One Eye Open…
The sun didn't rise today. No, instead the sun set, albeit in reverse. Everything was moving backwards today. Even you. Just as Cecil Palmer had stated yesterday, Tuesday would happen in reverse. Many citizens were already on their way to the ends of their shifts. The Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex had played witness to the end of an extraordinary League Match. People stopped cheering as the pins righted themselves and the balls rolled up the lane.
Tuesday was occurring in reverse. Despite this, it was a normal Tuesday for many of the residents of Night Vale. All but one…
He was a young man; it had been approximately 139 days since he had turned 27. His name isn't important to the story. His story is not all that important either, but it is interesting. And an interesting story is a story that should be told. Unless it becomes a non-interesting story midway through, in which case, it had better have a fantastic climax and ending to make up for the dull middle.
This story would begin at the end of the day. The day that changed this man's life. The man woke up from his dreams and rose from bed. He had a long and stressful day that had eaten more than just a few years off of his life. He put on his gray pin-striped suit, knowing what would happen today. He never showered after coming home from work, it was something that woke him up, rather than relaxed him. He had considered taking a bath before removing his suit but thought against it. After today's event, he didn't feel like doing much of anything. He had decided against dinner, so he opened his fridge after coming down stairs and stared at its contents. He wasn't feeling very hungry but he knew he should eat, so he closed the door. The man left his old compact apartment in old town Night Vale and got into his very nice and large Mercedes. The car may have been a few years old, yet it was still quite nice. By this time in the evening, he definitely knew it was more than he could afford. If you were to ask the man that morning, which had not happened yet, if he could afford the car, he would have said,
"Yes! Thanks to my new job!" with excitement and bravado. But he wasn't excited and he certainly had no bravado. He was not afraid either. He was, however, quite nervous. He had parked his Mercedes at the Moonlite All-Nite Diner and remained seated. In fact, he remained seated for an unusual amount of time. It was several hours that he sat in his nice car. Not eating. Not thinking of eating. Not thinking, "maybe I should get out and eat some of the delicious Cherry Pie." The Moonlite All-Nite Diner had the best Cherry pie in the county. Everyone knew that, it was a rock fact.
The man in a gray pin-striped suit could not think of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, nor its contents. He did not even think about the new job and all the opportunity it would be providing him. No, he could only think about what would happen today; or, rather what already had happened today. Time didn't work in Night Vale the same way it did in other places. Especially not on a day when everything was happening in reverse.
The Sun had finally reached the top of the sky and slowly began to slide down, marking the beginning of the day. About 11:13 am, if I was to guess.
The man in a gray pin-striped suit's chest tightened and he remained in his car. The man's body slowly tensed up. It was this moment that would be on the man's mind all day. What would come next would change his life. It would change the course of everyone's life that would have been impacted by the man's life. In front of the car now was Death. Thanatos. Hel. Mot. Anubis. Charon. King Yama. Dullahan. Izanami. La Santa Muerte.
Death had always been close to the man throughout his life. Death had chosen those close to him to take. When the man was much younger, around 12, his best friend had passed away mysteriously. The girl had a severe case of throat spiders the year prior, but she had made a recovery. He remembered that they had played cowboys and ancient aliens the day before her death, and the very next day she had passed into the afterlife. She was discovered buried in the local cemetery in her own marked grave. It was very convenient for her family and friends.
As he grew older, the man in a gray pin-striped suit had lost his uncle to an escaped Librarian, his pet chihuahua in the Great Dog Cleansing following the Puppy Infestation of the mid 90's, and his father during the hostile takeover by StrexCorp. These losses weren't explicitly painful; although it made justifying living more difficult for the man.
After these several years, Death had finally returned to collect another soul and disrupt the man in a gray pin-striped suit's life. The man's life had been turning around too. Before he lost his father, StrexCorp provided the man with his first job. In the same day, he became romantically involved with the human whom he would come to know as his lover. Then the Reaper returned and claimed the man's contentment. He lost everything: his father, his home, his job, everything except for his lover. With the extent of the damage, the man suddenly found himself sinking into a poisonous pit of quicksand. This quicksand wasn't lethal, but it was very difficult to get out of. After all this time, he was finally out and on solid ground again. He got a new job. He got a new car. Everything left over from Strex funds went to piecing his happiness back together. Then Death returned.
Death appeared to be a handsome young man, much like the man in a gray pin-striped suit.
Death turned to meet the young man's eyes. It was the first time Death had acknowledged the man. The sunlight hit the spectre and twisted its facade. Years claimed the image of Death, and it was now an old man standing before the man in a gray pin-striped suit. Death smiled at the man and gestured at him with a finger over its mouth.
