CECIL: Sleep like there's nobody watching. Welcome to Night Vale

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Mayor Dana Cardinal, now in her fourth year on the job, has gotten comfortable with the responsibilities and powers of the position. She issued a statement, in casual conversation with your intrepid host, just yesterday while we happened to be next to each other in line at the Missing Frog Salad Bar, saying she believes she could bring about some lasting positive change with her position. As such, she will be instituting a number of programs to radically expand the power and oversight of the mayor, putting her directly in charge of the agents from the vague yet menacing government agency who spy on our every movement, as well as the Sheriff’s Secret Police who regulate our every waking breath. She said by taking on full control of all areas, she will be able to make sure everything is run more justly, more humanely, and with less imprisoning dissidents for life in the abandoned mine shaft outside of town. But, she said, this change will be difficult for a lot of people, and so she asked me not to…tell anyone just yet. Oops. So this has been Cecil’s Fiction Corner, in which I write fan fiction about real people in town. None of that was true. On to the actual news now.

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Astronomers and astrologists alike were excited to announce we will soon experience a rare cosmological event: the blood matter from space. Once every five hundred years our region experiences blood matter from space, and experts believe this might be the largest such event in recorded Night Vale history, although specifying that with any certainty is tricky, the experts say. The problem is that most of recorded Night Vale history has been covered over with a sloppy black ink scribble and the note “Sorry, top secret! Love, the government” scrawled on every page. Sometimes those same government employees will arrive at important events while they’re still happening and start shoving wadded up socks into people’s mouths while shouting “la la la I can’t hear you” in order to get a jump on censoring history.

Anyway, for those space heads and star geeks who are excited by the upcoming blood matter from space, it appears the best viewing will be from literally anywhere in the region. It’s gonna come down hard on us and there’s no hiding from it. Carlos and I will be holding our own viewing party here at the station, and it’s open to the public. Please bring one potluck item, one bundle of dried herbs to mollify station management, and of course galoshes. You’re gonna need galoshes. Can’t wait.

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And now a segment I call Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s Theater of the Mind.

Please, with your mind’s eye, travel into a theater. You are in a theater. You print your tickets at home, annoyed that for unfathomable reasons this theater doesn’t do will call. Then you forget the tickets you printed out, so you have to argue with the guy in the box office for a bit before it turns out they can in fact print your tickets there, they just don’t want to. That sorted, you enter the lobby. It smells like wet velvet. The paint is peeling a bit but you can see that once this theater was really something. It’s still something, you suppose, just a very different kind of something. You don’t have to pee, but you think you probably should just in case. The bathroom is tiny, and it has a long line, so you decide not to pee, except of course now that you thought about it, you do have to pee. You sit in your seat and hope the first act isn’t too long, and mentally trace out the route you’ll speed walk the moment lights come up for intermission so you’ll be one of the first at the bathroom. Finally, some ten minutes after the show was supposed to start, the curtain opens.

That’s it for this installment of Cecil Gershwin Palmer’s Theater of the Mind. Next time, we’ll get into the actual show. So look forward to that.

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Controversy has arisen about Dana’s plans to radically expand her mayoral power, which were leaked to the public through... some unknown channel. Really, it could have been anyone who told.

The City Council was the loudest voice of protest. Their lungs are huge and they can make their voice deafening. “The machinery of Night Vale government is delicate,” the City Council screamed, loud enough that it woke even Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, who was asleep because it was 4am. “This policy shift can only upset the checks and balances inherent in our system. For instance, we the City Council check and balance everything and ultimately make all the decisions. That’s how civic government is supposed to work.” And then they keened for several hours and we all gave up and got out of bed because none of us were getting any more sleep that night.

Joining the dissent, Tamika Flynn, local armed teen militia leader, and the sole member of the City Council who is not a single bodied, multi-voiced, inhuman entity, expressed concern about government overreach. She said: “If the government ever tries to overreach me, I’ll grab that arm they’re reaching with and do a series of self-defense maneuvers to disable the overreaching government. Sorry,” she continued, “that metaphor kind of got away from me. What I’m saying is while Dana is a good person and a friend of mine, expanding government power on the assumption that the government will always be run by well-meaning people is a dangerous gamble.”

Dana herself did not alleviate these concerns, as many people reported her acting strangely in public throughout town. She burst into many local businesses, demanding to know if they knew where she was. They would tell her she was in their store, and she would get angry and storm out. She was also spotted standing across from City Hall, monitoring the front doors with binoculars. Perhaps this is part of a social program we just don’t understand yet. Or perhaps she is annoyed at a big mouthed friend of hers who is very sorry. More on this story, as I’m sure it’s going to develop.

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And now traffic.

A business woman sits in an airplane, midflight, staring out the window. She pretends she is doing this because she is bored. She is actually doing it because she is nervous. The plane is shaking, and she is looking out the window to see what is causing this but of course she cannot see what is causing this. Instead, what she sees is a miracle unimagined in thousands of years of human science and theology. She sees the topside of the clouds.

Here is a place that her species, since the start of it, have projected worlds onto. Have looked up at and told stories, some based on what was observed, and some based on what was felt, but all based on never being able to see the topside of the clouds.

