As above, so below. As for the middle…well, who knows? Welcome to Night Vale

We start today, as we often do, with the latest UFO sighting reports in the community.

Friday 5:20 am

The staff of the Desert Springs Tuberculosis Research Center and Meditation Retreat reported a luminous object out over the neighborhood across the highway. The object resembled a straw hat, and had an apparent speed of 150 miles per hour and an apparent altitude of 2000 feet. The staff recalled that the object illuminated the ground brightly, as they could see Leah Shapiro at the window of her house, receiving a phone call and then collapsing to her living room floor with a hand over her mouth. This was perfectly visible despite the sun not having yet risen.

Friday 5:28 am

Leann Hart, editor of the Night Vale Daily Journal, was preparing for a day of hard hitting journalism. She does this using a dummy that she has set up in the backyard and labeled with a sign saying “Pivot to Video”. She was just about to launch into her usual routine of hacking at this dummy for two and half hours with a pair of hatchets made from pure silver while screaming in fury, when she was stopped by a sight in the sky. An object, the size and shape of a bus and also having all other characteristics of a bus was soaring over her. It flew at an apparent altitude of 500 feet, making no sound at all, and Leann tracked it for several minutes before losing sight of it. She said that she reacted like anyone would, by flinging a hatchet at it and shouting “you are not welcome here.”

Friday 5:34 am

My niece Janice was up early because it was finally time to take the Pre-SAT, and she didn’t want to feel hurried. She has been with herself long enough to know that feeling hurried kills any sense of momentum or order for the rest of the day, and makes her feel like she’s trying and failing to catch up with herself. Better to force herself out of bed into the cold of a winter desert morning, than to feel behind herself later on. She had gone out into the front yard to get a bit of fresh air, and had waved to Leah Shapiro who was rushing out of her house and did not seem to notice the greeting, when Janice saw the craft. A red ellipsoidal object rose from behind the line of houses. At first Janice thought it might just be a particularly quick sunrise, but soon realized the object was only the size of a small table and was right above her. Remembering what Tamika had taught her during Teen Militia Camp, Janice grabbed a heavy stone from the yard, but the object was already withdrawing. Janice yelled to ask if Leah had seen it too, but Leah was driving away, so Janice went back inside and made herself a smoothie. She feels she did pretty good on the Pre-SAT

Friday 5:41 am

Dana Cardinal, no longer mayor, who carries with her what she has done, but now also carries the possibility of what she could do next, was driving around the city. She does this sometimes, an aimless circle of a town that once had been her responsibility, but now is not and never will be again. A town without a mayor. This is a problem, but it is not her problem. She had just been passed by Leah Shapiro, who was going some twenty miles over the speed limit, when Dana spotted three sparkling objects in an equilateral formation, approximately twenty feet from each other at an apparent altitude of 100 feet. She shrugged and turned back to her aimless driving. This was no longer her problem.

Friday 5:53 am

Sarah Sultan, who is the president of the Night Vale community college, and also a smooth, fist-sized river rock, was driving to work. She had to get in early because of an all department meeting to address the lingering effects of the rabbit infestation the college suffered five years ago, and she was still fuming from yesterday when the DMV had threatened to take away her license on the grounds that no one understood how a smooth, fist-sized river rock was even capable of operating a car. She had had to take the driving test all over again, and while she got a perfect score and retained her license, that had been time robbed from her that she would never get back. Leah Shapiro, ahead of her in the lane, slowed down to turn into the Night Vale Community Hospital parking lot, and Sarah swerved around her, unwilling to wait for the turn to complete. And as she did that, she saw a spherical body in the sky, at an elevation of about a thousand feet. It was a dozen centimeters across in apparent size, and whirled around in a small circle of thirty feet in apparent diameter, before rising up into the clouds.

Friday 8:09 am

Nilanjana Sikdar stood just outside of the hospital. She was there for a minor procedure, but it didn’t feel minor to her. She didn’t like hospitals, didn’t like the implications of what might happen there, didn’t like the doctors that appear and disappear randomly from room to room, and didn’t like thinking about all that can misfire and misalign in her own body. She sighed, looked up at the building, and saw through the window Leah Shapiro, with tears rolling down her face. She was holding the hand of someone in a hospital bed, and she was telling the patient a story it seemed. Perhaps reminiscing about some shared event from much earlier in both of their lives. More importantly, Nilanjana saw two flying objects in the reflection on the glass. She turned to see them fly west by north to north by east, radiant blue in the center and red around the edges. Then, knowing that not even UFOs could save her from necessary medical treatment, she turned to the building and trudged inside.

Friday 11:15 am

High school senior Josh Crayton was in the Ralph’s parking lot showing off to his friends by turning himself into any tree they named. “Oak,” they shouted, and he was an oak. “Spruce,” another shouted. “Too easy,” he told them. “Reginald,” one said, and Josh took the form of Reginald from the nearby Whispering Forest. When he was in that tree form, he could see all the way over the roof of the Ralphs, and he saw a luminous flying object that’s upper half was covered in a curling mist or smoke. It was 40 degrees in elevation above the horizon, and approximately the brightness of a new moon on a cloudless night. “Whoa,” said Josh. “Man,” said one of his friends, “it’s so weird to see a tree talk like that.”

Friday 12:02 pm

Lorelei Alvarez had been called into work. It was never good news when she was called into work. No one ever rang her phone and said “Hello, is this Lorelei Alvarez, Night Vale coroner? We’re super happy to need your help!” No, it is always the same hushed tones and hushed pain, tight and business like. She was thinking all of this as she had her coffee and steeled herself for what she would have to go do when she saw an object in the midday sky. It left a multi-color trail as it moved, going to the west slowly and finally disappearing. “That doesn’t help me at all,” she said, and poured the rest of her coffee down the sink.

