(co-written with Glen David Gold)

The captain has turned off the seatbelt signs, and has turned on the ceaseless anxiety signs. Feel free to brood about the cabin. Welcome to Night Vale.

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Welcome, listeners. We have a new new sponsor. Our show is now [DUBIOUS] sponsored by...love. Definitely consider love when wanting to buy things, because love conquers all, makes the world go round, and is all you need. This has been a message from love, conqueror of our former sponsor, money. [COMPLETELY EXASPERATED] It's what makes a Subaru a Subaru.

I have returned from the distant cavelands of the baristas, an arduous journey made easier by it being pretty much downhill for the whole mile and a half. While I was there, I learned that the dreaded eGemony Corporate Prize, Contest and Sweepstake Buzz Marketing Street Team long ago became baristas, distributing Night Vale's case of Canadian Club to the citizens of Night Vale itself, meaning that Night Vale has been consuming its own soul, thus making us an ouroboros of our own selves.

I returned because I knew that the best way to fight against eGemony's attempts to drink Night Vale's soul was science. And I'm very into science. Or at least I am very into someone who is very into science.

Once a year all the scientists in the world gather in Lucerne, Switzerland to calibrate their instruments to the length of Carlos's hair. That appraisal is occurring right now, so...of course, Carlos isn't in town.

I'm on my own, because the cause of science is important. But so is defending Night Vale, and one of the best parts about being in a couple is that when each of you is good at one thing, it's like the couple is good at two things. This message was brought to you by love, it turns out. Huh. More on my plans to defeat eGemony as I desperately figure out what they are.

But first some local news.

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Night Vale Community College announced its new slate of Winter Semester Continuing Education Courses: introduction to gibbering, conversational gibbering, intermediate gibbering, advanced gibbering and ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arrangement. Community College Professor Adriano Cappiello, who teaches French gibbering, said "Ouvrez vos livres page 3 et criez avant de vous faire bouffer."

Professor Cappiello, once considered a failure in his field, has developed what he calls "a charisma ray" and now everyone thinks he's a-okay, an exciting thinker, an excellent dancer, and an entirely inadequate human being. When asked for comment, Professor Cappiello responded by listing everything he could think of that was not a type of gum.

By the time he finished, his charisma ray had worn off and everyone realized Professor Cappiello is in fact a terrible person who attempts to court the friendship of students whose attractive naivite is subverted, ironically, by how they gradually accumulate the tools of critical analysis in his classes, meaning they apply what he himself taught them to judge him harshly, ultimately growing to resent his falseness, thus leaving his charisma ray utterly useless in the face of a culturally-awakened classroom.

Professor Cappiello denied this by stringing together a bunch of French verbs related to the behaviors of aquatic mammals.

Those interested in Continuing Education should read a book for once.

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So, earlier this morning, I walked across the street to get a 2-pound bag of kiwis at Ralph's and had the most remarkable experience. Well, first, I passed the same barista I always pass along the way, the one at the abbatoir, but this time she gave me a friendly wink of recognition. And then another barista, the one in the produce aisle? He scalded my face with steam and said my mother was so pungent, people thought she was an under-roasted Sumerian bean, and I have never felt so welcome.

But the amazing thing was when I tried to pay for my fruit, the cashier said, “Don't you love kiwis?” And I said I did, and he said, “I love them too. And I love working here. So take the kiwis. Your love is your payment.”

So I took the kiwis and later shared them with my brother-in-law, Steve Carlsburg, who said “I love these.” Then he added "I love you, brother." And I nodded.

It seems that Night Vale is now a love-based economy.

Oh, wait, this just in. Ralph's would like to explain that the cashier made a mistake. It's perfectly fine that he loves working there, and that I love the kiwis, but I do still have to pay for them. That makes more sense, but I'm a little disappointed.

Still, because of the incredibly effective new sponsorship of our program, love is definitely in the air in Night Vale. At Night Owl Records, there is now a loudspeaker outside and store owner Michelle Nguyen is publicly playing the records she loves the most, something she has never done. These albums aren't vinyl but discs made of chalkboard slate being spun underneath a needle & amplified through an outdoor speaker system.

People who were strangers only moments ago are gazing into each other eyes with looks of admiration and hunger that make it awkward to spy on them. Not impossible, of course -- just awkward, which has caused several members of the vague yet menacing government agency, who sit outside our homes in dark sedans, to step out of their cars and offer hugs to anyone who would like to have a hug placed on their permanent record.

