Welcome, listeners.
Have you seen the posters popping up all over town? They're on every bulletin board, telephone pole, phone booth, blue police box, and post office box in town. In fact, if you see one pop up, you had better keep moving or the posters will fly over to you and wrap themselves around you. So far they only seem attracted to stationary, flat surfaces. Although there are reports that those too are popping up all over town, as yesterday there were no post office boxes, blue police boxes, or telephone poles in Nightvale.
They're advertising the new face of the dog park. Although dogs are still going to be banned from the dog park, apparently the owners are trying to attract people to the dog park. Oh! Intern Andy has just handed me a flyer. Let me read it to you …
Come to Nightvale's
DOG PARK
To celebrate the uniqueness of NIGHTVALE.
Contests and Prizes!
Mysterious Dog Park Owner's Association.
Interesting, I wonder who does own the dog park. I'd always thought it was town property, or maybe the hooded figures? But who are they? Maybe the town council's records would say. Perhaps I will have Intern Andy go downtown and check it out. Andy?
Oh, he seems to have wandered off before I could ask him. Maybe later. Well, listeners, this poster says that there are contests and prizes, but not what those prizes are. I know! We'll have a radio hunt. If you find a poster with some extra information, call in and I'll either put you on the air or read it myself. Won't that be fun? I can interact with some of you, and we'll all find out about this interesting new development in Nightvale.
Well, I'll be honest with you, listeners. I'm really excited about this. Not just do we see the dog park, where so many great things have happened, like the two year odyssey of Mayor Cardinal (back when she was just intern Dana) but I get to see Carlos again! Oh, I have missed my boyfriend. But it looks like I'll finally get a chance to go see him. I'm so excited! I can't wait!
I'm being told that we have our first phone call. How this is I'm not certain, as I don't think the phone is actually connected to the wall and I know the wires have been cut. Nevertheless I can hear voices coming from the receiver. Let me put it up to the microphone now so we can all hear it.
Hello? whiny noise Oh, there it is! Now what do we have here? These temporal distortions are going to cause some paradoxes if I can't shut them down .. whiny noise
Interesting. That sounds like something Carlos would say. Oh, my dear Carlos. I miss my boyfriend, stuck there in the desert otherworld. But that definitely sounds like something he'd say. But that isn't his voice at all. It has a funny accent, not unlike those of the people who live in Oligorsk have, or the ones that cats and pine trees use when they're talking. But it's not either of those accents. Whoever it is had better hope that their accent is on the list of approved accents that the Sheriff's Secret Police is rumoured to keep in the Sheriff's Secret Police Record department. You know, in their secret location behind the Moonlight All Night diner.
Intern Andy has come back with a poster bonded to his shirt. Apparently there is to be an art contest at the dog park as part of the celebrations. Participants are to enter by spray painting their names on the outside wall of the dog park. They'll be judged by artistic merit, colour, and originality. Accepted forms for the actual contest include macramé, laser art, collage, and ornamental brassware. No mention on the prizes though.
Well, this is another first, listeners. I can see station management through the glass of my studio. They're talking to a skinny man in a striped suit. He's wearing some glasses and the wind has messed up his hair. But he has a poster! It's only flopping in his hands a little. No, wait, he just pulled out a blue flashlight that made a very annoying noise and now the poster isn't moving at all. Now he's gesturing at me. Now there's that blue flashlight thing and … HEY!
Now I don't know who you are my friend, but
Oh, just call me the Doctor.
Well the Doctor, whoever you are, you can't come into a broadcast studio like that! We're on the air!
On air? No, we're in the air, we're on the floor. Oh, are we broadcasting? Brilliant!
Well, I think so at least. But … LOOK OUT!
sound of papers flapping
Oh no, listeners! The posters have started invading the studio! They're bonding to all the surfaces …
muffled sound of paper covering the mike, then Cecil's voice continues a bit distantly
But what message are they saying? If I could just
even more ruffling, then a deeply muffled voice of Cecil
Maybe mff my helf dis up to fuh fight …
in a deeply muffled tone of voice Brilliant!
The dim whining of a sonic screwdriver rapidly becomes louder until it is the squeal of feedback, and then:
Well that was unpleasant. But they'll sleep for a while. Great idea to hold them up to the light, if their bellies are exposed they go dormant almost immediately. And you are?
