(Note: This was performed live at Largo in Los Angeles in 2019 by Mara Wilson)

I am the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Hello, you don’t know me. But I know you. I know you very well.

I've been going through your medicine cabinet. You take too much Advil. Do you realize how hard that is on your digestion? I know a couple gelcaps and a glass of water before bed can alleviate a morning hangover, but it also puts you in a bad mood, because you don't get good sleep with all the extra stress you put on your guts. Know what's a better hangover cure? Not drinking like it's the last day of community college. I replaced your vodka with clear Windex and your Advil with ipecac. This won’t help your hangovers, but it will certainly be more entertaining for me.

I don't sleep, so I need better late night entertainment than Netflix. I’ve already watched every episode of Money Heist and Criminal Man and Planet Documentary. I have to spice it up a bit.

Which reminds me, sorry about the tarantula incident last week.

###

And here I'm speaking specifically to you, Toni. Yes you, in the shirt. The one hoping I’m not talking about you.

I'm not sorry you woke up with a tarantula covering your face, nor that it bit you causing your eyelids to swell up like Kinder Eggs filled with purulent discharge instead of toys. I am sorry that I forgot to turn the flash off on my camera, which alarmed both you and the spider, and I never got a good photo. I've been building up my portfolio for an art exhibit I call "Gross Things on a Sleeping Toni." It's going up June 1st exclusively in your living room. I've already gotten "Open-Mouth Centipede Bouquet" framed. You're going to find this show absolutely terrific. No, not terrific. What’s that word? Oh right. Terrifying.

Toni, you're one of my favorites in Night Vale. I know you hate your direct marketing job, selling high interest credit cards to 20-somethings, but the benefits are great. You have health care, a 401k, and you get to take advantage of people less fortunate than you. Everything is its own reward.

But I've read your poetry. You love poetry. To be fair, there isn't a big job market for poets, but you need to explore what makes you happy. I tattooed one of my favorite lines of poetry on you last month. It's by Mary Oliver:

Instructions for living a life.
Close your eyes.
Be scared.
Good luck.

And then I drew a little butterfly next to the words, but i'm not the best artist, so it kind of looks like a radish or a sarcoma. Doesn't matter. You still haven't noticed. It's just below your right shoulder blade. Don’t try to find it now. It’s still healing and given that I used the metal rod from that fondue set in your closet as the needle, it’s possible it’s infected. Better to leave it alone.

Toni, look at me. Right here. Imagine where my eyes would be. You have a lot to work through. I'm here to help you. I really am. I'll prove it by giving you some timely advice. If a venomous arthropod is on your face, don't scream.

###

Anyway, it's not you, Toni, who's bothering me. It's the new people. They are elderly, like me. And they just moved into a house in the center of Night Vale. Or maybe this is decades from now. Time is a little hazy for me. I had never been in this house, nor noticed it before they moved in. It's a one bedroom, and there are three of them. I thought polyamory, but they have three separate beds and they never speak to each other, rarely look at each other, and never leave the home.

The first night I secretly lived in their home, I realized they never slept either. They brush their teeth, put on pajamas, and get into bed. But they all lie there, eyes open, through silent hours of darkness. I tried whispering to them, but got no response. Usually when I reveal myself in the dark, I get the thrill of witnessing horror dawn across a person’s distorted mouth and bulging eyes, as they see my faceless face pressed up against their own. One of the best parts of visiting new residents. But not these three. For once, I'm the frightened one.

###

Speaking of frightening. Did you get your taxes finished on time, Alex? You. You're Alex. You with the shoes.

I had to file for an extension. I don't owe any money, because I have no income, but I'm over 200 years old, never got a social security number, have no permanent address, and I wasn't born in this country. It's a lot of paperwork.

And, Alex, your wifi is terrible, and I was having a hard time downloading the forms I needed, so I just wrote my name on some yellowish-black Boston Lettuce you'd left in the crisper for the last three weeks, but the leaves kept falling apart, really more like melting. After about 20 minutes, I got frustrated and made myself a salad. Also I used the last of your parmesan cheese, but don't worry. I replaced it with dried skin I've been collecting from your bedsheets. Don't be grossed out, Alex. Same texture and nutritional value. You won't know the difference.

###

I got the idea from the Food Network's Beat Bobby Flay, where one winner tied up Bobby and ran a microplane across his forehead to make a chimichurri sauce. I love that show, but I'm a bigger fan of HGTV's House Hunters... the Desert Dystopia version. That's where I met you, Adi. Yes, you with the face.

You were shopping for a new home here in Night Vale. You told the realtor, who was inside of a living deer - its belly horrifically distended and quivering with every one of the agent’s words and gesticulations - that you wanted 3 bedrooms, a backyard, and something close to an outdoor community space.

The first home: the yard was not in good shape, lots of human remains and the lawn was glowing, perhaps from underground radiation testing. It was well under your budget, but you would have had to spend your savings on fixing it up. Also in the bathroom mirror you saw, crawling across the ceiling, a faceless old woman devouring what looked like a rat. You didn't need to worry about a rat infestation, Adi. It was a chipmunk.

