Life is not about the destination. It’s about avoiding the destination at all costs.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Buckle up, listeners. Today, I’m not broadcasting to you from down at the station. I’m broadcasting to you from out in the world, via a little radio transmitting device and headset that I picked up at the Arlo DeCardenas (Ar-low Day-CAR-day-nawz the emphasis is on the second syllable 'car') estate sale last weekend. Big shoutout to Arlo—thanks so much for posthumously selling me your stuff. And thanks also for giving your life to save us from those wasp-mountain goat-minotaur-looking things. What were those even? Where did they come from? Are there more? Anyway, RIP pal.

So this device has a single-watt signal, which normally only reaches about 2 or 3 miles, but thanks to the inordinate amount of satellites constantly passing overhead, it actually bounces around town pretty well. As many of you heard me testing out on Saturday night, with an improvised standup set about how my swamp cooler is full of scorpions again and how super hilarious that is. Which was not in any way a passive aggressive message meant for Will Barca of Barca’s Pest Removal who keeps rescheduling our extermination appointment due to his “overwhelming calendar” and “incapacitating arachnophobia”.

Speaking of pest removal, there’s a fresh heap of roadkill on the corner of 5th and Shay, in case anyone from the Sanitation Department is listening. Right between the Ace Hardware and the Hazy Mirage Tanning Salon, kinda half in the street and half in the alley. I can’t tell what kind of animal it was. Maybe one of the monsters Arlo killed? I don’t know. But it’s wearing a blood-soaked argyle sweater vest and is approximately human-sized.

I gotta say, it’s exciting to be out here where the action’s happening in real time instead of relying on second-hand reports and looking out the window and trying to imagine what the local news might be. Now I’m really living the news and bringing it to you as it happens. Theoretically. Nothing’s really happening out here per se. But don’t worry, I won’t just be walking around town all night cataloging roadkill, like they do on Pod Save America. Boring! I do have a special adventure planned for us that I’ll tell you about as soon as I get to the headlines.

In international news, there is a dark planet of awesome size. It is lit by no sun and covered by black forests, jagged mountains, and turbulent oceans. Its howling depths are void of all life. Nothing nests in the barren branches or finds shelter amid the vertical peaks. The wind is endless thunder, echoing across chasms. Nothing can be seen on any horizon, from any vantage point. It is more of a feeling-place than a seeing-place. The feelings are: The astonishment of terror. The wonder and reverence of vertigo. The sensation of tumbling over and over and over, as if caught in a cosmic spin cycle. Acid indigestion. Upset tummy. A hunger that can’t be satisfied. Deja vu. Presque vu. Jamais vu. Oblivion.

The enormous abyss of an empty world falls through space, free of orbits or gravities. It cannot be located or visited. But everyone will see it one day. Or, at the very least, everyone will feel it.

In local news, the greater Night Vale area has an exciting new transportation service! In the past, we have only known the term “taxi cab” to be short for taxidermied cabbage. But now, thanks to the vision of a small business called De Tours—which I believe is French for “Of Towers”—there is an alternate definition for “taxi cab”: a car that you can hire to take you places. This concept was created by Ryan LeFleur, the freshly adult son of Tourism Board Director Madeline LeFleur, in response to her insistence that he, quote, “do something with his life.”

“Mom was really getting on my back,” De Tours CEO Ryan LeFleur muttered at a press conference, when asked about the inspiration for his entrepreneurship.

Besides the standard ride model, there will also be a driverless option, which employs the ghosts of dead cab drivers to operate vehicles using completely invisible otherworldly powers.

“We wanted to take a stand against discrimination of the non-living in the workplace, which we’re seeing far too much of these days,” company spokesperson and the CEO’s best friend Kayla Spanos said, stepping in for Ryan as he got bored and drifted away from the press conference. “Plus we’re also committed to the environment and we’re pretty sure it uses some kind of green energy,” she concluded.

De Tours is currently hiring, with applications open to all citizens and interlopers who have a clean DMV record, and any ghosts who did not die from at-fault auto accidents.

This story brings me to the special adventure I promised you all earlier. Being on the forefront of local happenings, I of course signed up to be part of the beta test group for the new driverless taxis. And I was just approved to hail rides via the De Tours app, All Hail. So I thought, since I have this new remote broadcasting setup, why not bring everyone in town along with me on my very first driverless ride!

