THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE
CECIL:… at a loss for words, at a profit for hand gestures, and more or less break even on eyebrow movements.
Night Vale Auto Insurance Co. announced today that because of rising costs, they will no longer offer replacements, repairs, or compensation for any accidents involving automobiles. “It’s really expensive to fix or replace a car,” said Bob Sturm, vice president of finance. “I mean, think about how many accidents there are. Those add up. How are we supposed to pay for all of that?”
When asked if they will lower premiums since they are no longer covering any form of repair, Sturm said no, but they will send customers kindly worded sympathy cards, and customers who have been in an accident can come by any one of their ten area locations for a hug and an it’ll-be-okay pat on the shoulder.
Sturm concluded the announcement by coughing up a little bit of blood and laughing.
And now an update on Sheila, down at the Moonlite All-Nite, with her clipboard and pen, living her life over and over in a sad, empty reenactment of what was once an organic experience. She said that the loop finally seems to be broken, and that things are looking up.
I asked her if it wasn’t then maybe time to leave the studio and return to her life, but she said she couldn’t imagine doing that. Not anymore. So I offered to let her become a station intern instead. Isn’t that just the best? I gave her the intern tunic and told her about the usual duties (mimeographs, making coffee, editing my slash fiction). I think she’ll do just a great job, and she’ll learn a lot while working here.
I’m pretty sure that all of our interns have gone on to do great things with their lives. I haven’t followed up with any of them or even thought about it for very long, but I’m sure they are all better off for having done their internship here.
Sheila is so happy, she took the clipboard she had once used to mark down people at the Moonlite All-Nite and broke it over her knee. Which is a waste, Sheila. Do you think community radio stations have the kinds of budgets that allow us to just waste clipboards like that? Don’t do that again, Sheila.
Moving on, many of you have written to the station asking for more information about our annual fund drive, which was held two months back. It seems that the tote bags and mugs and DVD sets of Mad About You, Seasons 2 and 5 have still not arrived for many donors.
We here at Night Vale Community Radio apologize for the delay. Please know that all donor rewards have been mailed out—were mailed out weeks ago—but, as we all know, time is weird here in our beautiful community. As a result, those weeks may have been experienced by you as mere seconds and the delivery would seem instantaneous, or those weeks may be experienced by you as millennia, and you will be a terrible, vacant, ancient form of yourself by the time you receive your reward. These possibilities and all other possibilities remain… possible.
Please know that our station exists because of donors like you. It also exists because a long and terribly improbable series of galactic events over the course of billions of years conspired to bring us to this very moment in our station’s existence. And we thank you for your support. Again, we apologize for the delay in receiving your items, and also for the absurdity of time.
Next on our program, I will describe a boring photo in a thousand slow, interminable words.
Chapter 37
Jackie knocked on her mother’s door. After a moment, it opened.
“Hello, dear. Come in.” Her mother turned and walked back to the kitchen, and Jackie limped after her. She tenderly sat down across from the woman she did not recognize.
“Mom,” she tried calling her. “Mom, it’s been a rough couple days. Let’s start there. I can’t work anymore. And if I’m not working then I’m not sure who I am. Maybe that’s not healthy. Probably isn’t. But it’s all I’ve done as far back as I can remember. Which. Okay. Memory. Wanna talk about that in a moment.
“But I’ve been trying to figure all this out. Feels like running up a slide while other people are trying to slide down it.”
Jackie picked up one of the perfect, wax-looking apples. She sniffed it. It was real.
“I’ve been spending some time lately with Diane Crayton. Not like that, but. You know, Diane? Does stuff with the PTA? Works at that office no one is sure what they do? Anyway, Diane and I got into this thing where we didn’t like each other. But I think I was wrong about that. I think I’m wrong about a lot of things.
“My car got hit, and the other person just drove away. And I think that other person was Diane’s kid, who’s missing now and I sympathize with him. I do. But my body feels as wrecked as my car. I can’t move right and I feel slow and tired.
“I understand that kid. Sometimes you need to run away. I feel bad because I said that to Diane, but it’s true. I’m sorry, Mom. You probably feel different, but I think maybe he’s right to leave. Diane cares so much for him. It’s not other people that hurt us, but what we feel about them.”
Her mother didn’t respond. She wasn’t even looking at Jackie. Her eyes rested on the ceiling.
“It got me thinking about what you said to me. And I don’t. I don’t remember my childhood. I don’t think I’ve ever been in this house. I don’t know who you are. I don’t remember ever being any other age than what I am now, and I don’t remember doing anything but what I’ve been doing. I’m not normal, am I? I mean, I understand that many things in Night Vale aren’t what they are in other places, but, even for Night Vale, I don’t think I’m normal.”
Her mother took the apple from her and put it back in the bowl. She stood.
“Let’s step out into the backyard, shall we?”
They did. Her mother put a hand on her arm.
“Jackie, what I want you to understand, about both me and Diane, is this. It’s not easy raising a child in Night Vale. Things go strange often. There are literal monsters here. Most towns don’t have literal monsters, I think, but we do.
“You were my baby. But babies become children, and they go to elementary schools that indoctrinate them on how to overthrow governments, and they get interested in boys and girls, or they don’t, and anyway they change. They go to high schools, where they learn dangerous things. They grow into adults, and become dangerous things.
“But none of that is as difficult as the main thing. We all know it, but most of you don’t spend any time thinking about the consequences of it. Time doesn’t work in Night Vale.
“You were a child, and then you were a teenager, and then you were old enough that I thought it might be time for you to run my pawnshop for me. Just some days. Just sometimes. I could use the time off, after running it for years while also raising a child on my own.
“I taught you how pawning an item works. ‘Pawnshops in Night Vale work like this,’ I said. I showed you the hand washing, and the chanting, and the dying for a little while, and how to write out a ticket. I showed you how to bury the doors at night so they wouldn’t get stolen. I showed you this and then you started running the shop on your own, and I was so proud.
“But time doesn’t work in Night Vale. And so one day I woke up to find you had run that shop for decades. Centuries, even. I’m not sure. You held on to the pawnshop but let go of me. I happened to offer eleven dollars to the first customer we helped together, and in the years of being nineteen you forgot that moment between us and only retained the offer of eleven dollars as a meaningless, unchangeable ritual. People in town couldn’t remember a time when you weren’t the one running the store. But I could. Because, from my point of view, you’ve only been running it a couple months. It’s all so fresh for me. The course of your life is so linear. But meanwhile you. It had been so long for you that you’d forgotten me, and forgotten the house you moved out of last month. Your entire childhood, gone for everyone but me. All those years spent with me. All those years I gave up everything to spend with you.”