This is a story about us, said the man on the radio, and we were pleased, because we always wanted to hear about ourselves on the radio. Welcome to Night Vale.

#####

This is a story about us. We live in trailers, out near the car lot, next to the house where the angels reside. We live in homes near a poorly secured library, hiding and shivering, fearing an escape. We live in apartments below heavy-footed neighbors. We live on streets, removing ourselves from a world that refuses to learn how to love us.

At night we can see the red light blinking on and off on top of the radio tower, a tiny flurry of human activity against the implacable backdrop of stars and void. We sit out on the steps of our trailer, on the balcony of our apartment, on a bench in Mission Grove Park, on a tree swing in our yard, with our backs to the brightness of the moon, watching the radio tower for hours. But only sometimes. Mostly we do other things. This is a story about us.

We eat together in the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. One of us is philanthropist Thomas Charles Fleming who once caught a hog and showed it to a local radio host who happened to find hogs adorable and just wanted to pet one and speak in high pitched voices to it and name it Gary or Dolores and listen to its snorting breaths in order to feel alive, especially on that particular day where that radio host's intern forgot to buy coffee. Anything to start a day with a charge.

Thomas Charles sits in the Moonlite All-Nite, eating his skirt steak, and he begins to choke. We are alarmed because we feel empathy. Selfish selfish empathy. We feel our own necks seize up. We hold our hands to our own throats gently, choreographed mimicry, a modern dance around the themes of mortality, as Thomas Charles heaves forward, gasping, his eyes bulging.

We look to the OSHA-mandated choking assistance poster near the cash register. We begin to recite the instructions to each other and demonstrate the moves required to complete this life-saving pas-de-deux.

One of us, dinosaur expert Joel Eisenberg, stands and wraps his thin arms around Thomas Charles. Joel pulls his hands into a central fist under the victim's sternum. Joel yanks his hand back and up and we shout "harder" and some of us shout "softer"

Thomas Charles thinks of the new Night Vale Botanic Gardens he created. His mind wanders to the pride he felt opening this cultural institution, and, secretly, the guilt he feels about the frightening people he partnered with to fund it. He knows he must warn us, but does not know about what exactly. In dying, we often find that the lists of what must be done evaporate, and there is nothing left to be done, and there never was. Needing to do things was an illusion we built to keep ourselves busy.

We panic in our efforts to free Thomas Charles's esophagus. One of us, Laura, a waitress in the diner, breaks off a heavy branch that was growing out of her hip and begins poking Thomas Charles in the chest.

We frantically fumble for our phones typing in heimlich maneuver, all unsure how to spell it. Some of us saying it's "H-I-E" others saying "H-E-I" one of us even saying "manoeuvre has an O in it somewhere, I'm sure of it"

We find an article headlined "Save A Choking Victim With One Surprising Move" but become frustrated by the amount of pop-up windows.

Thomas Charles grabs a pen and a napkin and scrawls a single word. We argue about what exactly it says. "Maybe he wrote 'Swanpops,'" we say. "That's not a word" we reply. "What about 'Sound-a-roos?'" we interject as we stare at ourselves wondering who would think that made any sense. "You know like children's pajamas made from audio frequencies" one us says. "It could work" that same one says to the quiet room, then continuing: "As a tech start up. Like an app on your phone that makes" before trailing off, running out of words to protect from the judgmental silence. "It's a great idea" we all agree, in order to ameliorate the situation.

And we pat Thomas Charles on the back to congratulate him on his multi-million dollar idea of audio-only children's sleepwear. We think for a moment that it is this companionable swat of the choking man's ribs that will finally free the steak from his throat. We have read enough short stories to know that this is a sensible narrative resolution, requiring an unforeseen solution to an impossible problem.

And given that we are hearing our story on the radio, we know that this is the perfect culmination of a tale about a collective we. A coming-together, a climactic camaraderie.

But it does not work. Thomas Charles sinks to his knees, eyes wet and resolved. In the commotion of choking hazards, clickbait and startup dreams, we fail to notice two men who have entered the diner. One is not tall. One is not short.

They are not part of us, so we know that this story is not about them. The one who is not short moves Joel Eisenberg aside and then grabs Thomas Charles's shoulders. The one who is not tall punches Thomas Charles in the stomach as a piece of beef *shoomps* out of his mouth, a rope of spit and a soft wheeze tailing it.