"Shoosh," was what the man imagined Death was saying. The windows were all rolled up and the air conditioner was running very loudly, making it impossible to hear what Death had said. He actually whispered "woosh," not that it mattered to anyone.
In one blink, Death was gone. The color was returning to the world once more as the door to the diner closed. The sweat on the suit had completely returned to the man's body through his pores. The man had forgotten why he was so stressed. Perhaps it was the start of his new job.
"My new job," his voice flew from his mouth like a visible breath in winter. He could not believe he would be working at the new and improved Lenny's Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts. The salary could easily pay for his nice Mercedes. Plus those wonderful benefits.
The man had parked in his carport when the sun began to rise. His day was about to begin and he was looking forward to it. It would be the first day of his new job. Today would be the first day of a new and brighter future for himself and his lover. He vomited out oatmeal into a bowl as he thought about his new job and the up and coming day. He could not remember the last time he was both nervous and gleeful. This day was only the beginning for the man in a gray pin-striped suit.
Everyone's day was just starting, for today was Tuesday. And this Tuesday was happening in reverse. Towels were being used to wipe water onto bodies, who then returned the water to the faucets in the bathrooms. Yes, Tuesday had gone and come and the residents in Night Vale were back in bed. Today would bring about many new things, many unimportant things. Tomorrow would be much of the same, except for one brand new detail: tomorrow was Wednesday.
Two Eyes Open...
The 27 year old man in a gray pin-striped suit could no longer remember what day it was. He awoke to a day that had been running on for some time. Yesterday he awoke to a night that had likewise already been out for several hours. He glanced at his watch to see that it was already after noon. His nice watch. A beautiful watch that meant so much to him. At least it had. Now he no longer understood its importance. The memory of acquiring the watch had also left him. It could have been an heirloom, or possibly a graduation gift. After witnessing the demise of a soul, everything appeared differently in his eyes. The glow of the world was gone. The only bright light his eyes saw now was the harshness of the sun, which he had been gazing into for several minutes.
He had felt a vibration go off in his pocket multiple times since Tuesday. If he was interested, he would have removed his cellphone from his pocket to examine the calls. However he was not in the least bit interested in phones, or people, or food. He was hungry but food didn't interest him. For some reason though, he thought of migraines.
He remembered having migraines when he was a child. He was told everyone had migraines as a child. It was something that you just grew out of. Of all the things to remember, the young man thought that this seemed like an odd memory to recall. Made all the more strange when that afternoon, one of the beings that liked to be referred to as angels, Erika, gave him some medication for migraines.
"But I don't-" he tried to reply.
"It's okay. I understand. Everyone has migraines as adults. It is just something that you grow out of." Erika interjected. The phrasing of this statement surprised the man.
"Grow out of?" he asked. What was left to grow into?
"Yes. When you die." Erika said with a smile. Or a frown, he wasn't sure. To be honest he wasn't sure about anything anymore. If adults had migraines, and he didn't feel them, then maybe he wasn't an adult? Being roughly 10,000 days old did not mean adulthood.
"But children suffer from migraines…" That was when he started to get a migraine.
"Oh I'm sorry." Erika said. "It's... too late." Now Erika was definitely frowning. Or was it a grimace? "Well it won't matter anyways then…"
The non-angel just stared at him. He walked away after taking some of the pills and turned around to see Erika, still in place. Not even a hair on her moved.
"If I was still a painter…" he thought. But he would never paint again.
The man in a gray pin-striped suit couldn't do anything other than question his own existence now. He wanted to question why he had his migraine. He wanted to question its return after all these years. He wanted to question why Erika had come to visit him of all people. He wanted to question how Erika knew he would get a migraine. He wanted to question why the moon wouldn't stop blocking the blueness of the sky. There was so much that he wanted to question. There had been so much that he could have questioned. Yet, his mind wouldn't let him. His mind was focused on last night, on the unfamiliar object hiding amongst the stars.
Cecil Palmer, Voice of Night Vale Community Radio had referred to it as something of awesome size and invisible and black and deep and oceans… The radio wasn't quite working at the time so the young man in the gray pin-striped suit had not been able to make out how Cecil described the planet… or how he would refer to the planet. Maybe he had not heard Cecil speak about the planet. Time didn't work in Night Vale. It worked even less inside the young man's head of late.
He had thought of the planet and how it hovered high in the sky. Barely visible to the naked eye unless you were searching for it. The young man was unsure if he had really seen the object, despite knowing with certainty that it was there. He knew it had always been there. It will always be there. He stared deep into the auburn sky above him, unblinking. Even under the guise of the setting sun, the planet was still there.
