Joseph Fink - Welcome to Night Vale

“Josh,” she said over and over. “Josh. Josh.” Jackie placed her casted hand on his mother’s back.

Diane concentrated on breathing deep, full breaths. “Thank you, Jackie.”

“Mom.” Josh blushed. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Josh, it’s not okay. I haven’t seen you in a week. What have they done to you?”

“Nothing, Mom. I’m fine.” He gently removed her arms from his body.

She looked into his eyes, or into the eyes of his body, looking for him. Her own eyes hardened. Her tears dried. Her pupils contracted, lids narrowing. He felt the moment turning.

“I took your car for the afternoon,” he said, pleading the case in what he failed to keep from a whine. “I’m sorry. I found out that my dad had moved to King City and then I found that paper in your purse and then I thought I could take the car to King City to look up stuff about my dad. I thought you would be gone the whole day. You’ve been gone a lot lately.

“I mapped it out, and it looked like it was maybe only a couple hours’ drive. I was planning to come back tonight. But I ran up on the curb into someone’s lawn. I wanted to have cool-looking wings, but it was hard to drive with them. I was all pushed forward and they kept getting in my eyes. I dented your fender, and ruined their shrubbery and crushed this row of plastic garden flamingos that got stuck in the bumper, and apparently I ran Jackie off the road, but I didn’t see that. I’m so sorry, Jackie. The wings were in my eyes and I didn’t know.

“I was scared you’d be mad about your car, so I tried to drive home, but the city around me wasn’t familiar-looking anymore. I saw this building marked CITY HALL, which is where Ty told me I could find all kinds of stuff out about my real dad. So I came in here. That was like an hour ago.”

“Josh, you’ve been gone for days.”

“Mom, you just texted me a couple hours ago, and I said ‘Good. Be home later.’ See?” He held up his phone.

“Time is weird in Night Vale,” the mayor said.

“Shut up,” Jackie said. The cloud of black flies rose, but she moved at them without hesitation. They buzzed louder and retreated to the other side of the room.

“It’s not his fault, Diane,” Jackie said. “It isn’t. You and I both know that. We know it together.”

Diane continued to stare at Josh. Her eyes burned on the cusp between crying and yelling.

“But maybe, Josh,” Jackie said, “we finish driver’s ed when we get back to town. Or maybe you don’t need hooves when you drive, straight up hands will do the trick, all right? Full human form when you drive.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.” Josh lowered his head. He saw the deep yellow and purple bruises around the edges of Jackie’s cast and along her neck, and cringed in shame.

“Let’s just go home,” Jackie said. “You and Josh can take your car, and I’ll follow in the Mercedes.”

“That is absolutely not possible,” said the mayor in the tan jacket.

“Shut up,” Jackie said again.

She moved toward him, her face set. The flies regrouped into an opaque cloud between her and the man. She stepped forward into them. The flies swarmed onto her skin and into her clothes and onto her face and into her eyes and her nose and her mouth. Their guts oozed onto her tongue as they crunched between her teeth. She batted at them with her uninjured arm, but they wouldn’t release even as she got to his desk and grabbed the pair of scissors leaning against the rim of a coffee mug.

She held up the scissors. The mayor moved back, gawping at her fly-covered body, everyone else in the room forgetting his look of terror the moment they looked away. She brought the scissors down, driving a blade into her cast, and sawing. The cast resisted and the blades were not sharp, but she hacked with a fury. The flies retreated one by one as she worked herself into a sweat fighting against her own cast. Her skin was swollen and red where the flies had been.

Finally, dull blades and all, she ripped off the top of the cast, exposing a hand still clutching a paper that said “KING CITY.” She held it up to the man in the tan jacket.

“Oh yes, of course.” He walked over and plucked the paper from her hand, like a person taking a slip of paper out of another person’s hand, and tossed it into the trash can, where it stayed. He did the same with the paper in Josh’s hand.

Jackie stared at her empty palm, breathing hard from exertion and relief. She clasped and unclasped her sticky, sore fingers, reveling in the emptiness of them.

“Now then,” said the man in the tan jacket, “that’s done. And Josh will be back to you sooner or later, I’m sure.”

“No,” Diane said. Jackie was too struck by the burden that had just been lifted from her, and would not be able to do this confrontation for her. She would have to do it herself.

“You awful, forgettable man,” Diane said. “You will not keep him. You’ve infected my town with your blank face and your false memories. I am sorry no one knows who you are, I really am. I’m sorry that no one remembers you are mayor. I’m sorry for your town.”

She felt another Diane crossing a street somewhere else, arms full with groceries, and yet another, looking idly at the passing scenery outside of a bus window.

“I am sorry you’ve resorted to taking other people’s children—”

“I wasn’t taken, Mom.”

“Josh, honestly, you are not old enough to know the difference. I’m sorry you have to resort to taking other people’s children. Maybe the problem isn’t with Troy. Maybe the problem is with you. Maybe if you were a better mayor, you wouldn’t be forgotten. Good deeds don’t go unnoticed. If there was an economy and good roads and schools, no one would try to elect a new leader every few months.”

The man in the tan jacket’s eyes darkened. Jackie saw his eyes. They were unforgettable.

“And maybe, just maybe,” Diane said, her hand waving in asynchronous rhythm to her speech, “a good father only has to be a good father, not a good mayor, not a man with a memorable face. Look at yourself, Evan, or whatever the fuck your name is. Josh, I’m sorry I cursed. Evan, be accountable to your wife and family, and they will care enough to know who you are. Govern your city, and you won’t have to infect mine. Be a father to your child, and you won’t have to steal mine.”

The mayor backed up to his seat but did not sit. His flies stacked themselves in a subdued pyramid on his shoulder.

“Diane Crayton, I have infected no one. You misunderstand the situation. I came to Night Vale because there was no place weirder, and I thought someone there would understand. But my long conversations were forgotten. My pleas went unnoticed. So I started to write it down. A simple message that would stick better. That, in fact, it would be impossible to put down.”

He winced apologetically at Jackie.

“I’m sorry about that. I didn’t think people would mind that much. I need the people of your weird town to tell me how to unweird my own. I was desperate. Desperation does not breed empathy or clear thinking.”

“You ruined my life,” said Jackie.

He shrugged. That was all he would have to say on that.

“Please understand, I didn’t want to force Josh. I knew he would be curious about his father. I just wanted to give him the information he would need to find him. I just wanted to give him the opportunity, a piece of paper with a town’s name on it, and I knew somehow, once given it, that he would take it.”

Jackie was trying to understand the implication of what he was saying.

“All of that, all that I went through,” Jackie said, “it wasn’t even for me? You were trying to get the paper to Diane and Josh? Why would you give it to me?”