A friendly midwestern community where the wind is crisp, the waters are clear, and mysterious lights pass overhead while we wave and say “hello”.

Come on down to Vermillion Falls.

Well, it’s as good a day as ever here in our peaceful town. And a very special day for a different town far away from here.

Now, many of us in our quiet Midwestern hamlet don’t know this, but we have a sister city out in the far desert reaches of our country, a town called Night Vale.

It seems that Night Vale shares with Vermillion Falls certain…. particularities, and as such, our city council has a friendly relationship with their city council. As a token of that friendship, today was established as a day to swap our community radio signals. So at this very moment, Night Vale’s radio host is speaking to the rolling hills and crystal waters of Vermillion Falls. And I, Frank Luna, am broadcasting to the hot blacktop and water efficient landscaping of Night Vale.

Well, hello new listeners. If it’s ok with you, I’m just going to continue to broadcast as I normally do. It would give me something of stage fright to try to craft my show for a new audience, and there are so many local matters for me to get to.

Today in the news: The Man Who Comes out of The Lake has come out of The Lake. He is wearing a gray suit and a blue tie. He has gray eyes and a blue mouth. He has gray hair and blue hands. He speaks in a gray voice and utters blue words. We are not sure what The Man Who comes out of The Lake wants, or why he comes out of The Lake to lurk around our town. But we know that he is dangerous. We know that he wants something from us that we can’t give him.

If you see The Man Who comes out of The Lake, I advise that you avoid him. Do not look at his gray fingers or his blue fingernails. Do not acknowledge his gray bag or the old blue book it contains. Do not worry what gray words he writes in that sharp blue ink.

The Man Who comes out of The Lake is back, dear listeners. Run if you see him, that’s my best advice.

Now I can’t believe I have to say this, but I do have to remind our listeners to not pet or feed the wolfmen in the woods. The wolfmen in the woods are dangerous wild creatures, sometimes. Sometimes they’re our neighbors, wearing polo shirts and driving Chevy Volts. But on certain nights of the year, they are wild creatures, and they stalk their territories. It can be quite dangerous to leave food out for them, or to try to stroke their soft fluffy ears. Oh, it’s so tempting to chase after their crooning voices and their pitterpattering feet, but a full grown wolfman is no joke. That might be Dale from the hardware store during the day, but right now it is a seven foot tall creature built of muscle and hunger, and it can tear you in two as fast as you can say “two eggs, two kegs, now that’s what I call breakfast”.

Please. Try to have some sense out there.

For those of you who might not know our town as well as I do, if for instance you’re listening to me from some distant place low on precipitation and high on tumbleweeds, let me give you a little tour.

I won’t get too exact, for privacy reasons, but I can give you the general lay of the land. Vermillion Falls lies three miles east of its namesake, which is really more of a dribble, where Norman’s Creek spits out, down five feet of tumbling rocks. The local children like to swim in the little pool that forms at the base of the falls and we let them, since only a few disappear into the deep blue of the bottom, and of those usually one or two return with stories of a mirror version of our town, where everyone speaks backwards and the tastes of sweet and sour are reversed.

We have many fine shops and restaurants, such as The Starlite Early Evening Diner, the Morton and Stepson Department Store, and the Denny’s. The neighborhoods range from our little urban center around Main Street, to the old rural areas of Farmer’s Sorrow and The Angry Acres, to the newer suburban development like the Royal Willows and the very prestigious gated community of King Charles’s Secret Son.

To the west is the friendly neighboring town of Braxton, which is home to one guy named Braxton, but he’s super nice. He runs the Braxton bed and breakfast, and the Braxton bank, and is mayor of Braxton and also the town rabble rouser.

To the east is The Lake. The less said about that the better. We all turn our eyes away from the lake and low mournfully when we are reminded it is there.