Just then, the young man reached for the phone in his pocket, complying with a phantom sensation in his leg. Perhaps he wanted to take a picture. Perhaps he wanted to call an observatory. Perhaps he wanted to play the new MineCraft game, Minecraft: Escape From Your Miserable Existence. In the end it didn't matter. His phone was gone. Or rather, it was not in his pocket. And he was no longer in the desert. His right hand was firmly attached to his steering wheel and he was driving in his car towards town. He wasn't sure when he started driving, but he was driving and the car was barreling towards town. Red liquid around his fingernails stood out against the light of the other cars on the highway. There was red on the wheel too. A dark maroon. His eyes turned to the light from the street lamps above him now, but his gaze took sight of the moon. A comforting, familiar moon.
"The moon looks different tonight," he said. The moon was red. It was blood red. The red of the man's own blood as well. The red of everyone's blood, except those with other colored blood. The red of the human circulatory system. The red of beets. Deliciously roasted beets. With some crackers and balsamic.
The beautiful car had parked itself, to avoid reckless driving and getting into an accident, while the young man stared into the sky. He smiled at the crimson moon. Passersby glared at him. No one smiled at the moon. Everyone knew that the moon was a waste of a good rock. It took up real estate in the sky and it was stupid. This didn't stop the young man in a gray pin-striped suit from gazing lovingly at the sphere. It was a big red ball of fond memories. Memories that he had long since forgotten. Memories, he knew, that he would fail to recall tomorrow.
The Third Eye Opens...
There weren't days or nights for the young man anymore. There were only times when he was awake and times he was not. The Gregorian calendar no longer held any importance. The Mayan calendar was also unimportant to the man. In fact, he was not aware of a single calendar that meant anything to him anymore. For his refusal to adhere to the day and night cycle, the sun vindictively scorched his skin. The Earth, feeling indifferent towards the young man, covered the gray pin-striped suit with dirt.
The tired young man was standing outside of his car staring at the keys in his hand. The lonely keys that he had not possessed for long. The keys had quickly grown to have such a weight to them. He couldn't hold on to them any longer, nor did he want to. The nice Mercedes had come to mean nothing to him. He had to get rid of it. Of everything...
That was when he remembered the Pawnshop, owned by 19 year old Jackie Fierro. Typically he remembered this kind of information in the shower but he wasn't showering anymore. The water in his Mercedes had been shut off. He didn't need to shower anyways, he just had to be at the Pawnshop before it closed. He had to rid himself of his nice car.
The Pawnshop found its way to the young man with Erika holding the door open for him. He struggled, but managed to force the car onto the counter with nothing but a small scratch on the door. Before he acknowledged Miss Fierro, he dropped his hands into a bowl of purified water. The cool, clean water encased his hands as he chanted. He said things like, "oooo" and "almmm" and "razmataz." The young man was clean. He felt renewed. A simple bowl once filled with pure water had taken all of the young man's problems into the container. Brown and red had replaced the crystal clear liquid.
"How much you want for it?" Jackie had asked.
"$11 and peace of mind," the man quickly fired.
"Woah dude, that's a bit much." Jackie laughed. "I mean it is a nice car but $11 dollars nice? And peace of mind? That's just too much guy."
"Fine," he sighed bitterly. " Well I could really use some peace of mind."
"I just can't swing that man. I've already got a car and I'm not gonna need another any time soon."
"But it's nice," he debated. "It's a new-ish Mercedes that runs. You can drive it all over."
"I feel yah man, I do. But that's just kinda a hard sale for me. Whoever decides to buy it has to get it off the counter too, and that's gonna be troublesome for yours truly," Jackie told him. She could hear the desperation in his voice. "Alright, how about this," Jackie pulled some cash out of her register. "A nice new $5.00 bill?" She held it out to the young man. He took it silently and stared at it. Was this all his new car was worth? After everything, this was the value of the car that he couldn't afford without his new job. Without any explanation, he burst into tears and laughter. He was laughing so intensely, he was unaware of the complimentary ticket Jackie had given him.
"It's not funny at all," he explained. But that wasn't what he had meant.
Jackie was going to ask if he was okay, but he couldn't stop laughing and walked out of the building.
The young man fought back the tears and searched for a breath. He gazed up into the night sky and there amongst the stars, the moon, the surveillance satellites, and the void, was the now familiar planet. It cut through the bleakness of the night sky. The planet had grown so vast since the last time he had seen it. He could see the many peaks of the mountains. He could smell the woodiness of the forests. He could taste the saltiness of its oceans. After what seemed to be a lifetime of waiting, the planet had finally reached him. The black orb was growing closer and he felt his heart begin to race. It was coming to claim him. To take him away before Death or anything else could reach him.