There are reports of unidentified citizens running by fountains waving flowers and balloons and handing out otters. The Sheriff's Secret Police have replaced their patrol car sirens with Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." The hooded figures who stand in and around the forbidden dog park are still terrifying to look at or even think about, but one of them is waving. That's probably the most expressive form of love they have.

Love is everywhere. But also there has been a subtle shift -- as love has become more prevalent, its value has decreased significantly. The angel who was definitely former billionaire Marcus Vanston, and who is now named Erika, said that they have drawn on a cocktail napkin an economic model for supply-side feelings, where those with the most feelings will then "trickle down" the love to those with the least.

Even here in our radio studio, I am feeling such love for you right now, listener. I love this microphone & this cable & the mixing board. I love these blinking phone lines. Oh maybe we should take some calls. Hi, this is Cecil. You're on the air.

CALLER 1: I love you. [note from JC - I think this should be Joseph]

CECIL: I love you too. Next caller. You're on the air with Cecil Palmer.

CALLER 2: (same voice as previous caller) I love you.

CECIL: Did you just call on the other line.

CALLER 2: Oh um... No. (fake voice) I love you.

CECIL: Ah my mistake.

I love our community, our mayor, our angels, even our weather.

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WEATHER: "Turn Into It" by Jamey Browning

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CECIL: Listeners, I'd like to thank our newest sponsor, Love, for bringing us today's show. But in all of my loving clamor, I lost sight of what was truly at stake. Our newest intern, Blake, brought back a familiar guest into our studio, thus reminding me of it. Blake then tried to use the three-hole punch without reading the safety manual first.

Quick aside: To the family of intern Blake, he was a reckless intern, and he will be missed.

But now, we welcome back to the radio station Hugh Jackman of eGemony.

Hugh, I've done some investigative journalism, and I'm going to have to ask you the tough questions. First, I know that you're here to claim the case of Canadian Club, right?

HUGH: Oh, no, don't worry about that.

CECIL: I am worried about that. Among the many different things I worry about. You were coming back to get the case. You wanted me to look under my desk and --

HUGH: Not anymore. That's okay.

CECIL: But the barista king said

HUGH: Cecil, I know about the baristas. I know about how Night Vale drank its own soul.

CECIL Oh. Does that mean eGemony is going to, I don't know, just leave us alone then?

HUGH: Funny you should say that. When I followed you to the baristas --

CECIL: You followed me?

HUGH: Sure. I was the one with the Admiral Tipitz sideburns.

CECIL: Oh my god. That was you? Those were sooo good.

HUGH: Thanks, took me hours to grow them. Anyway, after all that I was planning on telling my team leaders at eGemony we were too late, and to abandon our plans.

CECIL: That's good.

HUGH: And to buy all of Night Vale to help with eGemony's debt acquisition.

CECIL: That's bad.

HUGH: But there's a glitch. I've fallen in love.

CECIL: Pardon?

HUGH: eGemony has highly secure communications. Corporate demands that we only send messages on postcards from lakeside resorts. I shouldn't have said that out loud. Siri: remind me to prostrate myself before HR at 4pm today. Anyway, I was at the post office, standing in line behind -- well, it was the strangest thing, you'll never guess, I was standing in line behind --

CECIL: A dog with a man's head? Yeah, that guy's always there.

HUGH: Um, spoiler. We don't have quite so many folks like that back at the office, and it made me pay closer attention. To everything around me. The first thing I noticed was that this particular post office was selling stamps. Then I noticed the stamps had no denomination on them, just the word “forever.” I've worked retail before, put myself through high school operating a mall kiosk that sold decorative soaps. Customers there, as you might well guess, can be mean or even cruel, saying things like "Do you have anything vanilla scented" or "I'd like to buy some soap." It was awful.

So I am always extraordinarily polite to clerks. Sometimes even flirtatious. When I got to the head of the line at the post office, I winked at the clerk, and seven of her eight eyes winked back. Then I said “Forever stamps? That's quite a promise.” And you know what she said?

CECIL No.

HUGH: Nothing. It turns out she was a spider, and didn't care what I thought. But Cecil, it was the way she didn't care. I had a Mackinac Island postcard to mail, and it was important because it's my report back about how we're going to subsume Night Vale --

CECIL: Okay, see this is what I was getting at.