To the south are the butter farms and to the north is Minneapolis, which is about ten miles away. We’re right next to Burnsville, sort of near the Buffalo Tap and Grill. Coordinates are: 44.753 by -93.329

That’s enough. I don’t want to give away too many specifics. Can’t have anyone trying to find us.

Ok, I thought I was clear about this, but I’ll have to say it even more plainly, George North. George, if you keep trying to pet the wolfmen in the woods, then you are going to get bitten, and come next full moon, you will also be a wolfman in the woods. And maybe that doesn’t seem like a big deal to you. So what? Get a little hirsute. Grow a few extra teeth. Who hasn’t at one point or another? But here’s the deal, George. Maybe your neighbor Otto is already a wolfman, and good for him. Maybe your upstairs tenant Hilda is also a wolfman (wolfman by the way is the gender neutral term. From the German wulfmaneuson, which is a type of bread eaten in the mornings. The etymology is a little unclear.) Maybe everyone down at the office - Linda, Rashid, Howard, and Sahar - are all wolfmen. But a wolfman’s life is short and brutal. It’s all about the rending and the ripping, the blood and the viscera. It’s no kind of life for a civilized person, and George, you like to think of yourself as a civilized person. You just don’t have it in you to be a wolfman. You don’t have the guts or the constitution. Leave wolfmanning to the wolfmen, and for gosh sake George, just stop trying to pet them! I don’t want to have to say it again.

There’s a sale at the Coach Warehouse, the one on Truck Highway 93. All coaches are 50% off. Now you may think I’m reading that copy incorrectly. It’s an easy mistake to make. Who can remember which spelling means the place to sit and which means the stern eye of authority over a team? But no, this is not the couch warehouse, it’s the coach warehouse, and what they sell are people in tracksuits and once promising careers, people with whistles and uncombed hair, people with hoarse voices and thick fingers and bad knees and dirty glasses. It’s an entire warehouse of these people, with old cars and new houses, with loud voices and quiet thoughts. And this weekend they are 50% off. They cost just as much, but half of their bodies are missing. Where did the other halves go? The Coach Warehouse isn’t sure. The Coach Warehouse isn’t an expert in anything but delivering the most middling quality people for the lowest possible prices.

If you have any idea what happened to the rest of the coaches’ bodies, please do let the warehouse know. They’re very curious.

And now for the community calendar.

On Monday, we’re having a little bonfire celebration at the Cub Foods, over in the dry snacks and nuts aisle. We’ll be piling that wood high, singing old camp songs, and burning as long as we can until the market’s automatic sprinklers kick in and soak us all, so don’t be late.

Tuesday, Olive Newman will be leading a nature walk. “Kids these days don’t even think about nature,” Olive told me this morning, as she hung from my kitchen ceiling like a bat. “All they ever do is look at cell phones and become Democrats,” she continued. “Well, I’m here to show them a little of the glory of nature, and if that don’t fix ‘em, I just don’t know what will.” The rules of the Nature Walk are simple: you must keep walking above four miles per hour. If you drop below that speed, you will be given a warning. Accrue three warnings, and there will be a consequence. So get on out there and explore nature!

Wednesday isn’t happening, and you know why. You oughta be ashamed.

Thursday is the pet adoption fair in the old copper mine. SPCA president Herman O’Neill says there will be lots of great puppos and kittens for the taking. He says that they will be deep in the mine, where the tunnels get dark, where they never got around to wiring lights, where the ceilings are low and you have to crawl to continue. “The pets are waiting for you there,” Herman said. “They love you and want you to find them. Crawl into the dark forever if that is what it takes.” Oh that’s so cute. Maybe I should adopt a dog. I used to have one you know, but then it went away to college and I’ve been an empty nester ever since.

Friday is on vacation this week, and so we’ll just be doing Thursday again.

And Saturday is sign-up day for the rec leagues. If you want to join their kickball, basketball, or The Most Dangerous Game teams, head on down to the community center to sign up.

This has been the community calendar.