And oh there were those in the mountains who could see the topside of low lying clouds, but that’s not the same at all, is it? Nothing like going to the top layer of clouds and breaking through until there is only space above and clouds below.

And here she is, nervously sipping a Sprite and looking out the window and worrying about what will happen when she lands, which is that she’ll lose her job, although she doesn’t know that yet, because she’s still in the air, looking down at the topside of the clouds.

This has been traffic.

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And now, a word from our sponsors.

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Perhaps you should plant climbing vines or thick shrubs around the vase, so that eventually you won’t have to see it anymore. It will be covered over with greenery, as you will someday be covered over with greenery. Everything will eventually be covered over with greenery until the greenery goes too.

But pay no attention to the vase in your backyard. All human beings die. This is unrelated to the vase.

This message was brought to you.

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Worries continue to rise about the mayor’s controversial initiatives. The Sheriff was especially put out by the planned shifting of the Secret Police to the purview of the Mayor’s office. “Over my dead body,” said the Sheriff. “And I was told by a psychic once that I would never die, and we all know that lying is illegal, so my dead body will never exist for anything to be over. The point is it’s not happening.”

There are, however, those who are in favor of the plan. Like Green Market owner Tristan Cortez, who said “We all know, as citizens of Night Vale, that our government is a difficult beast. Doing just about any activity requires tons of forms and waiting in lines and puts us at risk of being devoured by the beings who run City Hall. As a taxpayer, I welcome a shakeup in our government. Plus, I’ve been in the Sheriff’s Secret Prison since my daughter and I got caught committing robbery and fraud this fall, so really any change seems good to me.”

Well, this is a complex issue and….oh my god. Oh no. What is…?

Listeners, I’ve just been handed a report. It seems that a secret parking enforcement officer struck up a conversation with Dana as she sat across from City Hall, watching it through binoculars. Dana had stared at the officer without replying, and when the officer took a step towards her in order to give her a friendly pat on the arm, she…she killed him.

I don’t understand. But I am being asked to tell you that our mayor, and my friend, Dana Cardinal, is wanted for murder.

Let me….let’s just go to the weather.

[weather: “J'Accuse” by Mucca Pazza]

CECIL This story, already concerning, has gotten both more confusing and more frightening. I have received a recorded statement from our mayor Dana Cardinal, and it’s…well you should listen for yourself

DANA: Once there came a sandstorm. This was years ago. So much of what we live through now was put into motion for us long before, but by the time the consequences come we’ve set aside the inciting incident as ancient history.

Once there came a sandstorm and with it came our doubles. When my double came, she attacked me. Or I attacked her. I don’t remember who acted first. We struggled. It was a brutal fight that could have ended badly for either of us. But the result was that I murdered my double with a stapler. It was as slow and gruesome as you imagine. Or I think I murdered my double. It’s possible I am my double, and I murdered my original self. If we both had the same memories leading up to that moment, how would I know which of us I was? I am Dana or I am her double. I will live forever with that doubt.

I believe in what I am trying to do with my position as mayor. Why else would I have been given a job so onerous in its responsibility if I wasn’t meant to use that responsibility for the greater good? So that is what I am trying to do, Night Vale. I am trying to work for the greater good.

But I know not everyone is with me. I have felt followed for the last few days. Threatened. I thought that groups who are opposed to my vision for Night Vale were trying to physically stop me. This has, as you know, happened before. And now these false murder charges. I have been framed, obviously. I mean, I know that I just admitted to killing someone years ago, but trust me that I didn’t do this one. It’s a set-up to throw even more obstacles in the way of making the role of mayor one which actually does good for this town.

Or that is what I thought. I no longer know what to think. Because right now I am staring at myself. There is another me. She is in my living room. Her hair is shorter than mine. Her face is hard and furious. And her hands…they are covered in blood. But she is me. I have come for myself. I am going to run now. I am going to hide. But this isn’t over. I will make Night Vale a better place if it kills me. Or if I kill me.

I will keep in touch. If you see me, don’t approach. It is me but not me. And I don’t know what I am capable of. Stay safe.

CECIL

Well. I certainly do remember the day of the sandstorm and the day of the doubles. It was actually a pretty traumatic time, if I’m honest. So I appreciate what Dana is going through. But murder is a serious charge, especially at a time when such controversial changes are going on over at the mayor’s office. For their part, the Sheriff has said that Dana Cardinal is wanted for murder, and they don’t care which Dana they get. “Any Dana,” the Sheriff said, waving their hand breezily. “If we see a Dana, we will arrest her, and, Bob’s your uncle, into jail she goes.” When questioned whether this had anything to do with Mayor Cardinal’s current effort to take over the Sheriff’s Secret Police, the Sheriff huffed a bit and said things like “well I never” and then hung up without answering the question.

What does it mean if the doubles are back? And what is going on with Dana Cardinal?

None of those questions answered now. Because stay tuned next for Bubble Gum Hour, the hour devoted to reviewing the chewing sound of popular varieties of bubble gum, hosted by today’s celebrity chewer, Mr. Tom Hanks.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.