Let’s see, I’ll just put my location in here…5th and Shay…And where do we want to go, listeners? Maybe a short ride since we’re just testing things out. How about, oh, The Pancake House. That’s only a few blocks away and the high school art club has been painting a mural on the outside that I’ve been meaning to check out. It’s supposed to depict the dawn of time, with the phrase “Living Things Arise from Lifeless Matter” written across the length of the building in marionberry syrup. Okay, (under breath, as if typing) Pancake…House. There we go. It says it’s matching me with a car. This is exciting.

And we have a match! Zarephath will be picking me up in a red Nissan Versa. Of course I won’t be able to interact with or see the phantasmic energy that’s operating the vehicle, but there’s still an ID picture here for some reason. That’s a nice personal touch, I guess. It’s a grainy black and white photo from inside an empty house, looking out a broken window at an expanse of sun-cracked desert. The flower patterned curtains are old and faded. Outside, a shadow stretches across the ground. It has long spindly legs and a bent neck. The sky is bright white, with rolling black clouds on the horizon.

The app says it will take four minutes for Zarephath to arrive, so while we wait for our driverless car, I’m going to connect us back to the studio for a moment, where Deb, a sentient patch of haze, is ready with a word from our sponsors. Deb, are you there?

DEB

Thanks, Cecil. Today’s show is sponsored by vending machines. There is truly no better way to put money into a big box and have something come out a little door. Now conveniently located all over town, including the bank, the hospital, the mall, the lobby of the Cactus Growers’ Commission. Blocking driveways, floating in swimming pools, falling from the sky, smashing cars, and tipped over out in the Sand Wastes. Thanks to the ceaseless appearance of vending machines right now, it’s easier than ever to exchange coins for novelties. And not just coins! Some of the machines are accepting trade too. Put any object inside and a different object of slightly lesser value comes out. A crow feather for a kernel of corn. A tennis ball for a loose handful of RC Cola. A live wolf spider for a scratched DVD of All the President’s Men. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a gumball. A piece of advice for a broken wedding cake topper.

Vending machines. You must give to receive.

CECIL

Thanks, Deb.

Okay, it says the car is arriving in 1 minute. Which is great, ‘cause it’s starting to rain, at least over here at 5th and Shay. Yes, I see it coming! A red Nissan Versa with no one in the driver’s seat. I feel like a real nerd with how excited I am right now. As I get older, I find that I’m more and more interested in technological innovation and trying new things. I know that goes against the stereotype of middle-aged people being resistant to change, but maybe it comes with being married to a scientist.

I’m getting in the car now. Sliding into the backseat. Here we go. And closing the door. And we are pulling away from the curb! This is so cool. The steering wheel is turning all by itself and I can see the gas and brake pedals being pushed. And we just stopped for a traffic light. Wow, it follows all the laws and everything. Oh and it just braked for an armadillo! Great reaction time. Better than most human drivers, actually. Also, I’ve never seen an armadillo in Night Vale before, so that’s cool too. It looks exactly like the picture in Esteban’s illustrated encyclopedia: leathery armor, nine legs, skittering upside down and backwards with a red Eye of Horus on its thorax. I’ll try to get a photo and have our intern Joseph post it on the Community Radio website. Ahh, too blurry. Those little guys move so fast!

This is a bit strange. We’re going pretty far out of our way to get the Pancake House. Like, the complete opposite direction. Maybe there’s a traffic accident or something. Probably because of the rain. You gotta trust the process with new tech like this, the invisible systems are always a few steps ahead of human comprehension.

Looks like we’re headed toward the housing development of Coyote Corners. Nothing really out here but old tract homes. They’ve added a community garden since I was here last though and there’s a thriving crop of tumbleweeds. Really brightens up the neighborhood.

Now we’re pulling up in front of a sage green split-level house with peeling paint. One of the windows is broken. Old flower-patterned curtains flutter in the wind. Looks like it’s been vacant for a while. And we’re just…idling here.