Hey! I don’t like to raise my voice like this, but hey! You simply need to stop touching the wolfmen in the woods, George North. They are neither our friends nor our pets. Nor are they a beneficial part of the ecosystem like mountains and waterfalls and oil derricks. They are unnatural fiends. They hunger for our flesh and our fluids. They carve ancient alien language into the bark of trees with their vicious claws. Why, I just don’t stand for these creatures of unhealthy appetite and unknown motives. Even if most of the week, they are our neighbors and friends, they are now the wolfmen of the woods, and look, you just have to stop touching them and feeding them and trying to commune with them. It’s not going to end well for any of us, least of all for you, who are likely to end up with blood and viscera all over the place. And who is going to clean that up? Not you. You’ll be a wolfman or dead, so it’ll be up to your fellow citizens and taxpayers. It’s thoughtless is what it is.

And now for a word from our sponsors.

Today’s show is brought to you by Handsome Pete’s Tire Replacement and Repair. No one likes to think about car maintenance. It’s one of those things like our blood pressure, or the man who lives in the attic that we just would rather push to the back of our minds. We simply wait until it insists its way into our lives. Because make no mistake. These issues will haunt us if we don’t take care of them. A nurse will whisper an urgent grim message to our doctor. The man who lives in our attic will find his way downstairs, oh he always finds his way downstairs. Or, our tires will blow out on an icy, midnight highway.

So why not get ahead of the inevitable. Handsome Pete promises good service at a great value, and I for one trust him. I myself get my tires changed at Handsome Pete’s twice a week, which is the frequency he recommends. It’s a bit of a burden on my schedule and I’m in a good deal of debt, but there’s just no price on safety.

Handsome Pete’s Tire Replacement and Repair, out there on Marmot Lane at the edge of the woods. They can’t help you with the man in the attic. No one can. But they sure can get you a nice, new set of tires.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

You know, I have tried every tactic, and George North, it’s clear that you want to be a wolfman. Which is… fine. We all can have hobbies. It’s good to have goals. But this doesn’t only affect you. When you become a wolfman, what does that mean for the rest of us? That our small town human life just isn’t enough? That we should leave our homes, enter the woods, and give in to the bloody temptation of the hunt? That our teeth could be so much longer if only we would let them? Is that what you’re saying? Well, if it is, then that’s phooey. And if it’s not, then I have misunderstood and I’m sorry.

But we must fully repudiate the wolfmen, and we will, after this look at sports.

[SPORTS]

We return from sports to a town overrun. Overrun with desire to pet the wolfmen, to lope with them through the moonlit woods. And I get it, I do. I don’t want to come off as some kind of moralizing negative nancy who has never been in the real world. I understand the deep appeal of the wolfmen. If I could live in a world without consequences, would I allow myself to enjoy the gentle bite of a wild wolfman and then finally, for the first time in my life, run free, without worry or weariness? Well, sure, I’d take that deal in a heartbeat. But last time I checked this world is not a frictionless fairytale and we all can’t just willy nilly become the wolfmen we desperately desire to be.

So I beg of you here, citizen to citizen. Act with decorum. Think of others. And for pete’s sake, please. Stop cavorting with the wolfmen in the woods. As sweetly tempting as it may be. Take the warning of George North, who has gone missing, leaving behind a family and a big blood stain. If you have any information as to his whereabouts, keep it to yourself. No one likes a gossip.

Well, that about wraps up my broadcast for the evening. I hope that it has been illuminating for our far distant neighbors who heard it. We may not share the same climate or the same accent or the same watchful beings flying overhead while we sleep. But we share a sincere human spirit. A desire for communication. And as the voice of one community, speaking to another community, I can only hold out my hand in friendship. Metaphorical hand obviously. This is the radio. But you know what I mean.

Stay tuned next for a howling from the woods, and a few tentative answering howls from the houses below.

Good evening, Vermillion Falls. Good evening.