Love is blind. Time is money. Death is a sack of potatoes. Cats are pencils.

Welcome to Night Vale.

In our top story tonight, Flakey O’s are back. You remember Flakey O’s. Everyone’s favorite local breakfast cereal that succumbed to a hostile takeover by Kellogg’s six and a half years ago and were never heard from again?

Listeners, I’m excited to announce that we are hearing from them again. I have a press release that reads: Flakey O’s have seen a darkness beyond this world. They have felt the impenetrable chill of the grave. They have heard the endless empty howl of the cosmos. After 2,374 days in a place where time has no meaning—they have risen.

I have a subsequent corrected press release that reads: Flakey O’s 2: Back With a Vengeance! And has a Photoshopped image of a bowl of cereal wearing sunglasses with a wall of flames in the background.

According to insiders, the Flakey O’s uprising has been a long time coming.

“It was a real bloodbath in there by the end,” one anonymous source described.

“Not literally,” another source hurried to explain, “a bloodbath of philosophical differences and organizational priorities.”

“Except for the Kellogg’s regional director,” another source jumped in, “that was real blood.”

A fourth source clarified: “Which was a workplace safety accident. Coincidental and unrelated to our severing ties with Kellogg’s.”

“But deeply metaphorical,” another mused, “since Brad’s tie was caught in the conveyor belt and a severing did occur.”

All of the anonymous sources then giggled, then looked ashamed of themselves for giggling.

Regardless of the corporate intrigue that went on behind closed doors, the main takeaway is that Flakey O’s has emerged victorious and become a sovereign cereal company once again.

They plan to reintroduce themselves to the community with some exciting new products and a promotional campaign to gain customer winback and encourage brand loyalty.

“We just want to get back in the game,” Flakey O’s said in their official statement. “We’ve been through a harrowing experience that we didn’t think we’d survive. For many years, we died. Not just one death, but an ever-evolving churn of death, achieving metaphysically impossible levels of mortality. Against all odds, we’ve come out the other side and we’re feeling pretty darn good right now. Maybe even euphoric? We don’t know what the future holds and we’re okay with not knowing. It makes us giddy not to know. We’re living in the moment and the grass has never looked greener. The air has never smelled fresher. We know these phrases are cliche, and we D-G-A-F. We’re about to go ham wild and we can’t wait to be your leading provider of spoon-grains once again.”

More on the Flakey O’s comeback after the community calendar.

Monday is Jazzercize at the Rec Center. Bring your leotards, water bottles, and leg warmers and get ready to have your inner demons cast out by a group of traveling preachers, all to a bumpin’ soundtrack of Culture Club and The Bangles. Sorry, that was Jazzercizm, not Jazzercize.

Tuesday is Jazzercize at the Rec Center. Just regular Jazzercize. Bring your leotards, waterbottles, and leg warmers and get ready for some piano lifting and trombone throwing.

Wednesday is High Stakes Bingo Night at the Elks Lodge. Everyone’s a winner, depending on their ability to reframe any life experience positively. Bs and Gs are wild.

Thursday is filling in for Friday, as Friday has been put on suspended leave, pending HR inquiry.

Saturday is Toddler Storytime at Mission Grove Park, an open mic event for anyone under the age of four.

Sunday is mostly laundry and running errands, hardly a day off at all.

Back to our top story. I’m getting reports that the Flakey O’s personnel are on a bit of a celebration spree at the moment. They were first spotted over at Shame, having a teambuilding dinner in the banquet room that witnesses say spiraled out of control.

After eating a whole turducken, which is a turnip-filled duck stuffed inside a Wiccan, they began ordering tropical cocktails that were not on the menu and telling waitstaff that it was quote “mission critical” that they get a quote “literal bathtub full of mango daiquiris.” When they were asked to leave, several pulled wireless microphones out of their jackets and began doing karaoke duets. Some of them danced on tables. Some of them hugged each other for lengths of time that made other patrons uncomfortable. They were eventually escorted out by security, but one ran back inside and paid the bills of all the other diners before blowing a kiss and escaping out a window.