I am Cecil Palmer, radio host on Nightvale Public Radio.
Excellent, Cecil! You wouldn't know where we are? Or what the date is?
We are in a radio station. Nightvale Public Radio, to be exact. And the time is about 10 minutes into my shift, Doctor … I'm sorry, I missed your name. Doctor who?
Just the doctor, thanks. I'm here investigating something unusual. Just an unusual bit of science ...
My boyfriend Carlos says that Nightvale is the most scientifically interesting city in the world, did you know?
What do you mean? Or, what does he mean? Where is he?
Sadly, trapped away in a desert otherworld. I suspect that otherworld to be in the dog park. It's a funny thing, the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. Dogs are not allowed in the dog park. My friend Dana Cardinal was trapped in there for six months, and she said it was far bigger on the inside. She went in as an intern and didn't come out until the voices from Hidden Canyon called her out as the mayor last year.
Wait, the dog park is bigger on the inside, you say?
Yes, yes it is.
Tell me, Cecil, have you ever been in the dog park?
No, not even when I was trapped at the Strexcorp picnic.
As it happens I'm pretty familiar with things that are bigger on the inside. I need you to come with me to help find Carlos. Can you come?
Wait! I can see my Carlos again? Now? But I can't go! I'm on the radio! I'm the voice of Nightvale Public Radio and who knows what will happen if the hooded figures or the Sheriffs Secret Police hear the radio go silent! Even Kevin never let that happen, and he worked for Strexcorp!
Oh hang on then, Cecil. Here, put these headphones on and whining of a sonic screwdriver
Listeners, the Doctor has pulled out a very loud blue light on a metal device the size of two adult middle fingers, fastened end to end and pickled for at least two years. It is garbled
And there we go then. It's now sonically hooked to your microphone, Cecil. Anything you say will be heard on air as if you never left the studio. Let's hustle. Allons-y!
Listeners, I am following the Doctor even though I know my post is in the broadcast booth at the radio station. But I can hear my voice say this as I am hearing myself say this, and I know that part of me will always be behind the mike at Nightvale Public Radio. But the rest of me is running down a corridor that I have never seen before. This doctor took a path leading to the blast vault where Station Management is said to be behind, and then pulled out his … what is that?
It's a sonic screwdriver. Cecil. Now please, I have to work at this.
…
Listeners, I am watching the shadows move rapidly in the Station Management vault window. They don't seem to be of any known shape for long, but they are moving rapidly. They are making a pattern reminiscent of the static from the Lumiere brother's film "Train coming into a station". Now … now they have gone! The window shows just a shadow of a lamp. How strange. But the door is opening! The Doctor is beckoning me forward to see the terrifying sight of station management. I don't know if that's a good idea, but I'm going forward.
This is interesting. I don't know what is normally in this vault, but there is now a blue police box here. It is almost blocking the doors. The doctor is inviting me in. It appears to be a rather normal room decorated in metal struts around a hexagonal central cylinder. Ah-hah! On one side of the cylinder, there is a hand pump, bicycle bell, rubber mallet, typewriter, aetheric flow regulator, and microphone. Clearly the equipment for a radio host. Thank you, Doctor! It's just like the one illustrated in my old Subversive Radio Host manual. Let me get settled then.
You recognize this, Cecil?
Of course I do, Doctor. If it had a xylophone, it would be like the one I started out on.
Anything else that you see, anything unusual?
Not really. I don't know what the white door means, or the glowing green lights down that corridor, but the rest is normal enough. By the way, Doctor, do your windows always open onto the same cities? Mine did for a while, until I used the dehoxifluzer on the window sills. It even stopped the drafts!
… Cecil, how big is the TARDIS, do you think?
On the inside or outside? It is about the size of a condo. Not the black imitation condos, a real condo. I hope we are not trapped in here forever though. It happened to my friend Greg, and the only way he got out was to follow the pizza delivery guy from Big Rico's.
No, we'll be out of here right about now. I guess you haven't see the TARDIS in action yet. Hang on, Cecil!
He is going to the panels next to me. He is pumping the hand pump, and pressing some buttons that I can't make out.
And here we are … I hope that Carlos is outside the door.
