Welcome to Night Vale - 148 - The Broadcaster

Episode Date: May 15, 2019

There is peace in our time. The voice of Leonard Burton is James Urbaniak. Weather: “Subspace” by RAQIA https://raqia.bandcamp.com and https://www.instagram.com/raqiaband/ We’re taking A Spy in the Desert to more cities across the US and Canada this fall! Tickets go on sale May 17. Pre-sale for $10+ members on May 16. More info and full list of cities: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/live/ Our new script books, The Buying of Lot 37 and Who’s A Good Boy?, are on sale now. Order online or head to a local bookstore to get your copies: http://www.welcometonightvale.com/books/ Music: Disparition http://disparition.info Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin.  http://welcometonightvale.com Follow us on Twitter @NightValeRadio or Facebook. Produced by Night Vale Presents.  http://nightvalepresents.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howdy y'all. It is Jeffrey Craneer. I'm not sure which episode of Welcome to Nightville you're listening to, but I am speaking to you from April of 2026. And I'm here to tell you we're going to be in Europe. If you want to see Nightville live and you're going to be in Europe, come check us out at the end of May. We're going to be in Edinburgh on May the 27th. We will be in Manchester on the 28th, London on the 29th, and Amsterdam on May the 30th. Just go to Welcome to Nightville.com slash live to see the show dates and to get your tickets. This is. our newest Nightville live show Murder Night in Blood Forest. It is so much fun. Please come check it out. Also, coming up this month here in April, it is the return of Alice Isn't Dead, brand new episodes of our other crazy hit podcast. This is written by Joseph Fink, produced and with music by Dysperition and starring Jacique and Nicole. So make sure you are still subscribed to Alice Isn't Dead and go get those on April the 13th as new episodes come out. Finally, speaking of other shows, do you want to hear us talk about other things? things. We have three other really great chat shows. First of all, there's Good Morning Nightvale for all of your Nightvale needs. You can hear Hal, Meg, and Symphony talk about every single

episode in order of Welcome to Nightvale. Also, we have Random Horror Number 9. That is me and Nightville star Cecil Baldwin talking about horror movies one at a time in a random order. And then Joseph and Meg do best, worst, which is a really fun podcast where they look at hit TV shows and they review the best rated on IMDB, the worst rated on IMDB, and if you're a Patreon member, they will review the middleest rated on IMDB. So check out all of those at Nightvillepresents.com or just wherever you get your podcast. And hey, thanks. The opposite of war is not peace.

It is tedium. Greetings from Nightville. Hello, listeners. It's her regular host, Leonard Burton, welcoming you to yet another beautiful day in NightFans. There is a sun, of course. I don't need to tell you that there is a sun. You know this. You were so confident that a sun is there.

Past performance is not a predictor of future results, folks. Yet, sure as I say it, there is a sun. And near the sun are clouds. But they're not near, are they? Millions of miles separate those clouds from that sun. And yet our eyes measure mere inches of the space between. What deception this human sight. The air is crisp and cool.

A slight morning breeze touches us. We feel it like cold fingers playfully caressing our shoulders, our hair, our skin. I see no breeze, but I feel it. That which I feel, that is my only truth, listeners. Wind is a verity. I hope you will join me in closing your eyes and walking naked through the invisible yet irrefutable air.

Hold it off your arms, widen your jaw, and feel the impact of Adam upon Adam upon Adam against your body. This day is beautiful. This day is crisp. This day is true. This morning I nearly died. I'm always nearly dying. Proximity is subjective. This morning I nearly died in the same way I nearly die every day. After waking, I showered. After showering, I drank coffee. After coffee, I ate a grapefruit and oatmeal.

After eating, I walked. After walking, I walked some more. I do not own a car, and I live two miles from my work. I purchased a quart of whole milk, and then I climbed a tree. Atop a tree branch, I saw a grackles nest, and I drank my milk. I counted four eggs, each of them blue, each of them lifeless. each of them lifeless, abandoned for countless years. I did not finish my milk because I cannot digest milk.

I poured the remainder into the nest. Then I climbed down from the tree and walked again. I do this every day. It is, as the French say, Vé sans signification. As I approached the radio station, a cargo truck driven by a man who was not tall, barrel down Mesa Boulevard.

I stretched one foot outward from my body, Like so, and here I demonstrate my leg extending outward, a tentative pada un, as the French dancers phrase it. My head was turned away from the oncoming traffic because I saw a municipal garbage can on fire. Gathered around the flaming bin were angels touching together, their unusually long fingers, and moaning. The cargo truck honked loudly,

but it was not as loud as the moans from the firelit celestial beings, so I did not alter my attention. I stepped into the roadway like this. And then again, like this. And that again, like this. And then again, several more times, till I had crossed the road safely. Immediately following my final step,

the cargo truck roared past me. I had not died. But I had a vision of my death. No, not a vision. What do you call a vision without visuals? My vision was every other sense. I heard a dreadful snap. I felt my legs accordion

beneath my neck. I tasted blood and asphalt. I smelled the pungent rubber tire against my nose. My vision halted me for what seemed like hours, but it was less than a second. I should have died, Nightvale, for it was in my vision. Yet I did not. The truck honked again, and the man in the passenger seat who was not short, waved his fist and cursed at me. Upon the back of the truck were several wooden crates, emblazoned with a white labyrinth upon a black square. The crates glowed from within. I do not glow from within. I am darkness from within.