The ground beneath his feet suddenly felt differently. It was as if gravity itself had given him up to the gravity of the incoming planet. As he looked down to find the cause of the new sensation, he saw that he was in the middle of a vast desert, naked. His body was completely cleansed. No sign of any of the time he had spent in the desert. He was new. He was free. His life no longer had the same ties it had once before. His bonds were completely cut and the planet would take him away. The planet would take him home.
All Eyes are closed.
Because we skipped Friday, today was Saturday. Life in Night Vale was as normal as life in Night Vale ever was. The Scientists, lead by Carlos, were investigating that new addition at Inn-N-Out you had wanted to try but weren't quite adventurous enough: Soylent Style. The desert relished in it's new guest : a gray pin-striped suit accompanying a skeleton. The flamingo problem had been resolved, but that's another story in a book that you should definitely read. The sun was its usual sunny self and the clouds were continuing to not exist because [REDACTED].
Yes, everything was peachy. There definitely were no signs of a dark planet nearing Night Vale. No, nothing like that had happened. That is to say, nothing like that had happened recently. I mean, of course it happened before. It has happened tons of times. But we don't need to tell you that. I mean, I'm sorry for bring it up after what happened to your family, but I felt the whole thing needed to be addressed. Everyone needs closure and talking about past events helps. Thankfully, it didn't happen recently.
Yup, Saturday was a completely normal day in the city of Night Vale. In fact, it was very reminiscent of a Saturday several years ago…
This particular Saturday had rain. Okay so it wasn't exactly the same, but I said it was reminiscent.
There was an old boy. Well, he was not a boy anymore but he certainly wasn't an adult; he was working on it. This boy was sitting in an office waiting to be seen. He sat there patiently in a used blue non-pin-striped suit. It was his father's before him and a bit big, but it served its purpose; it made him appear to be a clean and capable adult.
Clean and capable was important to anyone in his position; for on this Saturday, the boy had a job interview. It was the first interview he had ever had. And he was nervous.
The boy wasn't nervous because of his interview however. Nor was it the three eyeless women, covered in veils, that sat in front of him hissing. He was anxious for his first date.
Yes, the boy in a used blue suit coincidentally also had a date with a woman he had admired for some time, that same evening. When he finally made his move and asked her to dinner, he became so nervous that she took charge of the conversation and planned the evening. "Yes" was all he could say. He didn't even know the interview was on the same day. How could he? She said yes. This woman, who was older than he, accepted his offer.
The boy's mind was absently nodding and responding to questions that he could make out from the hissing.
"Yes this would be my first job... No I am not a moon supporter... My schedule is very flexible... My skin is also flexible... Of course I know mountains don't exist..." He answered all of these seemingly common question the best way he could, without thinking.
Then the wailing began, interrupting the boy's focus on the woman. As he came to, he was stunned. Physically stunned because the sound was so deafening, his entire body refused to move. He was also mentally stunned because he knew what this meant. He had got the job. He had been selected. A smile stretched across his face as blood leaked from his ears.
This was more than great news. With this job, he could transition his life into adulthood. He was no longer a boy, but a young man.
When he got home, he removed the used blue suit and put on the one he swore he would only wear for special occasions. It was new. He had recently purchased it. It was gray with pin-stripes. He looked good in the suit. The confidence he had received after getting the job was bolstered even more by the suit.
"The date will go well," he smiled, straightening his tie.
This Saturday long past would end with a young man's first job and his first love. It was the start of a new life, and he was happy.
NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR:
Hello citizens of Night Vale! Matt here and doing splendid. I hope you all went out and borrowed or bought the new Welcome To Night Vale Book. If you have, good for you! If you haven't and you are still reading this, then traverse all of space and time to go back before you had read this story and grab the book instead. If you become blinded in the process, then I am so sorry but that is a perfect reason to purchase the audiobook instead; read by Night Vale's own Cecil Baldwin. He has such an anesthetic voice. My pain is going away just thinking about it. The feeling in my feet are going away too.
Before I completely lose my sense of touch, I just wanted to thank you for reading this tale. As I have previously mentioned, this was inspired by the book itself so you really should finish that before reading this. Now this is a specially timed episode release, so do not always expect them on the 20th. That would just be weird. Instead, the next one will be released on November 15th. That will be normal. Half way through the month and following a new episode of the Podcast as well.
The next episode will be titled "And now, traffic…" As the story will be based on Episode 6 of the Podcast, "The Drawbridge" I encourage everyone to refresh their memory and listen to Episode 6 specifically. I encourage you to revisit all of the all episodes as these stories will start at the beginning and move up from there… Hopefully, the Sheriff allows me to break away from the very comfortable manual labor again to continue to record these.
Until the 15th,
Good day to all!