We’ll always be here for you. Right here. Next to you. Only inches from your face. Always. Welcome to Night Vale.

###

Luca Albescu lives at 831 Lombardi Street, in a dilapidated Victorian mansion at the top of the hill. You know the one. It’s right next to the old Greek Orthodox Church, which was converted into an H&M back in 2003. No one knows when Luca arrived in Night Vale. He has lived here longer than anyone. He does not say much, but he’s not a hermit.

Luca enjoys seeing plays and movies. He recently attended a Night Vale Community Theater production of Godspell. He lipsynced along to all the big musical numbers like “One Day More,” “Surrey With the Fringe on Top,” and “Mr. Brightside.” From the stage, the cast could see Luca wearing his large, dark sunglasses and curling his fragile body underneath his black overcoat.

The coat is too big for Luca, though at one time it was not. He’s grown smaller with age, as do we all. We grow and grow and grow until we do not, and then we slowly shrink. Like leftover balloons from a long ago celebration. Luca has never wished to purchase a new coat. He likes this coat. It has a cozy lining that cools his skin. The lapels have the perfect shape: sharp but subtle angles. Plus, the pockets. The pockets are small, which counterintuitively is a good thing. We think we want many large pockets, but this allows us too much freedom to carry too much material. The pockets eventually stretch and sag under the strain, and our coats begin to look sad and frumpy. Luca’s coat is crisp and neat. Though it does appear too big.

Luca does not remember how long he’s had this coat, but he remembers he bought it in Prussia some time before he met Henri [French pronunciation]. Henri, with his long neck and short temper. Henri, with his thin cigarillos and thick hair. Henri who changed Luca’s life. For the better. For the worse.

Who can say?

Luca can. Though he never has. Not aloud anyway.

###

Luca does not attend church. Even when the church next door, Saint Demetrios, still held services, Luca did not go. He wished the congregation well, in the way we wish, say, dock workers in Italy or bank tellers in Mozambique well. We know nothing of them, nor of their business, yet we hope all humans achieve enough happiness to be able to share it with others.

He was not sad when the Church left his neighborhood for a new home on West Jackson Avenue. He was not sad when the Swedish clothing giant moved in to the basilica near his house. Though he doesn’t shop there. Somewhere between indifference and “good for them” is how Luca feels about it all.

It didn’t matter, because Luca’s closets are brimming with clothes. Some he has acquired over a lifetime. Some he has made himself. Luca has Nehru suits, riding boots, silk shirts, and cotton cravats. He owns several cloaks, but they have been out of style for decades, perhaps centuries. Sometimes if you call a cloak a cape, no one will say anything, but they know the difference. We can all tell.

So he doesn’t wear his cloaks, though he wishes they’d become fashionable again. He loves the weight of them on his shoulders. He loves the way they catch the air as he walks. He loves the security they bring, lightly cocooning his body as he moves through crowds. He wears his overcoat instead. It is the closest thing he has to a cloak without drawing attention to himself.

Yet Luca always draws attention to himself, despite his best efforts to be a shadow. He’s very old with a few thin strands of jet black hair pulled back tight across his wide scalp. His eyes are sunken, the skin around them dark. His teeth have grown long, as have his jowls.

No one judges Luca for his aged appearance. They empathize. We are all aware of what age will do to our bodies, though the future is an abstract concept. Will we become ugly? Will we become ill? Will we become infirmed of body and/or mind? Yes. Yes. And, yes. Or at least hopefully, we tell ourselves. For the alternative is to truncate existence. Some might say a short, healthy life is better than a long spiral downward, though that is an existential argument for another time.

We can all hope to be as active as Luca in our elder years. He rides his bike every evening at sundown around Grove Park. He spends many Friday nights at Antarctica, the most popular nightclub in Night Vale, in the heart of the Dance District. Luca does not dance. Not anymore. He does not have the energy. But he loves being around people.

He loves the electric atmosphere of youthful physicality. Of the limitless imagination of the human body. It’s the same reason he loves watching baseball, and circus performers, and traffic cops.

At Antarctica, Luca orders a dry Manhattan with a lemon peel. He drinks it slowly. And when it is done, he listens to the DJ with his eyes closed for about 15 minutes. Sometimes others think he is asleep. And sometimes they are right. But mostly he is feeling the beat move through his bones. He is savoring the final flavor of the rye and aromatic bitters on the back of his tongue. He is committing his emotions to memory through the smell of sweat, booze, and pheromones.