Across the street, the angels moaned, and I wet myself. It is a beautiful day, in Nightvale. How is your morning? And now the news. There is peace in our time, Nightfail. We hold a parade today to celebrate the end of the Blood Space War. The Blood Space War ended many years in the future, and we celebrate armistice today.

Time, you see, is not a line, but a torus, which is kind of like a donut. And we are living within the donut. If we were to look out across the hole in the middle of the donut, we would see other times that have happened, both before and after us. This presumes we can see time, which we cannot. We can only describe visually the shape of things that have no shape.

Here is an incomplete visual description of things that have no shape. One, death is a bottomless pool of clear water. Two, wind is a question mark. Three, morality is a thermos. Four, love is an overfull shopping bag with a broken handle. Five, fear is a cinderblock tower with a single door and no windows. I hope that makes sense to you, dearest listeners. Because it does not to me.

I'm neither a scientist nor a poet. I'm a radio host. I merely repeat to you that which I have learned. And what I have learned is that time is shaped like a donut. Beyond that, I have no comprehension. When you woke up this morning, Nightville, did you remember a life you never had? Did you experience the fate memory of a conversation, of a smell, of a feeling that never happened? Jaume you, I believe the French say.

The French say so much. You what do they know of peace? Today I celebrate peace, however I do it alone. I broadcast my feelings to no one. Nightfall is empty, and I am its only citizen. Yet I have a vision of a town full of people. One of those people is a man, a radio intern named Cecil Palmer. But he is not here.

No one is here. No one has ever been here. Has he died? I do not know. He simply is no longer here. You do not remember his years of fine reporting on this very radio station because you never heard those reports. I did.

I remember things that never happened, yet I have no evidence of any of it. Let me describe to you the shape of Cecil Palmer. He's a line of leafless mesquite trees. He is a glass factory. He is a golf ball-sized. hail. He has a voice like distant highway traffic. He loves coffee and handshakes. He wears tight clothing and has never once worked with modeling clay. He covers mirrors with cloth and has an

irrational fear of glowing lights beneath locked doors and dark hallways. You cannot know any of this because Cecil is my vision, not yours. He is real all the same. He is to be my replacement when I retire. But he does not exist. so I can never retire. I am your permanent host. I can still see his face. I've said it before, and I will say it once more. What deception, this human sight.

The parade for the end of the Blood Space War has begun. There is no one attending because no one lives in Nightville. Perhaps we'll reach a day when no one has ever lived. An emissary has arrived in town to lead the parade. The emissary is an astronaut, bloated white arms, and a mirror for a face. The emissary walks slowly through our empty city streets. I do not know why I broadcast this to you, dear listener, for you are not even here. No one is here, except for me, and the emissary, who walks like a marionette under the wildly control of a novice puppeteer.

And the angels, whose moans are songs and whose fingertips are divining. rods. Also, there's the two men in the cargo truck who are driving far beyond our town. And somewhere, there are the French who are inventing phrases to describe, I don't know what, the parade of absent floats along empty streets led by a mirror-faced marshmallow of a grand marshal approaches our radio station. I will enjoy getting to see the festivities up close and describing shapes out of the shapeless. And now the children's fun fact science corner. Kids, did you know that everyone experiences time differently? Physicist Albert Einstein once said,

There's no business like show business, like no business I know. He said this while starring an Annie Get Your Gun in London's West End. He performed the title role 10 years before Irving Berlin even wrote the musical. This is because Albert Einstein experienced time differently, but only when it came to songwriting. He had the complete description. of both Leonard Cohen and Kendrick Lamar before either were born. And perhaps while you and I only hear music after it is written,

we experience time differently in other ways. Like, say, our births. Think about your birth. You don't remember it, do you? This could be because you've forgotten it. But how do you forget something that so powerfully impacted you? I would argue that your birth was the most important moment in your life, and you have forgotten it?

I cannot believe you're so cavaliers to allow the memory of your entry into this world to dissipate like steam from a screaming kettle. No, you do not remember your birth because it has not happened yet. I am sure this is scientifically true. It can be the only explanation. You experience time differently. One day you will be born, and you will experience. awe and pain and confusion.

