Ep 33: “Cassette”

Perhaps you noticed something strange yesterday, and perhaps you have forgotten it. Welcome to Night Vale.

Hello listeners. I’ll get to the news in a moment, but first: I was digging through some of the stored up belongings clogging my closet, you know, childhood toys, blood soaked rags, a gem the size of a fist that show you visions of yourself as an old man staring wistfully back at the past that is your now. That kind of thing. And I came across these cassette tapes marked “Cecil Radio Test. Age 15.” You know, listeners, I have no memory whatsoever of making these tapes. Isn’t that so weird? At one point they must have meant so much to me, and now they are just objects, with no remembered life attached to them at all. I thought we could listen to them together, just me and you, all of the yous out there.

Here we go.

[TEENAGE VOICE]

Hi! Cecil here. Mom gave me this recorder for my birthday so I could make my own radio shows, just like Leonard Burton’s show at the real Night Vale Community Radio. I’m going to replace Leonard one day. I really want to, plus the tablets down at City Hall say so. Better start practicing now. Leonard always starts out his show with his big catchphrase and so I’ll do it too, just the way he does it. Here goes: “The sun is actually cold. It’s cold and empty and all is lost. Greetings from Night Vale.” How was that? Hold on, I want to hear that back. Where’s the stop button?

[BREAK]

Cecil again! Wow, is that what I really sound like? Haha, this is so weird! Ok, ok, so: In local news, a new pizza place opened and I went to it. It’s called Big Rico’s and it’s pretty good. I prefer Sammy’s Ultimate Slice-a-ria by the Ralphs, but it burned down last week. That’s too bad. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be rebuilt soon. Wait, what is that?

[BREAK]

Huh, it went away when I hit stop. Oh, but now it’s back again. It’s this kind of flickering in the corner of my eye, like someone’s waving their arms right next to me, but when I turn, there’s nothing there. Oh well. Hey! Do you want to hear me sing? Here’s the Night Vale High Fight Song. [snatches of melody covered up by tape warp and static]. Wow, the flickering got really strong when I sang. Oh, oh, oh. Leonard’s going to be on soon. Alright, goodbye for now. Or as Leonard always says: See ya, Night Vale. See ya.

[END TEENAGE VOICE]

Well, listeners. Leonard Burton. Now that takes me back. Leonard was the host of this very show when I was a child. I remember…actually I remember almost nothing about him. Still don’t remember making these tapes. Finally, on this show, something strange to talk about!

But first, the news:

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies is proud to announce their new special exhibit, a startling and highly forbidden piece of technology brought to us by time travelers, or ancient long-dead aliens, or Russians, or whatever. The technology will be kept in a locked vault, which itself will be wrapped in thick black bandages with a hand-written sign taped to one side saying only “NOPE”. Your ticket includes a free audio guide, which will play a single piercing tone designed to considerately remove you from the world of thought and sound and sentience. The Museum of Forbidden Technologies. Bring your kids! Otherwise something even worse might happen to them!

And now for traffic.

Everything’s looking clear out there today. All the commuters feel like, perhaps for the first time in their entire lives, they are seeing themselves and the world around without illusions or denial. All of them have pulled their cars to the side of the road in the sudden shock of such absolute truth. Some are sobbing into their steering wheel, touching their skin and remembering what they hadn’t known they had forgotten. Others have stepped out of the cars, and are picking up handfuls of dirt and laughing at the realization this is bringing them about atoms and the universe and death. A representative for the Sheriff’s Secret Police announced that there wasn’t such a thing as a secret, not really, or that maybe the entire world was a secret and we are all in on it. She then saw a cloud she liked, and smiled at it. So be sure to allow a lot of extra time for any journeys today, and be on the lookout for abandoned cars and dazed people wandering into the roadway because listeners, everything’s looking clear out there today.

This has been traffic.

I admit, listeners, I’m very curious. Let’s get back to these tapes of this younger person with whom I share a life.

[TEENAGE VOICE]

Cecil again. My brother says that I’ll never make it in radio, because my voice isn’t right for it. I need to get more like Leonard, with that perfect radio voice, all high pitched and grating like sandpaper, just the way radio voices should be.

I’ve been seeing that movement more, even when I’m not recording. It’s like someone is walking towards me, but when I turn there’s nothing there. And it’s not the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Our Home, because I asked her and the next day our kitchen table had been flipped over and superglued to the floor, which I’m pretty sure is her way of saying no. I wish whatever it is would just say hi. WHOA. I felt something touch me. I think maybe making these tapes is encouraging it. I’m...going to hit stop now.

[BREAK]

Hey! Cecil here! Great news! Leonard agreed to let me intern down at the station, doing all the things he doesn’t have time to. Like organizing the tape archive, making the coffee, and keening to station management for the proscribed 3 hours daily. I can’t wait to start.

Mother says to beware, be warned, be wary. She says this to everything, no matter what you say to her, so I think that means she’s very proud of me. Heck, I’m very proud of me. Wish my brother could be proud of me, but no family member is perfect. They become perfect when you learn to accept them for what they are.

[END TEENAGE VOICE]

I…I don’t remember having a brother. These tapes don’t make sense to me. When did I intern here?

Intern Jesús ? Are there any records of me ever interning here? Jesús? Oh, I forgot. Jesús never returned from investigating the bottomless pit in the intern breakroom. To the family members and loved ones of Intern Jesús …oh well, you know the usual. Sorry, just distracted.

