Night Vale : Rainstorm
"Rain is nothing more than a wet piece of the sky, falling on your head. Welcome to Night Vale."
[chants heard in the distance, slowly becoming louder, all saying, "angels are not real, angels are not real, angels are not real, angels are not real, angels are not real, angels are not real, angels are not real…"]
"Good morning Night Vale citizens. Good evening to those whose reality is different from our own. And good day to those who are bad at time…or…good night. Just good awake time. If you are awake, that is…
"Night Vale, something strange and unusual is happening, as you may or may not have noticed. Clouds have gathered in the sky, thick dark black clouds that loom over our heads and thunder crashes in the void above us and screaming, howling winds tear at our clothes and at our skin, as if hungry for our wind-stripped bones. But that's not even the strangest part. Listeners, if you can believe it, there is actually WATER falling from the SKY.
"Water. Falling. From the SKY. I never thought I'd see the day, and I've seen almost everything that there is to see in our sleepy little desert town. I asked Carlos about this…sweet, beautiful, perfect Carlos…and he says everything is fine.
"'Oh, this?' he asked, pointing to the sky and then waving it off as if it were capable of being gotten rid of with a simple hand gesture. 'That's just rain. Cecil, don't tell me you've never seen rain before. I mean, I know this is a desert and all, but come on! Surely you've seen rain before.'
"And of course, me, not wanting to look ignorant on the subject, just said, 'Oh! Right! Rain!' He chuckled and said, 'Oh, Cecil.' He said it in that dreamy voice, that voice where he's happy and contented at the same time, but still aware of all that's around him at the same time.
"Oh! Uh, listeners, I'm just getting word from the Sheriff's Secret Police that they are not investigating this 'rain,' and they said that none of the countless, numerous drops are responding. They've tried almost every interrogation technique they know, and a few they don't know, and still none of the droplets of rain will respond to them.
"Citizens, the Sheriff's Secret Police have urged you to go outside and question the rain…to see if you can get any information out of it. Normally, they don't leave important things like questions to the ordinary citizens of Night Vale, but this is a desperate time for them, seeing as how they have counted up to over a million droplets by now and they can't possibly interrogate every single one.
"If you cannot get the droplets to respond to you, then tilt your head back and scream your questions to the sky. It may prove more effective.
"And now a word from our sponsors:
"Dark. Endless. Peaceful. A strange taste on your tongue, a taste that makes you lick your lips and smile. It clings to your teeth, and lingers in your mind. You lick your lips again, trying to figure out just where you've tasted something like that before. You search for a name, one of billions stored away in your brain, searching for just the right word to describe such a taste. Nothing comes to mind. There is no word on your tongue, only the strange yet familiar taste that lingers. You close your eyes to savor the flavor, and suddenly the world around you doesn't exist anymore. It's only you, and the slowly fading taste that you couldn't describe, no matter how hard you tried.
"Night Vale jelly beans! Now with over sixty thousand new fruit flavors! Bet you can't name them all!
"Listeners, I know that this whole 'rain' business may be disrupting some of your daily lives…or what passes for your daily lives to the monotonous routine that you have lived now for a certain period of time. That certain period of time being long enough for you the believe in such a thing as a daily life. But trust me, this whole 'rain' business has been quite strange…even by our standards.
"Tamika Flynn…who is currently in hiding and I have no idea where she might be, no idea at all I assure you…has said that it is a blessing from the Glow Cloud. According to her, the Glow Cloud has grown tired of Strex Corp still trying to put down any business roots in Night Vale, and the one thing they fear in Good Old Sunny Desert Bluffs is a rainy day…according to her. She and the Glow Cloud both take full responsibility for the rain.
"Tamika also says that the PTA Board will now consider javelin throwing and blood sports as a part of school curriculum. The Glow Cloud, who is head of the PTA Board, approved this.
"And now, traffic.