The second home was a condo right in the heart of the arts district. You loved the design, a single large black cube, no doors, no windows, no interior. A true Closed Floorplan, so popular these days, but you weren't sure there was enough room for entertaining, or anything else at all.

The house you selected was perfect, 3 bedrooms, a jacuzzi en suite, and a large patio and backyard. Plus it was right in the middle of town next to the community Dog Park, although you would be disappointed later to learn that your dog had been arrested for domestic espionage after peeing inside the park's forbidden walls.

I think you made the right choice, Adi. But I can't help wondering every time I watch House Hunters: what is this person running away from? You left Queens to move to Night Vale. Queens is where your family lives, where your best friends live, and your girlfriend of 2 years. Are you afraid of stasis, Adi? Of being loved? Of commitment? You should be afraid of the pinkish ooze coming out of your ear. Might want to see an ENT about that. Or, if not an ENT, an entomologist.

###

Speaking of putting woodboring beetles inside orifices, I tried a similar thing with the elderly roommates who recently moved to town. Or who moved into town many years from now. Again, time is strange for me. But these roommates are also so strange. When I went to put a beetle in one of their ears, I noticed a lot of scar tissue there, making the hole too small. In my haste, the beetle scurried away, and I got kind of desperate and just made a bunch of spooky moans and hisses. Like this.

[demonstrates her spookiest moans and scariest hisses]

But not one of the three responded to me. They continued their meaningless pantomime of sleeping, and in the morning they got up and each went quietly about their days. One of them made coffee, but did not drink it. They then went to the window and waved at their neighbor, Susan Willman, who was on her porch, stretching before her morning run. Susan looked at the figure in the window next to her and froze. She stared in terror, then darted back in her home and locked the door. Susan has always been unfriendly. I ran her bed sheets through her office shredder as a reminder to be more open and loving toward the world.

The other two roommates climbed into the shower at the same time. I'm not one to get off on others' sexual activities. I just thought I might see something new, something human here. But no. They stood side by side, cleaning their cold, gravity-defeated bodies, not once looking at each other, let alone speaking. A squelch and a squish and gray water falling around yellow toenails. They toweled off, but when they hung the towels up, those towels were completely dry.

###

I'm used to being the one who does inexplicable and disturbing things. Last year during the Community Players' production of Romeo and Juliet, I decided it would be more fun if they used actual poison. It was a last minute idea, so the only poison I could find was borax, which just gave the two kids playing the leads several unhappy bathroom hours the night after the show ended. So I don't know. I could have made a stronger directorial decision. But so could the actual director. I get that Shakespeare plays are long, but he cut out all the best parts, like the train robbery and also Tybalt winning his bowling league. Although I did appreciate that they left in Juliet's famous line:

Good night, good night! your blood and guts and marrow,
Which worms shall eat inside your grave so narrow.
It's a classic story. Kids these days just don't try to fake their own deaths anymore.

###

Oh, and Morgan. Morgan, I’m talking to you. Yes, you with the fingernails and teeth.

I need to explain something to you. You tip 20%. You can afford it. Stop using it as a measure of how much you approve of your restaurant service. A 20% tip is not a bonus, it is a fee. Restaurant owners don't pay their staffs. Instead they make the diners pay their employees through this idiotic notion of capitalistic meritocracy. I don't care how bad the service. Tip them. You have money, Morgan.

I would tell you also to stop asking to speak to a manager every time your Long Island Iced Tea is a bit late. But I cut your tongue out last month, so they wouldn't understand you anymore anyway. Human tongue, by the way is delicious if you marinate it long enough. Do you know what a cooked human tongue tastes like, Morgan? Yes you do. You just don't know you do. Remember Applebees last week? You ordered soup. It was a beef base with onions and little perfectly sauteed flecks of your own tongue that you had used to lash out at the manager the last time you ate there. You could blame them for poorly expediting your orders, but really the onus is on you for going to Applebees, which serves neither of the items its name promises. It's false advertising. Like an egg cream soda. Or Taco Bell.

###

Speaking of eating, the elderly roommates made lunch together. But not for each other. They were all in the kitchen at the same time making separate meals in silence. They sat around the dining table together and ate. They carved and stabbed and pushed food quickly into their mouths, but their eyes were empty. One of them began to spit out their food. No one seemed to care or notice. They all began to vomit, but not with muscular heaves of shoulders and necks. The vomit spurted out like water from a hand pump, their torsos and heads perfectly still.

After each bodily rejection of food, they would start again shoveling it back into their mouths, repeating the same process.

Eventually one of them stood up and threw their plate into the kitchen window, glass bursting everywhere. That person leaned into the hole and began punching the jagged shards out with their clenched fist, as blood poured out of their forearms and wrists. They screamed mournfully into the suburban street.

