshing drink. A soft tone playing when you wake up, but then it is gone and you don’t know if you dreamed it. A hallway glimpsed in the back of your refrigerator, but when you look again it is gone. The recurring feeling that your shower is losing faith in you. Desperation. Hunger. Starving, not literally, but still. That hallway again, lined with doors that you know you can open. Your fridge is empty. You haven’t left your home in days, and yet you come and go. This isn’t food. What are you eating?

Pepsi: Drink Coke.

The City Council held their third press conference in as many hours to reiterate the extreme dangers posed by angels.

“There is no such thing as an angel,” said the council, in their unified manyvoice, “but if there were, what a dangerous and disgusting creature it would be. Think of its many legs and its ghastly voice. Think of an angel as a murderer hiding in your home. Think of an angel as the very concept of meaningless injury and death. You’ll have to imagine all of this because angels do not exist.”

“Stay away from them,” they concluded.

We now return you to the sound of whatever is around you, which is probably a great deal more sound than you think, only some of which indicates future harm for you.

Old Woman Josie would come first. Jackie could visit her mother later.

Josie’s house was near the edge of town, next to the used car lot. When a person was done with a car, and they didn’t need to pawn it, they would park it in the used car lot, open the door, and run as fast they could for the fence, before the used car salesmen could catch them. No one ever came to buy one. The used car salesmen loped between the lines of cars, their hackles raised and their fur on end. They would stroke the hood of a Toyota Sienna, radiant with heat in the desert sun, or poke curiously at the bumper of a Volkswagen Golf, nearly dislodged by potholes and tied on with a few zip ties. The used car salesmen were fast and ravenous, and sometimes a person who meant only to leave their car would leave much more than that.

Jackie parked her car down the street to avoid any confusion with the salesmen. Her stomach hurt, not like she had eaten something bad but like she had done something bad. It was a stabbing pain on her right side. Maybe her appendix had burst. That’s a thing, right?

Jackie was not at work. She had left her routines fully. In her hand was a paper. In her mind were vague memories of a man with a tan jacket, holding a deerskin suitcase.

She approached the house. It was a low bungalow, avocado green, with a neat lawn kept well watered in the dry climate at the expense of some other place far away and out of mind. The lawn was surrounded by a border of pebbles, arranged into geometric patterns that were perhaps meant to ward away evil or might have just been the way earthquakes had left them. The fence between the house and the car lot was tall and chain link. A used car salesman howled, hopping from car roof to car roof with an animal joy. Jackie creaked open the metal gate into Josie’s side yard, with an outdoor sitting area made of rusted metal rocking chairs with cushions whose fabric was faded nearly all the way to white by the sun.

“Can I help you?”

She turned. There was a being that was difficult to describe, although the best and most illegal description was “angel.” Angels are tall, genderless beings who are all named Erika.

“I was just doing some trimming,” the being said. They were holding hedge trimmers and standing by an empty patch of dirt. There were no plants of any kind anywhere near them.

“I’m looking for Old Woman Josie,” Jackie said.

The being shifted. There was the crack of heavy wings flapping and a flash of a blinding, bright blackness, a darkness so radiant it seemed to Jackie her heart would break.

“Josie?” the being said. “Sure. She’s around. Let me go get her.” They didn’t move.

“Ah, okay. Thanks, man,” Jackie said. The being still did not move. “I’ll just knock then?”

“No need,” said Josie. “Erika got me.” She was walking in from the backyard, hunched over a cane, her long hair in strings over her face. But there was something about her body that seemed powerful, like an Olympic athlete perched on an old woman’s skeleton.

“Great,” Jackie said. “Thanks, Erika.” The being still did not move. A flock of birds took off from a tree on the street, bird after bird, more birds than could possibly fit in a tree. They seemed confused, cawing and flying into each other.

“What can I do for you today, young Jackie Fierro?” said Josie. “Finally taking a day off and enjoying yourself?”

“Nah, just wanted to ask you about some stuff.” More pain. Maybe her appendix really had burst. Maybe she would die. “I have a… problem. Thought maybe someone else might be having it too.”

“Almost always we are all experiencing the same problems as everyone else,” said Josie, “and pretending we don’t so that every one of us thinks we are alone. Come on inside.”

She hobbled over to the front door. Under her arm was a cloth-wrapped bundle, with dirt clinging to it. As they entered the cool of the house, she set it on a kitchen counter and led Jackie into the living room.

“Take any seat you’d like in here,” she said. “They’re all the most plush thing your butt will ever experience.”

Jackie chose an overstuffed easy chair with a paisley design.

“Wow,” she said, settling back and back into fabric that continued to give. For a moment the pain vanished. Comfort was the answer to all life’s problems. It didn’t solve them, but it made them more distant for a bit as they quietly worsened.

“You wanted to ask me a question?” said Josie, who had put herself on the couch with a good view of the bundle on the kitchen counter. She seemed to be counting under her breath, keeping time with a tapping foot.

“Yes. What do you know about a man in a—”

“Ah, hold on, dear.” A different being, just as difficult to describe as the one outside, was bringing in coffee and a plate of Oreos. “The only thing for company, of course. Coffee and Oreos. Would you like any?” Josie asked.

“No, thanks.”

“No?” Josie frowned. The being may have frowned too. It was difficult to tell and, of course, impossible to describe.