You will begrudge the lack of input you were given in this decision. You did not ask to be born, and yet pal, bam, squish, there you are, or were, or will be. Birth is an overmatch levy during a flood. Memory is the chipped bark of a cedar tree. Time is a donut. This has been the Children's Fun Fact Science Corner. The parade has ended. The streets, moments ago, crowded with no one.

are once again still empty. The celebration of peace is ended, and another beautiful day comes to a close. The sun, like a shopkeeper with no customers, leaves work early. And the radio softly reminds us the shapes of the shapeless. Oh! Oh, dear.

He startled me. Listeners, the emissary has appeared in my studio without warning. Time even opening a door. And they're sitting in the chair next to me and slowly rotating. Their visor is open, and I'm being forced to stare at the ineffable darkness within the emissary's helmet. This seems like a good time for the weather. Have you ever forgotten where you put your keys?

You were certain they were on the mantle, but they were not. Have you ever missed an appointment because you were sure it was on Wednesday at noon and not Tuesday at ten? Have you ever remembered a life you did not lead? Has a carefully collated series of words Ever made you uncertain, unconfident Or un, just un, As an adjective unto itself? The emissary arrived from the future, from space.

The emissary told me changes were made And those changes became mistakes And those mistakes became truths And all of it would need to be undone. Night Vale is a vibrant and full city with tens of thousands of people, the emissary said. Yet here you are, Leonard, the only person in Nightvale. I nodded into the dark onyx of the emissary's face screen.

How old are you, Leonard? The emissary asked. I did not know. I still do not know. The emissary revealed to me a newspaper clipping from the Nightfail Daily Journal obituary section dated November 1983. There was a photo of me and a story about my life, my childhood, my radio career, my wife, my children, my death.

It was all true, and yet I remembered none of it. Except for the last part, I looked at my obituary photo. I read how I died under cargo truck wheels on Mesa Boulevard. In print, anything looks true. What deception! This human sight, I said. The emissary lifted their thick gloves. hands to their neck, unlatched the snaps, and remove their helmet. I saw the face of an old woman

with sunken, tearful eyes and the general, the emissary said, placing her enormous soft palm on my hand. I have tried to save myself, my soldiers, my town, through time travel. Every time we lose a battle, I returned to before it ever happened and fight it again. I fight each battle over and over until we have won. You're an excellent general, I told her. Of course I am, she snapped, in battle. But each time I interfere in the timeline, I create a widening ripple of historical changes.

And now Nightfail is empty, on the verge of never having existed at all. This must be undone. Do you understand me, Leonard? I nodded yes to hide the fact that I did not understand. The emissary pointed to the moon. An enormous piece of the moon was missing. I did not remember that the moon was broken,

but also I rarely look at the moon out of disdain. Like the moon, time has broken, she said. Nightveil should be full of people, and you should have died long ago, Leonard, she added. Do you understand? and I shook my head no to hide the fact that I did understand. I am sorry, Leonard, she said. If Night Vale is repaired, you will return to the grave.

But you have achieved peace, I argued. I have achieved peace, she said. And in doing so, I have made it so that no one in this city, or this world, or this universe ever lived. I have achieved an infinitude of emptiness. She touched my shoulder with one hand, and with her other she indicated once more the moon. When I looked, the moon was again whole.

I looked back at the general, and she was gone. I hear now a voice, not my own, like distant highway traffic. I do not think I should be alive, but I do not know what else to be. Am I a ghost? Am I a god? Am I at all? Whatever it is I am, I reject my end. I embrace my existence, even in a world with no one to acknowledge it. I never wish to die, Nightfail, and still I refuse to do so.

I am a broadcaster. I do not stop broadcasting simply because I do not live. Stay two necks for grackles, hatching from long dormant eggs. And anything else I wish to describe, real or not, for you do not hear me anyway. And until tomorrow, see ya, Nightvale, see ya. Welcome to Nightvale as a production of Nightvale Presents. This episode was written by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craneer,

and produced by Dysperition. The voice of Leonard Burton is James Urbaniac, original music by Dysperition. All of it can be found at Dysperition. info, or at disparition.bandcamp.com. This episode's weather is subspace by Rekia. Find out more at rikia.com or Rekia bandcamp.com or Rikia Band on Instagram. Comments, questions, email us at info at welcome to nightvale.com.

Or follow us on Twitter at Nightvelle Radio. Or tenderly raise a potted cactus. Check out Welcome to Nightvell.com for more information on volumes three and four of our illustrated episode book collections. Out now, right now, as I'm talking to you. Today's proverb, ask your doctor about dogs. Have a long conversation about how good dogs are. Show each other pictures of dogs. Are you squeamish about horror movies, but kind of want to know what happens? Or are you a horror lover who likes thoughtful conversation about your favorite genre? Join me, Jeffrey Criner, and my friend from Welcome to Nightville, Cecil Baldwin, for our weekly podcast, Random Number

generator horror podcast number nine, where we watch and discuss horror movies in a random order. Find, here's the short version, Random Horror Nine, wherever you get your podcasts. Boo.