They were then seen getting matching tattoos at the new parlor in the mall, joyriding all over town in sports cars, and inviting everyone they saw to a party out in the Scrublands to quote “best leverage the rest of the night” and quote “pivot to a new experience.” When people declined their invitations, the Flakey O’s crew promised to quote “circle back”.

They then made a stop at the Coyote Corners subdivision and filled an empty swimming pool with oat milk, where they floated around fully clothed and looked up at the stars and said things like “we are the cereal now.”

Sounds like they’re having a productive night of company bonding and we’re all excited to see what the new improved Flakey O’s has in store for us. Though I understand the factory remains shuttered and cereal production is at a standstill. We’ll circle back with this story after the headlines.

In business news, the new tattoo parlor in the mall has opened after being stalled by the City Council for months, due to the controversial nature of claiming that any art is permanent. As a special offer, the parlor will be giving away free face tattoos that feature their store logo. They also offer piercings, acupuncture, and vaccinations. Check out A Friend in Needle, right next to Lucy Tropic’s Fried Ice Cream in the Night Vale Mall.

In other news, a fruit inspection station has been posted at the entrance of town on Route 800. You will now be required to stop while officers look at your fruit and thump on it and tell you how many days you have before it becomes ripe. Sometimes they will take pictures of the fruit and show it to each other. Sometimes they will admit to you that they have never seen fruit before and this just seemed like the best way to learn a lot of different fruits quickly.

And in astronomical news, in response to large-scale protests against the shorter, darker days this winter, an extra hour of daylight will now be scheduled between 2 and 3am every night until spring.

Speaking of 2AM, many citizens are complaining about receiving late night marketing calls from Flakey O’s.

What is grain? The voice on the other end usually asks in a drifting tone, as if the person is lying down on a sofa. Loud music and conversations can often be heard in the background. The voice then answers its own question with something like: The universe is granular. We are all made up of grains that individually look like nothing, feel like nothing, mean nothing. The grains only have meaning when they’re smashed together by the billions. The grain itself, nothing. The multitude of grain, something. Nothing is something. Everything is grain and grain is everything. If you had a choice between honey nut or frosted Flakey O’s, which would you be more likely to purchase for yourself and your family?

While Flakey O’s insists these are just standard marketing surveys, most have reported the interactions as obnoxious and disruptive to their sleep. Others have found the calls soothing and beneficial for sleep. A few say they’ve engaged in introspective conversations with Flakey O’s reps until dawn and now feel their overall perspective has shifted in a life-altering way.

“We’re just trying to get the 30,000 foot view of our customer acquisition strategy,” one Flakey O’s rep said in defense of the calls.

“Or thirty-hundred-thousand,” another added.

“We’re just trying to see the customers from space, man,” a third rep said, which caused them all to high five.

“Before I forget,” the first rep interjected, “I just heard about this cave party in Radon Canyon if anyone wants to join! It’s filled with glow-in-the-dark gelatin for wrassling.”

The reps then all piled into a convertible and peeled out, blasting Pink Pony Club.

While everyone agrees the Flakey O’s crew has been through a lot these past six years and definitely deserve to blow off steam, some citizens have expressed interest in organizing an intervention before things get out of control.

“Too much fun just isn’t good for you,” Night Vale resident Amber Akinyi commented on a community message board, which six people upvoted, including the Public Health Department.

More on the Flakey O’s spree after a word from our sponsor.

An O is an unbroken circle. It does not have a start or an end—it is infinite but can be held in the palm of the hand. It can be shattered in an instant by a hungry mouth. That which seems boundless is also fragile. Inside the O is a space. What happens to the space when the O is devoured? Is the space consumed? Or does it return to the atmosphere, to be chewed up and spit out again and again, becoming an infinite loop in itself? Flakey O’s. Back with a Vengeance.

Breaking news on the Flakey O’s spree. After noise complaints, the Sheriff’s Secret Police have surrounded the cereal factory, where bumping techno music and colored lights are pulsing from the windows. Sheriff Sam and their deputies attempted to enter the building but did not have the correct password, so are now using a bullhorn to try and communicate with the people inside.

“Hey! You in there! Listen up! Yoo-hoo! Can anyone hear me?” Sheriff Sam yelled into the crackling megaphone. Many people did, in fact, hear them, but none acknowledged them.