Friday 12:10 pm

Tamika Flynn was on her way to the hospital to check in on 14 year old Gerald Sanders, who had been injured at Teen Militia Camp while practicing evasive maneuvers, which is what they call dodgeball. He had badly twisted his ankle, and even though Tamika knew it wasn’t her fault, she felt guilt all the same, and then felt guilt over her guilt, as she knew she should not feel guilt over things that were not her fault. As she entered the hospital, she looked across the lot, past where Leah Shapiro was standing, tears covering her face. Leah was staring at the parking payment machine, her lips moving soundlessly, her eyes staring blankly at the screen in front of her, and her hands frozen at her side. More importantly, behind Leah, a silver star, shining conspicuously in the day-lit sky, moving from east to west, passing in and out of clouds and changing altitude constantly.

Friday 1:20 pm

Deb the sentient patch of haze was on her way out of a meeting with her representation. She was unhappy with the advertising jobs they had been securing for her, finding that nothing they were sending her out on caused enough harm to humanity. “Get me out there selling the really toxic and dangerous stuff - something with side effects or at least some carcinogens,” she told them as she pounded the table with her fists and stormed out, an action that was difficult due to her ethereal and fistless nature. As she left, she saw a cylindrical UFO, a greenish bronze with a 3:1 ratio of length to thickness. “Oh buzz off, buster,” she told it.

Friday 2:27 pm

Amber Akinyi was taking a break from her job at the Diego & Diego & Diego & Diego & Diego Funeral Home, the one that was opened recently on Ouroboros Road by those very nice quintuplets. Amber was exhausted after talking Leah Shapiro through all the options. The funeral would happen in just two days, and there was so much to do and to decide. Amber thought that Leah was holding on pretty well, but still it was a lot for both of them. Maybe Amber was too empathetic to work a job like this. She hated to think of empathy as weakness, but she only had so much energy to give. As she was thinking this, she saw a golden colored oblong at a high altitude in the sky above, moving at a steady speed in a 5 degree upward climb. “I just got this job,” Amber thought. “I should give it more time. I’ll give it more time.”

Friday 5:15 pm

Lieutenant Regis [pronounced reh-ZHEESS], of Unit 7 of the local National Guard Station and KFC combo store was standing guard as usual, and witnessed an egg shaped ring of light to the southwest, at an apparent altitude of 200 feet. He waved. “Enjoy the weekend,” he shouted. “See you on Monday.”

Friday 8:09 pm

Janice Rio, from down the street, was having dinner at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. She had ordered a Greek salad with chicken on it, and was feeling comfortably superior to Leah Shapiro in the next booth over, who was on her second plate of fries. As she sat with this great sense of self, Janice glanced outside and saw a yellow ball of light with a diameter of more than 20 inches hanging in the sky. It hung silently for two minutes and then disappeared. “Good riddance,” Janice muttered, and returned to her salad.

We pause briefly from our UFO sighting reports to take in something far stranger. The weather report.

[WEATHER: "Color TV” by Answering Machine]

Saturday 12:01 am

Leah Shapiro parked in front of her house but didn’t find the will to go in. What was there for her but the echo of a daily routine that would see no more days? So instead she drove out to the scrublands. It was chilly, but that felt good to her. It felt like she had been uncomfortably warm for a long while, and this was the first time that the temperature had been right. The chaparral bit at her ankles. She didn’t have the right shoes for this kind of walk, but here she was, walking. The night was completely clear. The moon was a careful situation.

As she walked, Leah tried her best to sort through her feelings. It was obvious to her which feelings she should have in this moment. Mourning, a wild grief, a sadness that would never be cured by however many decades of slow forgetting she had left. This was what others had assumed she was feeling, and so those were the emotions they managed. “This must be quite difficult,” the doctor had said professionally. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I’m sure you loved her very much,” the woman at the funeral home had said empathetically. “Oh my god, you poor thing, you must be bereft,” said Laura at the Moonlite All Nite diner with a deep sincerity and then she had taken Leah’s order of as many French fries as can fit on a plate. Laura had brought two plates.

But the truth is that Leah did not feel mourning, grief, or sadness. She supposed that those feelings would come. She hoped they did, because she didn’t know what it would mean for herself if they did not. However emotions are not domestic creatures that can be summoned with a whistle. They are wild, and they move as they please. So try as she might to access her sadness, Leah couldn’t. What she could find, to her horror and shame, was relief. She felt so relieved. And she felt free. She felt absolutely free and completely relieved and she felt that she must be the worst person in the world for feeling those things.

“What is wrong with me?” she said, and nothing that heard her answered except a lone coyote who started and fled to a warm groove in the earth where he felt safe from predators.

There was nothing wrong with Leah. She was free and she felt relieved. Later she would feel sadness, sadness that’s vast shape would hardly be conveyed by such a simple word. But not now. Now, she walked until she couldn’t see her car, until the lights of Night Vale disappeared behind a hill, until it seemed possible that no other person lived on the earth.

As she stood there, a silver craft descended from the sky. It rotated above her, brilliant multi-colored lights coming from windows on all sides. She watched it hover, and then watched as it rose back up into the sky, until it was indistinguishable from all the other wandering stars.

“Huh,” she said. And began the long walk back to her car.

This has been UFO sighting reports.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.