"There is a woman on the freeway. The freeway is vast and endless, connecting thousands upon thousands of roads to each other, connecting small sections of our strange world to other sections of even stranger worlds. The freeway is unusually vacant. There is a car ahead of her, there is a car behind her, there are no other cars besides these two. The woman stops her car. No one notices. The cars drive on and on and she is left alone. The freeway is devoid of all life aside from her. She looks up towards the sky, as if answers to questions she didn't even know she had might be written in the clouds. They are not. She does not get back in her car; instead she lays down on the hood, staring up, searching for a map that might take her to these places that the freeway might connect to but she might never even think to think about. Time passes. She lays on the hood of her car, mapping out every possible twist and turn she can think of in the road. It is long and endless, and she can't map it all out. Eventually, she gives up, gets back in her car, and heads down the same road that leads to nothing new.
"This has been traffic.
"Today in sports, one thousand cats were let out into the Night Vale Football field today in honor of Khosekh and her kittens. I must say, it is the cutest thing I have seen all day. I would say all week, but I'm well aware that I might have seen something cuter but it may have slipped my mind.
"Anyway, today in football, one thousand cats of all different colors and sizes were let out into the field today, and they all meowed as one. Spectators say that the meowing was painfully loud, and didn't stop for hours on end, but they couldn't stop watching those sweet little cats. Even if attending a football game every four months wasn't mandatory, they still say they would have stayed and watched the cats.
"'It was adorable,' many sources say. 'My ears are bleeding, and my eyes are watering, and I'm quickly losing all my hair, but it was worth it just to see those fluffy little cats.
"I myself was not present at the sporting event…being the Voice of Night Vale, I do get one or two special privileges, but I did send one of the radio show's interns over there. Over at the Night Vale Football Field, in the middle of the cat show, is Intern Antonio.
[Cecil dials the phone for Antonio, puts it on loud speaker for the radio]
[no one answers]
"Antonio? Antonio? Hello?
"Listeners, this might be a bad connection. Or something inexplicably horrifying and tragic has happened to him. But, unfortunately, knowing what happens to most of our community radio interns, I would just like to say, my condolences to Antonio's family. He was very brave, very selfless, and very kind. There may be millions of more people who were just like him in every aspect of their personality, but he will still leave a void in our lives. Not a tremendous void, such as the void above our own heads that looms over us every hour and every minute and every second that we are alive and then still looms over our dead bodies when we are buried in the earth…but he will still be missed nonetheless.
"To Antonio's family, may they find peace in this peaceless world. And to Antonio, thank you for your service.
"Moving on, the football game was not the only exciting event happened this week! Let's now move onto the community calendar.
"Okay, let's see. Monday is…nonexistent. Tuesday is…nonexistent as well. Wednesday we have the Annual Night Vale Animal Adoption Drive. That's right, listeners! Wednesday will be the day to stroll on over to your closest animal shelter, and adopt any number of creatures, either real or imaginary. It will be the perfect day to pick out a new friend, whether they be furry, scaly, fishy, sandpaper-y, horned, fire-breathing, small, tall, or imaginary. Everyone must adopt something. Yes, it is mandatory. You must. Adopt. Something.
"Thursday…Thursday is a full moon. You know what that means, folks. It's time to gather around a blood stone, chant your favorite songs, melt some s'mores by the fire, and choose an ancient and forgotten deity to worship for at least thirty minutes. These thirty minutes do not include commercial breaks. Originally, the full moon was supposed to take place on a Saturday, but since Monday and Tuesday are now nonexistent, the full moon will take place on a Thursday instead.
"As for Friday, it will be a day filled with inexplicable and unavoidable doubt. The self doubt will be endless, you may have several dozen existential crises, and you will wonder if everything is as it seems, or whether or not you just imagined the whole thing. Is this all really here? What keeps you tethered to this life? Who's to say your morals are actually moral? Does the person across from you lead a deeper and more complex life? Who's to say that your life is deep or complex at all? What if we're all just characters in a book, and some of us are just side characters who are badly written? Has the book been touched? Has it been opened? Who's read it? And, if they've read it, how many times did they come across your name? How often do you appear in the thoughts and memories of people you know? How many times do people say your name when your not there? What do you look like in the eyes of other people? What do you sound like in the ears of other people? Are other people actually there, or is this just a hallucination that is far too vivid, one with no escape and no way out. Not even death can offer that, since death is not really death but only a relapse into not existing. When you're gone from this world, will it be exactly as it was before you came into it, or will you have made a change, somewhere, on someone. One that will resonate for years to come…?
