(co-written with Glen David Gold)

CECIL The suffocation of the ego, the eternal silence of the void, faceless, yet screaming, and now serving orange wine on tap. Welcome to Night Vale.

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Listeners, we have a new sponsor. Our show is brought to you by...money.

When purchasing items, please consider using money. It's exchanged, universally, in place of transactions with actual value. Money is available in handy ones, fives, sixes, eights and now twenties. [sped up] Money may be habit forming, symptoms may include avarice, lack of introspection and frequent substitution of the phrase “intelligent” for “wealthy.” Please ask your doctor if money is right for you and nod with considerable vigor when your doctor then asks if you think money will complete you.

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We have a visitor whom I'm just learning about. I've been handed a note by my new intern Gustav. Gustav says station management has ordered him to bring this guest immediately to the studio. Gustav, are you missing an eye?

Gustav is nodding.

Let's see the note says, it says to please welcome -- oh! Wow. I mean Wow. Gustav, is this real? It is my honor, my privilege to welcome to the show: Hugh Jackman!

HUGH: Hi.

CECIL: You're not THE Hugh Jackman, right?

HUGH: I like to think I am.

CECIL: You're not.

HUGH: My children think I'm the real Hugh Jackman.

CECIL: Your children are wrong. But go on, Mister Hugh Jackman.

HUGH: My name is Hugh Jackman and --

CECIL: (sotto; a little sulky) But not the --

HUGH: Here's my card.

CECIL: Oh, Hugh's business card is a hologram he's projected straight onto my fingers. Says he's the Senior Vice President in charge of Dreamfluencing at... eGemony? [pronounces it incorrectly as EE-jem-oh-nee]

HUGH: It's pronounced eGemony [EE-juh-MO-nee, like "hegemony"]

CECIL: Ah, so it sounds just like heg-

HUGH: (interrupts) I'm here to solve a funny little mystery. I just need a minute to open my briefcase here. Take a look at this.

CECIL: Well. That's a Playboy magazine.

HUGH: Yes. December 1969. It had the pictorial on Bond girls, in case you don't remember.

CECIL: I see that. Ooh, there's also a feature on architect Mies vander Roe.

HUGH: I'll take your word for it, Mister Palmer. I only read Playboy for the advertisements. Like this one. The one for Canadian Club.

CECIL: Listeners, Mister Jackman is showing me a full page ad that features six people hiking in dense-looking woods, and two of them are carrying a sling of some sort, and in the sling is --

HUGH: A case of Canadian Club whiskey.

CECIL: Mm-hmm. The headline reads, “On October 13, 1969, we hid a case of Canadian Club deep in the Amazon jungle. Here's how you can find it.” Let's see, well, this is actually quite entertaining. There are clues and maps and -- is that an acrostic?

HUGH: It is an acrostic! Very good, Mister Palmer. It's a clue to where the case was buried. From 1967 to 1973, Hiram Walker Distilled Spirits d/b/a Canadian Club ran a contest where they hid 21 cases of Canadian Club whiskey throughout the world, from the densest alleys of Jakarta to the skyscrapers of Manhattan. The cable car tracks of San Francisco. On a cobblestone street in London. Under thirty feet of water in the Great Barrier Reef. They ran ads with clues about how to find them. And find them the people of the world did. Every single case was recovered.

CECIL That's remarkable.

HUGH Mister Palmer, we hid a case under the ice caps of the North Pole, and people found it. We dropped one on Mount Everest --

CECIL: (grumbles, dismissive) mountain. (normal) Why do you think people wanted to find them so badly?

HUGH: As far was we can tell, it has to do with people's desire to have alcohol. Ironically, it sank the contest. People weren't buying Canadian Club -- they figured that it was way cheaper and more fun to get a yacht, sail it to the Cayman Islands, snorkel under the security fences of the International Monetary Fund, and remove a case from the International Monetary Fund's mom's poolside refrigerator. That's exactly what happened to case #17. Sales plummeted. But later, Hiram Walker merged with Gooderham & Worts, which was acquired by Bacardi Constellation Brands, which is now an acquisition of our little tech startup eGemony.

CECIL: Excuse me. But what does eGemony do? (pronouncing it correctly now)

HUGH: We dreamfluence!

[long pause]

CECIL: Got it.

HUGH: It turns out there's one further case of Canadian Club. It's been hidden for over forty years. Right here. In Night Vale. Here's the ad. This is the November 1973 issue of Playboy. Go on, read it.