HUGH: (continuing) -- and I realized that she probably sent a dozen Mackinac Island postcards that day and mine was no different. She asked me if anything in my envelope was liquid, hazardous, insidious, shameful, or emotionally fragile, and I said “No more so than my heart.” And then a mosquito hawk got caught in her web and she raced over to wrap it in webbing and then dissolve its body with her venom, so she could later drink its liquid corpse like a child with a juicebox.

CECIL: Aw!

HUGH: It was so sweet. I am not a poetic man, Cecil, but I was inspired. Have you noticed that love seems to be in the air right now? Like that Mariah Carey song: "I had a vision of love and it was this crazy dream where I was in a park, and the trees were made entirely out of recycled aluminum cans, and YOU were there, but you looked just like me, only with a nose bleed."

CECIL: Oh, I love that song. My husband and I danced to that at our wedding.

HUGH: I was close enough to smell her perfume, and well, I then asked if I could have a book of Forever stamps. She asked “which kind?” And I said “the Wonder Woman stamps,” and she said they were out of them. So I said, because I've worked in retail, and I try to feel like all of us are in this together, that I was feeling short changed by the whole “forever” business then, and I said it with a frown on my lips but a smile in my eyes. Like this. See?

CECIL: Yes. Stop though.

HUGH: Cecil, she handed me back my change and said “Next human entity in line” and I love her. And I love Night Vale. So I'm staying here until she loves me too.

CECIL: Wait, what?

HUGH: See, Night Vale is in my heart now. And it's in eGemony's heart. We want to pivot our company mission. We don't want to drink Night Vale's soul. We want to cross-pollinate our start-up model with Night Vale's greatest asset: love. We want to take all of this love - such great content! - and program it into an app, that users can just access from anywhere. I can get our Street Teams on this right now, to inspire the dreamfluencers to talk about love. It's your station's new sponsor, right? Let's value add a social media platform to---

CECIL Oh look! It's right here. (SFX: THUMP) It was under my desk after all.

HUGH: What?

CECIL: The case of whiskey. Yup. Here it is. Look.

HUGH: I don't understand.

CECIL: Open it.

HUGH: It's a cardboard box with the Canadian Club logo on the side. There're bottles of Canadian Club in here. But I don't get it. The town - and our former Street Team - drank this long ago. How is it under your desk?

CECIL: Have you heard of.. Science?

HUGH: I've watched a TED Talk. I know everything about science.

CECIL: There's a thought experiment where a cat is in a box. But... it's unknown whether the cat is alive and peacefully sleeping... or, in fact, alive and just clawing and vomiting on everything, because it's a cat. Since both things COULD be true, both things ARE true.

HUGH: This isn't sounding familiar.

CECIL: Your husband clearly isn't a scientist.

HUGH: But how is it even possible?

CECIL: Hey, with love, and science, anything is possible. Now go drink your whiskey.

HUGH: I guess I completed my goals here then, and this fulfills my obligations to my employer. And, uh, I won't be staying in Night Vale to pursue my true love.

CECIL: You need help carrying that to your car? Our newest intern, Makani, can help you. Makani!

HUGH: Is this for real? Wow. You'd think fulfilling a quest of 40 years like that would be an incredible feeling, but this is slightly disappointing.

CECIL: The realest thing is disappointment. Bye now.

Okay, listeners, Mister Jackman is gone, so I can tell you how I managed this. I bought a new case of Canadian Club. At the Ralphs. By using...money.

Please welcome back a classic sponsor to the show: Money.

Money: it fixes all your problems. And there are no drawbacks to acquiring it or using it to change the destiny of others. [sped up] Corruption, organized crime, and economic inequality may occur. Ask your doctor if you can afford even a routine checkup.

[normal] Listeners, that's all of our show for tonight. I have just gotten a text from Lucerne, and, yes, all of the scientific instruments in the world are set properly, and all measuring will occur with precise...precision because of my husband, who is coming home. And he's bringing fancy Swiss chocolate (the kind with little flecks of salmon skin). Aw! That's so sweet. Okay, I know money is sponsoring this show, but just for a moment, I have to put a word in for love. Love is pretty good. Okay, done.

Money: it momentarily defers desolation.

Stay tuned next for our exciting new game show: What's in the box? No! What's in the f[bleep]ing box?

And as always, Good night, Night Vale, Good Night.

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PROVERB: For softer bones and a tenuous smile, drink molk. Got mokk? It's here. Drink it. Drink this mulk. Mmmm Molmk.