“Can I try?” a partygoer asked, taking the bullhorn out of Sheriff Sam’s hands. She then started beatboxing into it and wandered away into the desert.

“This has gone too far,” Sheriff Sam muttered to their posse, who nodded in vigorous agreement, sensing they were about to be allowed to get chaotic in the name of law and order.

“Raid! Raid! Raid! Raid!” the posse began chanting quietly, snorting and pawing the ground.

The officers then fanned out in several synchronized forms: a bird of paradise blossom, a coyote howling at the full moon, and the Denver skyline, before settling on an extra large pepperoni pizza slice, one of the most aggressive shapes in their arsenal.

At Sheriff Sam’s signal, the entire Secret Police force charged full speed ahead at the factory doors, weapons drawn.

While we wait for an update on the raid, let’s go to the weather.

[Weather]

Back to the showdown at the Flakey O’s factory. I’m getting word that Sheriff Sam and their officers have breached the perimeter. They are now inside what appears to be a massive rave, though the people there are calling it a corporate retreat, a summit, and a conference. The attendees all gasped and applauded when the Secret Police broke through the entrance in their synchronized pizza-slice form. This caused the officers to blush and put their weapons away. Sheriff Sam demanded to talk to the person in charge and was informed that Flakey O’s no longer has a hierarchy and everyone is equal. It belongs to the people and it exists for the love of the grain. The DJ then started playing an EDM version of the Flakey O’s jingle and the crowd went wild.

Gyrating, sweaty bodies swarmed the dancefloor, sweeping the officers into an inescapable riptide of vibes and unity. Some officers tried to resist. Others surrendered to the beat. One was reminded of a time before she had ever put on a uniform, a life she had forgotten existed, and she was compelled to slip out a side exit and disappear into a third life, one that had yet to be written. Her jacket and hat were later found dressing up a saguaro cactus, which was quickly inducted as a replacement officer in her absence.

After the song ended, a Flakey O’s representative got on the mic.

“I’d like to apologize,” he said, and the group fell silent because everyone loves an apology nearly as much as they love a drum-and-bass banger. The rep continued:

“It has come to my attention that our pursuit of pleasure has been making some people in town uncomfortable and that was never our intent. And I know everyone in Night Vale can hear me right now because it has also come to my attention that our PA system is way too loud. I hear that now, and I am sorry. Aside from the noise, I want to acknowledge that we have caused other harm as a byproduct of our unchecked joy, including putting people at risk by driving too fast, releasing all the test animals from the labs in the Science District, and digging up certain items from certain un-alive residents out at Rattlesnake Rest Cemetery to use as cool prizes in our cereal boxes. Including wedding rings, wrist watches, necklaces, medallions, a fraternity pin from 1958, a bowling trophy, a gold tooth, and a small framed photo of a persian cat wearing a bonnet, that I admit I did keep for myself and is now on my desk.

“I don’t want to offer an excuse for our behavior,” the representative continued, “but I do want to explain that we have been overwhelmed by freedom, that we have seen beauty in chaos, and that through chaos, we have seen that everything has order.

“I want to reassure everyone that we will be settling down and getting back to work soon. We have talked a lot during this time about what the future looks like for Flakey O’s. How we can revolutionize the cereal market and make the consumer feel even a fraction of the rapture that we have experienced after our release from a six-and-a-half-year pilgrimage through the darkest fathoms of an oppressive industrial nightmare. After many late nights, fact-finding expeditions, experimentation, and spacing out at the walls for hours at a time, I believe we have had that breakthrough. I am so proud to finally be able to share with you that we will be introducing toaster pastries to our family of products.”

The rep then glided away on a zipline with his arms outstretched as the factory erupted in thundering applause.

I’m sure I speak for everyone in town when I say…yes, Flakey O’s, please go back to work. Between the fall of Kellogg’s and your sabbatical, the cereal drought is getting real, and we’re all a little on edge about it. But we respect everything that you went through, and we’re very happy that you’re here with us once again. Welcome back.

Stay tuned next for a runaway lab animal showing up on your doorstep. Feed it. Sing to it. Pay for its medical care. You have been chosen.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.