CECIL “On August 30, we hid a case of Canadian Club in Night Vale. Here's how to find it.” (beat) Mister Jackman, the rest of the ad is -- blank.

HUGH: We at eGemony, after some internal discussion, believe that might be why the case was never found. There seems to have been some kind of event at the printers that month. Fran Liebowitz's interview with progressive rock band Yes keyboardist Rick Wakeman is perfectly fine for its first thirty-seven pages, but then devolves into a series of umlauts. Little Annie Fanny, generally a light-hearted and adorably misogynistic comic strip, was just panel after panel of -

CECIL: Umlauts.

HUGH: And Mister Palmer, Look at the pictorial on men's golf pants --

CECIL: Gaah!

HUGH: Yeah, we're not really sure what happened there. Further, you'll see that every cartoon has the same punchline.

CECIL: Oh, yes, here's a bride on her wedding day, and her mother is telling her... “It's under Cecil's desk.”

HUGH: Same punchline as on page 23, with the desert island, and page 74 here, the two cowboys at the saloon.

CECIL & HUGH: “It's under Cecil's desk.”

CECIL: How odd. So, Mister Jackman -- why does eGemony want to find this case of liquor?

HUGH: We thought it would be...(not selling it) fun. (excited) Can I look under your desk?

CECIL: Why?

HUGH: The case is under your desk.

CECIL: This desk wasn't even here in 1973.

HUGH: So you're telling us -- me -- No.

CECIL: I'm telling you to ask station management.

HUGH: I will.

CECIL They'll make you fill out a form. They also can create fire with their minds. Also they've eaten people before for less. Gustav, come in here and show Hugh what station management did to your eye.

HUGH & CECIL: ohmygod (maybe gagging)

CECIL: That's enough Gustav.

HUGH: Oh, I'm prepared. I'm familiar with your station management. And I'm not afraid of them. Eunice, Lilly, Agatha, Demarcus, and Jad. They're old friends of mine.

CECIL: Who?

HUGH: Have you never learned the names of your supervisors, Mister Palmer? You need a team building retreat. I'll be back. You haven't seen the last of me.

CECIL: (yelling) You aren't the real Hugh Jackman! (normal) I don't trust that man. I need to figure out what to do next. We'll be back after this.

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Life is meaningless. There are no guiding principles, nor rewards nor punishments for how to live (just flashes of pain or joy which are only neurotic messages, not actual experiences). Even pondering why we exist is a rudderless journey, so consciousness is a means to no end.

The Sheriff's Secret Police would like to acknowledge that hearing this will ruin your day. However, they are further authorized to announce that nothing we have learned about nature describes a process that occurs without purpose. We can point to a fish's fin, and understand what function it serves. A monkey's fur, a starfish's many arms, the acorns in your Uncle Simon's branchy beard that explode outward as stabbing bristles whenever Uncle Simon experiences fear. They all serve a purpose.

So it's possible that consciousness developed for a reason larger than consciousness itself can conceive of. The function of your mind is literally beyond comprehension, which means that awareness, pursued to its limits, only makes you aware of your helplessness. You are without power in this life -- except when you purchase items, by using money. This has been brought to you by money.

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We're back and I'm in a jam. I don't trust this Hugh Jackman, nor his company. After what StrexCorp did to our town, I'm a bit wary of any business conglomerate, although, eGemony does seem different, friendlier.

But what is his thing with looking under my desk? I'm not sure I should even look under my desk. What if I find it? What if I don't find it? Every time I've hidden under my desk I've closed my eyes, and for good reason. I'm so distracted I lost my notes and now I don't even know what the news was supposed to be. And Gustav went to buy some cotton balls and anti-bacterial spray for his missing eye.

hmmm. [rustles with the magazine] I've honestly never looked at any of these magazines before. Playboy was for other boys and girls.

Interesting. Listeners, did you know that Playboy magazine has a bunch of pictures of women across various careers with in-depth profiles on their lives? I did not know this. There's a whole pictorial in this issue of all the women who ever played James Bond - in full costumes. Omg, look at those smart tuxes and pistols and one of them's on a motorcycle. In the middle of the magazine, there's even a fold out photo of a woman in coveralls and a hardhat leading a volunteer construction crew who's building houses in a hurricane-ravaged Nova Scotia.

On the other side of the fold out, there's a Playmate questionnaire. Her turn offs include impatient people and tick bites. You know, I agree with that. And her turn ons include "groovy people, good food, overwhelming feelings of dread...chanting and...all hail the Glow Cloud." All hail the glow cloud. Yes.