And when he opens his eyes, he orders a highball with a mint sprig garnish. It is always these two drinks. He never finishes the highball before standing, tipping the bartender generously and walking back to his bike, the only bike parked out front of the club. He does not lock his bike, because people are inherently good, even if they sometimes do bad things. No one has ever stolen his bicycle, though people have done worse. Still, Luca believes the world is better for having humanity.

###

Sometimes children in the neighborhood ring Luca’s doorbell. He doesn’t answer it anymore because he knows they’re daring each other to ring it. His is a haunted house of course, at least according to childhood lore. He used to answer it. Many years ago. It was so long ago. 30 years? 60? 80 even? Whenever it was, it was then that he learned that the children feared him. That it was all a game of dare.

Once he stopped a child and asked him why he was scared. The child was too frightened to answer, and so Luca told him: “I’m not a monster. I’m not a ghost. I’m simply an old man. My house is old too. It creaks and groans, like my own body. Its hollows are dark with shadow and wear, like mine. But its soul is light. Its structure is sound. Its spirit is free. And that, too, is me.”

He said all of this to the child, and the child began to cry. Luca frowned, fearing he had further frightened the child. But I can tell you dear listeners that this child cried because he was confused. He did not understand how something so terrible to see could be so gentle to hear. Horror resides in the inscrutable. And the child was not frightened of Luca, I know this, because I was that child. The child was frightened of the unknown. Learning is scary. The shifting tectonic plates of Conventional Wisdom can unnerve even the most grounded among us.

The child ran away. He would learn from this experience but not directly, and not immediately. He would have many more misunderstandings, many more selfish exchanges with gentle people who only appeared monstrous. The child is still learning. As are we all. I hope.

###

It’s too simplistic to say Luca is a good man, that he is not a monster. He is a monster, but only metaphorically. But Henri. Henri, with his black beard and white teeth. Henri, with his slow walk and fast talk. Henri was literally a monster.

They met in Brussels. Luca doesn’t remember the year, though it was well before the war. Henri approached Luca at intermission of Miss Julie, August Strindberg’s expressionist masterpiece about a young woman who must save her kingdom from perpetual winter by confronting the Snow Queen.

Henri, with his common speech and elitist shoes. Henri, with his fat wallet and thin temper. Henri bought Luca drinks, and they talked late into the night about the great artists of the day: Matisse, Ibsen, Springsteen, and so on. They began to meet regularly at the theater, and soon became close friends. Luca loved and admired Henri. Henri, with his fake gold and sincere apologies. Henri, with his loud laugh and quiet gait.

But Luca also knew that Henri wasn’t a man. Nor a woman. Nor a person at all. It was not apparent in looks, but in action. Henri was something else entirely. Henri came out only at night. He did not drink water nor eat food, not that Luca ever saw.

Luca knew that Henri also did not go to a church, but unlike Luca, who simply did not choose to go to church and did not care any which way about religion, Henri abhorred the notion of it. He grunted and spasmed at the mention, sometimes even the sight of, a cathedral or temple or mosque.

Vampire, Luca said one night. You’re a vampire, he repeated, unafraid of the word, as silly as it sounded to say so openly. Vampire. And Henri nodded. Without saying a word, Henri held out his palm. Luca placed his hand upon Henri’s. Henri lifted it to his own mouth and kissed it. It was an agreement. A pact.

Luca would live in Henri’s home. He would run errands, invite guests, and clean what needed to be cleaned. There was a lot to clean, well more than what a human employer would require. Everything Henri asked of Luca was more than a human would require. Luca had the stomach for it, though it took years to achieve that level of fortitude. To be able to abide by Henri’s needs.

Many mornings, alone in the sunlit mansion, while Henri was asleep (or whatever state he was in), Luca would vomit. He was not ill, physically. The vomit was a kind of exorcism, a removal of his own humanity. The release of angels, of conscience. Morality was exiting his body. His soul needed room for a monster.

Luca never killed a person, but he knowingly led many to be killed. He justified this by imagining cows led to slaughter. Their deaths are painless. Their deaths are useful. Their deaths are the order of nature. We could all be so lucky to have served a purpose as glorious as the circle of life and to receive the reward of leaving our bodies without disease, rot, discomfort, or ruin.

Rationalization is one of man’s most clever and most dangerous inventions. And Luca knew it. But not right away. He would not fully comprehend what he was doing for years.