Let me check my app, maybe I put in the wrong location. No, it says we’re still on the best possible route to my destination. That’s reassuring. But I have this weird urge to go inside that house. To kneel down and pet a cat the color of a toasted marshmallow. To play a quick scale on the piano that I know is tucked neatly into the corner of the living room, even though I can’t see it from here and I definitely can’t play the piano. Well, the car door’s locked anyway. I couldn’t get out even if I tried. And I’m trying quite hard! That’s also reassuring, must be a safety feature.

Oh, we just peeled out and we’re back on the road! Going quite a bit faster now. And we are leaving Coyote Corners. And we are still not going toward the Pancake House. We just got on Route 800, headed toward the open desert. Whoops, swerved a little on the wet pavement there. Ah! Ahh! Haha, ok, having a good time out here. This is great.

[Breaking up a bit] Shoot, I’m losing my signal. I must be getting out of range. Or maybe it’s this summer storm. We better check in with the weather.

[The Weather]

Listeners, I have no idea where I am right now. But I’ll get to that in a moment. First, let me catch you up on the places I’ve been. The car drove me out to the desert, but I couldn’t say exactly where since it was so stormy. The only landmark I could make out was that enormous windowless warehouse, you know, where the glowing crates are stacked and stored for awhile and then moved somewhere else? Of course, that’s not a great landmark because the warehouse itself also changes location frequently. On the road, we saw a man who was not short motioning for us to go back the way we came. Up in a guard tower, a man who was not tall—except of course for his position in a super tall tower—made similar turn-around motions with his hand. My driverless car was somehow able to interpret this, and I was very impressed that it did in fact turn around as directed.

It still did not, however, take me to the Pancake House. It turned up the long winding road to Rattlesnake Rest cemetery. Which was a nice drive, because the rain had finally cleared up and I got a beautiful view of the sunset over the landfill facility down below.

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it for long, because once we got to the graveyard, my taxi drove straight into an open crypt and the gates shut behind us. Then the engine turned off and the car doors unlocked, but I couldn’t move. I felt like I was tied to something heavy, like an anchor keeping me in place. I remembered things like birthday parties I’d never had and vacations I never went on and people I never met and things I never said. Then the memories of these things that hadn’t happened turned into little pinpoints of light that all blurred together into one hazy orb that became blinding and then went dark again. And I suddenly felt like I was cut free from that anchor and flying upward, weightless, through a black ocean toward a surface I couldn’t see. And then I felt nothing at all.

I sat in the dark for a while longer, but it kinda seemed like this was the end of my ride, so I got out of the car.

The crypt gates wouldn’t budge, but I found a staircase leading to an underground tunnel. I’ve now been walking for quite awhile, and as I mentioned earlier, I have no idea where I am. I did pass by a tarantula a few minutes ago, but they were so absorbed in reading Chuck Klosterman’s The Nineties that I didn’t want to interrupt by asking for directions.

I hate to say this, but I’m starting to lose faith in the De Tours company. It’s a great idea but maybe it’s too complicated to work. Or maybe they’re trying to do too much too soon. I don’t know. I’m not a very satisfied customer right now. I don’t blame my driverless phantom Zarephath, or even CEO Ryan LeFleur, but something’s gone wrong somewhere. Because I really don’t think I was supposed to end up down here. There’s all these freaky ancient symbols carved into the walls, like tildes and umlauts and semicolons. And the place is absolutely infested with armadillos. They’re not nearly as cute when they’re dropping from the ceiling, hissing and chittering.

Wait, I think I see a light up ahead. I hope that means I’m coming to the end of the tunnel. Yes, it’s definitely a light. Oh. Oh look at that. Listeners, I have emerged onto the street. I’m back in town…and I am standing right in front of the glowing sign of the Pancake House! A giant neon spatula, flickering with its classic slogan: “All the pancakes you deserve… and several more that you don’t!”

[Ding]

And the app just told me I’ve reached my destination. How about that. It does work after all! Gotta admit, I feel pretty embarrassed that I was second-guessing the process. Like I said, the limits of human comprehension. It’s mortifying to be a person sometimes, isn’t it?

Now that I’m here, I might as well go inside and get a shortstack. Really worked up an appetite with that bonus exercise. I guess that’s green energy at work! I officially take back all my earlier criticisms. LeFleur’s De Tours: four stars.

Stay tuned for the last scraps of sun sinking into the landfill, responsibly disposing of another day.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Good night.