The Playmate's name is Missy Wilks. Missy Wilks? Could that be the Missy Wilks who lives on Kessler Street here in Night Vale? They have similar eyes and tendrils. I wonder if it's possible that she knows where the case of Canadian Club is.

Let's see...

SFX: Dialing phone

(muttering under breath as if they're the numbers he's dialing)

M-I-S-S-Y W-I-L-K-S.

SFX: phone ringing

MISSY: Hello?

CECIL: Hello, is this Missy Wilks? This is Cecil Palmer. From the radio station? It's a little hard to explain why I'm calling, but --

MISSY: Have you looked under your desk?

CECIL: Oh. Not yet. Should I? I mean I kind of don't want to.

MISSY: Cecil, I've been waiting for this phone call for over forty years. You must look under your desk. The future of Night Vale depends on it.

CECIL: But -- have you been doing anything else?

MISSY: Pardon?

CECIL Forty years.

MISSY: Well, no, not really. Raised a family. Shot a guy once. But you're stalling, Cecil.

CECIL I'm not stalling. (clearly stalling) Um, but you know we really should get to today's weather.

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WEATHER: "Lost Everything" by Mary Epworth

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CECIL We are back.

MISSY Have you looked under --

CECIL No, I have NOT looked looked under my desk.

MISSY Come on, Cecil.

CECIL: Why does Mister Jackman want this so badly?

MISSY It's why they put cases everywhere on the planet. They knew that leaving an item in place long enough allows it to absorb the spirit of the area. That case is now infused with the soul of Night Vale. No one actually recovered those other cases -- eGemony recovered them after they bought all the other parent companies of Canadian Club. They're going to send out one of their Corporate Prize, Contest and Sweepstake Buzz Marketing Street Teams to dreamfluence anyone who stands in their way. If eGemony finds it before you do, they will drink Night Vale's soul. The same way they've drunk the soul of all the other cities.

CECIL: That makes no sense. They've recovered a bunch of these across the world. Are you saying that Manhattan, San Francisco, London, the Great Barrier Reef and the Cayman Islands don't have souls anymore?

MISSY: Cecil.

CECIL: Ohgod, you're right. Okay then, I'm going to look. I'm looking. Under my desk. I'm finding... I'm findiiing. Nothing. There's nothing under here. Wait. Waitwaitwaitwait. AHA! here's a push pin. A red one. It's holding an envelope to the underside of the desk.

MISSY:(excited) Is it manila?

CECIL: Yes. And it's addressed to me! There's a letter inside. It's written on papyrus. And you can tell it's very old because it's written in cursive. It says, “Dear Cecil: How are you? We are fine. We're sorry we didn't write earlier, but we were unlearning our destinies. We had to unlearn so many things, small steps, then larger ones, then larger still until we were almost flying, but not quite flying, because we had to unlearn our expectations and then unlearn our limitations. So we gave up on flying, because that turns out not to work, regardless of your expectations, and no matter what you unlearn. So we relearned what we needed to. We relearned so many essential things, Cecil, about work and love and complaining about work and love. Oh, and we took the case of booze. If you want to find us, you'll know us by our sign.” And it's signed with a smear of -- foam. This isn't just any foam. It's -- hold on -- (sniffing, then tasting) cappuccino. Oh my goodness, I have to tell Ms. Wilks that --

MISSY: I'm still here.

CECIL: Ms. Wilks. I know where the case of Canadian Club is.

MISSY: Where?

CECIL: It's in the cavelands outside of town. It's been taken by the baristas.

MISSY: Cecil, this is the worst possible news. The baristas are no match for Buzz Marketing Street Teams. The baristas are gentle people, soft of spirit and jolly of countenance, whose dreams are only influenced by the purest of loves, not crowd-sourced manipulation. The baristas are rosy cheeked and innocent. They gambol like lambs, Cecil! You've got to warn them!

CECIL: I will. Thank you Ms. Wilks. Listeners, this is terrible. I don't know what to do. I don't like warning people about things. Warnings lead to consequences, and we all know how much I avoid consequences. In fact, there's only one way to be thoroughly insulated from consequence, and [SUDDENLY REALIZING] that's to accumulate enough money. [BEAT] But I don't have money - as station management recently switched their payroll protocol from cash to twitter followers and Groupons for local spas. So I'm kind of screwed.

Think, Cecil, think.

Stay tuned next for the sounds of chewing amplified to the threshold of pain.

Good night, Night Vale, Good Night.

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PROVERB: People always say "Before I die..." as if they haven't already begun the process.