###

Luca served Henri well. Henri, with his girlish face, and childish humor. Henri, with his steady hunger and erratic taste. Henri had to move, for the people of Brussels grew wise to a monster among them. So the pair moved to London. And to Lisbon. And to Marrakesh. And to Baja California. And eventually to Night Vale.

They grew to love the dry open plane of deserts. Henri and Luca, both from crowded European streets, that grew cold and rainy in the winters, sweltering and malodorous in the summers. The desert is a place where people can hide. The desert is a place where one can see trillions of miles into the universe, yet still live invisibly.

And above all, the desert has cool, cloudless evenings. It’s the perfect weather.

###

WEATHER

###

And so Luca and Henri lived in Night Vale, inside their brand new Victorian mansion on a small hill, miles from the village. Over the years, the house and Luca grew old, as new homes and young businesses sprouted all around them. Yet Henri did not appear to age. Henri, with his angelic body and demonic soul. Henri with his bottomless appetite and shallow personality. Henri needed human blood, and Luca would get it for him.

Luca would bring theater patrons, restaurant diners, mail delivery persons, even tourists, back to their home, his home, and introduce them to Henri. Luca would serve vintage wine, prepare roast quail, play classical music. Luca would amuse the guests with pleasant stories. Henri used to help with the preparation and the entertainment. But as the years went by Henri arrived later and later for dinners. And eventually he only came just as the conversation was getting good.

Damned Henri. Henri, with his eager needs and indifferent presence. Henri, with his fastidious dress and careless manners. Henri would appear, as if from nowhere, behind the guest and bite down. The guest would struggle and moan, only to eventually fall limp into Henri’s arms, like a sleepy child.

Henri would gulp and glug. He would slurp and suck. He would belch and burp. And then he would return to his lair. To his pit. To his tomb.

It was difficult to let go of this partnership. From the outside looking in, it is easy to say “Get out of there, Luca!” or “You can do better,” but relationships are never so easy. He had a rapport with Henri. Luca had spent nearly his whole life in service to a vampire. It was almost as if Luca, himself, were a vampire. Though deep down he knew he was not.

But he couldn’t say it. He was afraid to say the word human. It sounded so silly. And what would he do by himself, alone? He was getting old. Would he marry? Have kids? Get a job? How do you explain that gap in your resumé? No, this was easier. Luca and Henri had a way. And it afforded him comfort, health, fine things, and the comfy illusion of freedom.

###

One night, a young woman named Rochelle came home with Luca. They had met while dancing. I say young, but she was in her mid-40s. Luca was older by at least 5 years, perhaps 25. It’s unclear. But it was a natural connection they had. Luca poured her some wine, and they ate cheese and talked while Duke Ellington played on the Victrola.

Rochelle loved Luca’s humor and his casual confidence. She liked his full head of jet black hair, with its many curls and tufts. She liked the way he looked at her.

She only felt a sting for a moment. Then ecstacy. Then nothing. Luca did not understand what was happening at first, for it was dark in the house. Only a single candle shook its soft light across their faces.

But then he saw a pale white hand and a thin red streak on her neck. Without thinking he struck Henri. Henri looked confused, then hurt, then angry. Very very angry. But Luca did not stop to process this. He held his handkerchief over the candle and then waved the flames in Henri’s face. He backed Henri down the stairs. Back into his den.

Luca did not cry when he buried Rochelle. He seethed. He ached. And he knew he had to be free. Which would be the most painful choice of all. He removed a single baluster from the central staircase. He carved it down to a point and descended.

If anyone on Lombardi Street was awake and listening carefully that night, they would have heard a high-pitched scream. They would have heard the soul of a monster being dissipated and burned. They would have assumed it was nothing more than a hungry coyote howling for a hunt.

Rationalization, after all, is one of man’s most clever inventions.

Luca lives alone and has for decades. It has taken all of that time to feel truly free. Though he is finally happy, despite his stiff back and sore teeth. Despite his shallow breath and crooked posture. He loves to ride his bike, to watch people dance, to drink his drinks, and to see his shows.

He never married, never got a job, nor had kids, but he’s found a life that is his own. When he eats, he thinks he is replenishing his soul, returning to it what once was banished. And perhaps he is. Luka Albescu, after all, is the only one who can keep himself human.

Stay tuned next for an actual coyote howling for a hunt.

Good night, Night Vale. Good Night.

###

PROVERB: Ask your doctor about *their* health. It's always you, you, you. Conversation is a two-way street, bud.