Neighbors and passersby paused only briefly, as if they barely heard the sad howl spreading across the valley. Susan’s lemon tree next door died instantly, and all of the lemons fell with wet plops to the ground. The fruit peeled open and inside of each was a fleshy crimson pulp, like meat that has been ground for too long.

The other two roommates kept eating and vomiting, not even noticing the shattered glass being subsumed by the growing pool of blood on the floor.

###

You know I wasn’t always like this. Faceless or old. Secretly living anywhere. Once I was born upon warm water. The smell I remember is sharp citrus and the peppery sting of grass. The salt funk of ocean. I was once a child. I grieved once. I smelled blood. Once I was thief. I lived among thieves. I saw empires rise and fall. Centuries cast themselves upon infinity as fruitlessly as waves upon cliffs. Once I was a recluse. I lived amongst bandits and farmers. I spoke a different language then. I’ve spoken many languages. Once I was under the sea. That was a quiet time. I lived amongst the coral and the dead eyed fish. Once I was a wanderer. I’ve seen the headwaters of the Mississippi and I’ve seen the cobbled streets of Paris and I’ve seen the empty arches of Franchia. But I’ve never seen anything like these three roommates. Of all the things I’ve been, child, thief, recluse, wanderer, faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home: I’ll tell you this. I’ve never been this scared.

###

Fear is in the unknowing, in the mystery. Fear is seeing everything about an old woman except her face. Fear is the uncertainty of her secretly living in your home. Fear is not the spider you see on the wall. It's the spider you no longer see on the wall when you look back again.

In the unnerving din of shattered glass and mournful howls in that house, I found the loose thread that unraveled this mystery. The roommate who screamed had no tongue. And one of the others had an ear swollen shut from a previous surgery. And the other had a red mark, like a radish or a sarcoma adorned with poetry drawn upon their shoulder blade. I realized I know these strange three roommates. They are you, Toni, with the special tattoo I gave you. And you, Adi, with your aural scar-tissue from the beetle I jammed in there. And you, Morgan, your tongue removed and digested.

The three of you do not exactly live together in that home, not at the same time. You're living 3 different timelines in the same space. You do not speak or respond because you are dead. Each of you alone in that house together. Or you will be. Time is confusing for me. Decades from now, after you die, your souls will be trapped in that house because something in this world is unresolved for you. You know this. Paranormal Neuroscience is required for all high school freshmen. But what they don't teach you is how to resolve it.

I know how and when each of you die. I wrote it down in the back pages of your journals. I've done this for everybody. But nobody ever reads it, because while people always think they'll write every day, after a few pages they fall off the wagon and never see the last pages of their journals.

Except Jonathan Franzen. He didn't seem bothered by what he read. But he did cross out all my adverbs and added some Oxford commas. In case you’re wondering how Jonathan Franzen dies, here’s the answer: he doesn’t.

###

I am the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home. You might find this ambiguous. After all, the word “home” is singular. So whose home is it exactly that I secretly live in? Listen, some things in this tangled world are simple. I live in your home. And your home. And your home. I live in all of your homes, simultaneously. I am many.

[SOUNDTRACK, HARD LEFT: I am many.]

I am one.

[SOUNDTRACK, HARD RIGHT: I am one.]

[SOUNDTRACK: Throughout following, some sampling of what she is saying, coming out of various sides and with various levels of distortion or speed up or slow down. It’s a delicate balance, because we need to understand what she’s saying so it can’t be too loud or distracting, but there should be a layered, creepy effect here.]

You all live such different lives. Teeming. That’s what you all are. Teeming. And I am there watching you.

You, Toni, you dream of being a poet. Follow that dream. Resolve the unresolved. The worst that can happen is crushing disappointment and public mockery. And eviction when you can’t pay your rent. Many more awful things after that. Get to it!

And you, Adi, you fled your previous city to escape a murder charge. Strangely, you did not commit the murder you were charged with, but you have commited murder. Weird choice to go on House Hunters as a wanted fugitive, but maybe it was a good first step to healing your soul.

And you, Morgan, you have an idea that could save us all, an epoch-defining idea, one of the greats. But you don’t know which one. You have so many ideas. I can tell you this. Most of them aren’t important. One of them is vitally important. Good luck. Also tip 20%.

And you, I forget your name, you tweet too much. We all tweet too much. But that doesn’t let you off the hook. That’s why I ate your phone. You can thank me later.

[LIGHTING: steady fade to black beginning here]

You can all thank me later. Because you all will be seeing me soon. I think that tonight is the night to let slip my secret. You will soon see me fumbling wet and gray from out of the bathroom mirror, or folded up strangely, loose skin and mashed bones, in the bottom drawer of your dresser, or you will see me scuttle along your walls, the hair hanging down from my faceless face, or you will look out your kitchen window and there will be someone standing in your driveway, and it will be me, and then there will be no one in your driveway and instead I will be next to you in the kitchen, faceless and so very very old. Won’t that be nice.

[LIGHTING: completely dark now]

I am the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home. And your home. And your home. And every home.

And I will be seeing you very, very… soon.