The piece of unchewed meat arcs perfectly into a wastebasket and we cheer. These strangers saved a man we barely knew.

Thomas Charles inhales loudly and finally shouts "it says 'stonecrops.' Stonecrops."

"Shut up" says the man who is not tall.

"Come outside," says the man who is not short.

"Please." Thomas Charles pleads. "I'm sorry I told them about stonecrops."

"Everyone is sorry you did that," said the not short man.

"This is not how I wanted to spend my day," says the not tall man.

We hear the radio describe two men of indistinct heights walking another man out of the Moonlite All-Nite. We hear the man on the radio describe a muffled pop of a handgun from the parking lot, the slamming of a trunk, and the fading doppler effect of a vehicle speeding away.

We sit in our booths, poking hashbrowns with spoons imagining we heard a car backfiring instead.

Later we leave the diner and find a blood stain on the asphalt by our truck, or our sedan, or our motorcycle and we pretend it is a spilled drink.

#####

Let's have a look at the community calendar.

Last Saturday at noon, we all went to the Botanic Gardens for the opening of the new exhibit, called Sedum Fields. One of us who is a docent at the Gardens, named Hala Darvish, explained to us that these succulent plants are excellent for private gardens, as they are affordable, easy to maintain, beautiful, and require little water. Sedum are often referred to as stonecrops, Hala tells us before it means anything. She then thanked Thomas Charles Fleming and an anonymous benefactor for funding the Botanic Gardens.

On Monday we attended an emergency press conference at the site of City Hall, where no mayor currently presides. Before an empty mic reporters asked questions and then tried to transcribe the occasional sounds of wind and crickets onto their notepads. One of us, Pamela Winchell, uncharacteristically tamped down her usual bluster and allowed someone else to speak for her, in this case the incidental sounds of nature.

On Tuesday, we took a longer-than-usual lunch break to go look again at the Sedum Fields exhibit in the Botanic Gardens, and we saw the sunny, summer blooms, which are elongated pink tubes billowing at the top, looking ready to burst. but in the middle, there are asymmetrical bulges, like small crouching humans inside.

A docent who was not Hala Darvish and who was not any of us, and who was neither tall nor short told us to look at another plant. These were not for us. As we got back into our vehicles, cranberry spinach salads with sesame vinagrette only half-eaten, we caught a glimpse of this new docent plucking the unopened blooms and placing them gently into crates.

We heard one of us on the radio say this aloud, as we scattered back to our desks and counters and warehouses and trucks and kitchens.

This has been... ah, oops. That was last week's community calendar. Well, this has been Community History.

#####

Disturbed by the presence of the the men who carry crates, who possibly kill philanthropist hog catchers, and who hurry us through our garden visits, we anxiously eat our daily meals, absent-mindedly do our jobs, and mutter angrily during showers about our own inaction in the face of brutality by those who are not us.

We are a people of action. This is a story about us we say aloud in unison from our couches.

We stand and walk and look at each other in the streets and join hands. We join hands and sing. We sing "Angel Is a Centerfold," because some of us had just attended a minor league baseball game and could not rid themselves of the sexist earworm.

We walk past the scrublands and the sandwastes to the edge of the desert, and we surround a cargo truck filled with crates. There are two men, neither tall nor short. They do not move.

One of us who is a sheriff named Sam places the men under arrest for the murder of Thomas Charles Fleming.

The man who is not tall says "He was not who you thought he was."

The man who is not short says "Do they still have HBO in the abandoned mineshaft outside of town?"

"This is not a story about you," we shout. "This is a story about us."

Sam places the two handcuffed men into a white police car with UNDERCOVER POLICE in bold lettering across the sides and a stylized rhinoceros holding a nightstick painted on the hood. We turn to each other and celebrate with smiles and eye contact.

Diane Crayton tells Nazr Al-Mujaheed. "We saved our town." Nazr groans and does not respond. He has talked little in recent months.

Susan Willman tells Simone Rigaudeau "What a happy ending."

Amber Akinyi tells WIlson Levy "This is a better world now, Wilson. For our son" She pats her belly, and Wilson begins to cry.