More from these tapes of my misremembered past soon, but first, a word from our sponsors.

When you die, the surface of the moon will not change. The difference between the landscape and lighting of that barren little world from a moment where you exist to a moment where you do not will be minimal, and unrelated to your passing. From a car window driving on a highway, looking up at a moon framed by incidental clouds, the surface will be the same muddle of mystery and distance it always is. And even a methodical study of your absence as it pertains to moon geology and cartography will find nothing, searching through a powerful telescope and analyzing with computer algorithms built around your non-existence, even that study will find that all craters and rocks appear to be where we left them a few years back, that it is the same distance, orbiting at the same rate, and that the researchers feel just the way they did about the moon as they did before you died. Nothing will change about the moon when you die. It will be the same. Still the moon. Still there. Still the moon.

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Listeners, let’s take a moment to discuss measurement. The cardinal directions are North, West, South, and East. The cardinal temperatures are 35 degrees Fahrenheit, 67 degrees Fahrenheit, 3 degrees Celcius, and 10 degrees Kelvin. The cardinal locations are: a cave, a long abandoned cabin, the bottom of an oceanic trench, and City Hall. The cardinal emotions are wild abandon, guarded affection, directionless jealousy, and irritation. The cardinal birds are hawk, sparrow, finch, and owl. The cardinal names are Jeremy, Kim, Trigger, and Jamie. And finally, the cardinal sounds are a door slamming, slight movement in still water, popcorn popping, and a standard guitar G string being snipped with wire cutters. This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.

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Ok, enough with that. Back to the tapes.

[TEENAGE VOICE]

Oh my god. My first day as intern was just…NEAT! It didn’t start out well, what with my brother staring at me from across the breakfast table with those hollow eyes and howling. Ugh... brothers RIGHT? But once I was in the radio station, I knew I had found home. A messy home full of hallways winding away into a labyrinth of audio equipment and tape stacks. Just like home!

Ah, the station management’s door, with its terrifying shadows whipping around in hazy silhouette, just like that gauzy curtain in the living room back home we never open. Ah, those windows looking out onto empty recording studios that haven’t been used in decades, but that still broadcast live shows every night, some just heavily amplified insect movement, others a whispered voice describing a window opening, a hand reaching in, and then repeating, a window opening, a hand reaching in.

And working with Leonard! When he looks at you through the glass of the booth and he signals you to crouch under a table and cover your head, you know: this is it! I’m actually doing radio!

My mom seems really proud of me too. She hid from me for three days, the longest ever! And she’s covered all the mirrors in my house. I’m not sure why, but I think it must be because of pride. Being proud does all sorts of things to a...person.

Uh, sorry, got distracted. That weird movement is back. It’s closer now.

Hello? Hello? I am Cecil. Cecil Gershwin Palmer. And you cannot scare me. You cannot. You cannot!

…hello?

[END TEENAGE VOICE. TAPE HISS FOR A LONG MOMENT AND THEN A CLICK]

Let’s…um… listeners… let’s just go to the weather okay.

[WEATHER "Big Houses" by Squalloscope, squalloscope.com]

[TEENAGE VOICE]

Interning is going great! Mom is gone. Leonard is super nice to me. My brother is gone too. Family, right? I think I’m learning a lot at the station. All of the mirrors in my house are uncovered now. Not sure who did that. I’m standing in front of the hall mirror right now. Am I changed? Am I becoming an adult? I look more grown, I think, more professional.

Leonard said if I work hard, maybe I’ll be a radio presenter myself some day. Leonard said he once was smaller too, but that he is larger now, that everything is larger, that everything in the universe is growing to towering sizes, but all at once, all in unison, so no one notices and it is all the same relative to itself. Leonard lolls his tongue out of his thick purple lips. Leonard hisses. Being an intern is great.

That flickering movement is everywhere now. Especially looking in this mirror. I see the flickering movement and I know. I know it.

I think the radio station is fun. I think the radio station is hidden. I think the radio station is like a dark planet, lit by no sun. I think, therefore I soon won’t be.

I’m looking in a mirror. The mirror is not covered. The flickering movement is just behind me. I-

[He screams. There is gurgling. A body falls to the floor. Tape hiss continues. The tape shuts off. End teenage voice]

What is this? What is this?

What…

No matter! I’m taking the tape, just now and I’m [GRUNTS] crushing it into little pieces. None of us have to think about it again. I’ll just double check that the mirror in the station bathroom is covered as usual and then that will be that. Done. Forgotten.

We all do foolish things when we are teenagers. We all have foolish false events that happen to us. Foolish gaps in our memories. Not everything that has happened has ever really happened.

Listeners, especially our younger listeners, consider this. When we talk about teenagers, we adults often talk with an air of scorn, of expectation for disappointment. And this can make people who are presently teenagers feel very defensive. But what everyone should understand is that none of us are talking to the teenagers that exist now, but talking back to the teenager we ourselves once were, all stupid mistakes, and lack of fear, and bodies that hadn’t yet begun to slump into a lasting nothing. Any teenager who exists now is incidental to the potent mix of nostalgia and shame with which we speak to our younger selves.

May we all remember what it was like to be so young. May we remember it factually and not remember anything that is false or incorrect.

May we all be human: beautiful, stupid, temporal, endless.

And as the sun sets, I place my hand upon my heart, feel that it is still beating, and remind myself: “Past performance is not a predictor of future results.”

Stay tuned now for whatever happens next in your life.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Good night.