"Saturday is Leap Day. The day when no one is allowed to walk, but instead must leap to where they are going. The only exception is to use roller skates, but since the Vague Yet Menacing government agency banned rollers skates last year–yes, Eve, what is is?–oh, I'm sorry, listeners."
[Cecil clears his throat]
"The only exception to Leap Day is to use roller skates, but since the Vague Yet Menacing government agency banned roller skates fifty years ago, leaping is your only option.
"Sunday is the day of the sun. You all must worship the sun. You must be aware of the sun. You must get sunburnt in order to show your submission to the great, giant, burning orb in the sky. There will also be a lemonade sale in supermarkets and grocery stores all across town, so be sure to pick up some lemonade whenever you're out. This is not mandatory, but it is frowned upon to miss out. So this coming Sunday, go outside and have a nice, cold glass of delicious, fresh squeezed lemonade! Social norms dictate it!
"And that concludes the Weekly Community Calendar.
"And now, the weather."
[the sound of rain pounding on top of a tin roof comes on]
[it's thunderous, the sound of rain pouring and pouring and pouring from the skies, beating down on the roof, on the glass panes, on the plants upon the ground, and battering the concrete sidewalks]
[in the distance, you can hear someone asking, "where the fuck are the guitars?"]
[in the distance you can hear someone asking, "is this what music's come to?"]
[the storm rages on, and on, and on, and on]
[the sound of rain pouring down on the roof is the only sound on the radio for fifteen whole minutes before Cecil decides that enough is enough]
"Okay, listeners. That was the weather. Very, very strange today. But I guess this rain has made things a bit different.
"While I was away, I got a call from Carlos…perfect, wonderful, sweet Carlos…who said that the rain shouldn't stop for at least another ten years. I don't know how he was able to predict that, but then again, while he was explaining it to me, I kept asking what we were going to have for dinner. We decided on spaghetti and meatballs with a red wine sauce. We also discussed something about a large balloon in the sky, which has nothing to do with our dinner plans, but it sounds more rational than to say that the 'weather balloon' has anything to do with weather.
"If that is the case, listeners, then I don't know what I'm going to do. This rain is so bizarre, so out of the ordinary, so impractical. What if the town floods? I may not be able to feel pain, listeners, but I assure you I am capable of drowning.
"Which brings me to another one of our sponsors.
"Do you want to drown in the upcoming watery apocalypse? Of course you don't. Visit Cassandra Vale's Swim School…hurry, before it's too late and you cannot be saved.
"And really, isn't what we all want out of life is to be saved? For some sense of security or hope, even if it is more fragile than your sense of time? For all of us out there, and in here, that's what we really want. A false sense of security, for let's be honest with ourselves, there isn't any true sense of security. Only the illusion; after all, this world of ours is strange and dangerous and terrifying. At any moment, we can be subject to all kinds of disasters.
"Really, none of us our safe.
"Listeners, before I leave you, I have a few corrections to make.
"While the rain in Night Vale is going to last for ten years, the next ten years have been condensed into the next two weeks, so as to be more practical. So a ten year rain will be happening within the next two weeks, which means that there will be more time for us to enjoy sunny skies in the upcoming years.
"Antonio is still alive–good news for us all–but he now has strange mutations on his body. He now has claws instead of fingernails, his eyes are now lizard-like, according to him, and he says that he has a better sense of balance. Good news indeed! Thank you Intern Antonio for not only providing coverage for the football game, but for surviving it as well.
"And lastly, Tamika Flynn and the Glow Cloud have not ever spoken to each other. Ever. Not. At. All.
"And that concludes the news for today. Stay tuned for the sound of soft weeping. And with that, I leave you listeners.
"Good night, Night Vale. Good night."