Steve Carlsberg, who can sometimes be a killjoy, but whose intuition is not often wrong says "Look. The truck."

We look at the truck. This is not a story about a truck we say, as 6-foot long pink blooms burst from tiny crates. They stumble and squirm like humans swaddled in plastic wrap toward us. Under a clear, predictable afternoon sky, and in the face of terror, the last thing on our minds is the weather.

#####

WEATHER: “Space and Time” by Joseph Fink

#####

The protagonist of a story must have agency, must use their skills against their antagonist. This is a story about us, and so we actively confront our predicament.

Nilanjana Sikdar attempts to communicate with the beings. They make no noise. Pamela Winchell shouts at them through a bullhorn, but they do not react. Josh Crayton changes his physical form into a great white shark, but they show no fear, and he finds it hard to breathe on land so changes back into a hummingbird. Henrietta Bell throws her co-worker Sarah Sultan, who is a fist-sized river rock, at the creatures, but they do not flinch. 16-year-old Tamika Flynn loads a crossbow with an explosive-tipped arrow, and we question our lackadaisical weapons laws in this state.

Overwhelmed, we back against each other surrounded by the writhing, featureless beasts.

A flower monster reaches out, its arm stretching elastic under the petals, and touches former mayor Dana Cardinal. Another touches Harrison Kip. And another touches Leann Hart. Just as she reaches for the hatchet she keeps in a waist holster, the top of the flower opens up, and inside it... is YOU.

Yes specifically YOU. We all recall many years ago, there once was a story about you right here on this radio station. Now your eyes are open but empty, your face swollen and teeth shattered in places. Part of your right ear is gone. And we remember. You died in that story. We all felt bad. But here you are again, inside a flower, staring crooked and blank at our screaming faces.

Another flower opens. And another broken face of someone who once lived in Night Vale. And another and another, and as the last flower opens, the face of Thomas Charles Fleming emerges. His head split right where his hair once parted, his lips in the final hiss of an Ess, like a man whose last word was Stonecrops.

Sheriff Sam returns with the two men and releases them from their handcuffs, ordering them to take these monstrosities away from here and then come back to be arrested.

The men gently lift each writhing bloom into the back of the cargo truck. They say nothing. We ask "who are you?" They say nothing. "What are the crates?" They say nothing. "These are people you have killed." They pause briefly but say nothing. “Are the crates always filled with bodies which are also flowers?” The men shake their heads No. The man who is not short says "We are only doing our job."

And what is your job? we ask.

"We handle the crates" says the one who is not tall.

"Are you hiring?" says Trish Hidge who recently lost her job at City Hall.

"The Botanic Gardens are closed to the public," the not short man says.

"It is better that no one involve themselves in this," the not tall man says.

They climb into the truck and drive away with their broken crates and human flowers.

We look at each other, relieved to know we completed another day, alive and together, but bereft of solutions or answers.

"We have defeated gods," we say. "And dragons" we say. "And librarians" we say. "And despotic corporate overlords" we say and kind of high five each other about that one in particular.

"But these men," Missy Wilks says.

"Maintenance men," Leann Hart says, already writing the story in her head.

"Mafia," Sheriff Sam suggests.

"They're kind of cute," Michelle Nguyen says, as her girlfriend Maureen nods in agreement.

"Not everyone gets to know everything," we tell ourselves.

"We have limitations," we say, stumbling upon a new truth. "And when we know what we cannot know, we can believe whatever we want."

"Flower mafia," Sheriff Sam insists.

"Cancer is actually more inexplicable and frightening than those men," Lorelei Alvarez says, from great and terrible experience.

And we smile and 'yeah' and collectively nod, culminating in a town-wide understanding that we not only touched the sky, but pushed against it. We know more about what we cannot know, and we are less afraid, even if we're still quite afraid. But in a productive, positive way. Like knowing not to put hornets in your mouth. We learned this all together.

Tough luck about you though. Hope you’re doing ok at the gardens. I mean, it didn’t look like you were. But we do wish you the best.

We walk to our homes, turn on our radios and hide, and we listen to a familiar voice say: This has been a story about us. And we are pleased, because we always wanted to hear about ourselves on the radio.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.

#####

PROVERB: Anything is a piñata if you hit it hard enough.