Could that be? My Carlos ? I had better see the inside of the dog park at last…
Amazing news, listeners! But it isn't from the dog park at all. It's from the waterfront. Apparently our waterfront now has water! How it arrived there is anyone's guess. But that's not the amazing thing. In the water, people have seen figures walking. We can't get a clear picture of who they are but there's a report of a man with a lab coat and perfect hair out there! I have to go investigate. But first, listeners, I take you now to the weather …
… sad voice I am back. It was all a cruel hoax. The waterfront had water as far as the eye could see, but when I foolishly jumped over the railing I found myself standing on sand. I ran after the water and my dear Carlos, but the water just parted around me and I never got closer. Oh, my heart broke! And then the Doctor had the nerve to ask a hooded figure a question. We all know it's against several city ordinances to do so. He was picked up and flown away by the invisible pterodactyl that hangs around the city library. I wonder what it was doing at the waterfront? So I decided to come back to my studio.
On my way back to the radio station I met some people to whom I relayed my sad tale. getting madder Only one of them said something and he made it worse, just like always, STEVE CARLSBERG! He kept babbling about a "mirage" and how it's just a trick of the light. Now you listen here, STEVE CARLSBERG, I may not be a scientist but I have a boyfriend who is! If there was a mirage in town, don't you think that someone would have done something about it by now? Geez, some people have no sense at all.
But I did find something on my foray to catch the water. Here's a prize envelope. It is a large manila envelope, and the word Prize is written across the front in neon green crayon. The edges are sealed with wax and there's a humming coming from inside, as all official town documents are required to be. Let's see … grunting, ripping of paper
Oh! It's a list of prizes. First prize is to be released from the dog park. There are no other prizes. That doesn't sound promising. It goes on to say that although you'll be released, it may be at any time in the next century. Or before the founding of Nightvale, if they don't get around to releasing you by the end of the next century. That can't be encouraging.
But there's something odd. The back of the prize envelope has a picture of the Doctor stepping out of a blue police box. The box has a flashing light on it, like the flashing light on the mountain in the desert otherworld, and several posters advertising the dog park contest stuck to it. The picture is drawn on a strangely warm, dry, cracked leathery substance that appears to be extremely old.
Wait, something is new here. The air is full of a flashing blue and white light, and a strange sound is filling my studio. It is the TARDIS. That TARDIS is going to block the way to the door. But that is acceptable, I can always count on the vague but menacing government agency to remove blockages. It's one of the things that they do as a public relations initiative.
Hello again, Cecil!
Hello, Doctor.
You seem rather calm for someone who has just travelled through space and time.
Aren't we all travelling through space and time?
Ok, fair point.
You might want to watch your extradimensionality filter on your TARDIS though. It seems worn. You can get a spare one down at Home Depot. Carlos said there were plenty when we were looking at making our rooms in the abandoned mineshaft at the edge of town more comfortable. The one they were using in the prison cell we were assigned was getting plugged up.
… Cecil, I'm starting to see why your boyfriend Carlos finds this town so fascinating.
By the way, if dogs aren't allowed into the dog park, and people aren't allowed into the dog park, who is?
Just the mysterious hooded figures.
Have you ever seen what's under their hoods?
No. Why would I want to? Those hoods aren't made for human heads anyhow.
How do you know?
The same way that everyone knows. Just look at the shape of the inside of the hood.
So you see the inside of the hoods, but not the figures wearing them?
Actually I see them at the display rack at the discount Mask and Hood store on Fifth, Sixth, or Maple Avenue.
There's three stores?
No.
Oh, just not certain where it is?
Nobody is, Doctor. The store changes entrances every time you go in or out. It's not much fun when the street changes too, but they're getting better at not doing that. But it's always there, no matter which site the windows are showing outside.
The Doctor has just snapped his fingers and ran into his TARDIS. Now they're dematerializing. I hope they don't leave too much residual klystron flux, because that never quite comes out the carpet. What a nice man. I hope I'll see him again soon. But he'd better stop that interdimensional travel without prior written authorization from City Council. Ex mayor Pamela Winchell has just called an emergency press conference to remind people that neither altering physical laws nor moving in non-Euclidean ways is permitted until AFTER 4:21 in the afternoon.
Listeners, incredible news. A hooded figure has just removed its hood! There is nothing under it. Now it is removing its robe as well. GASP It's a machine run by dozens of denizens of the secret underground empire under lane 10 of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex! They seem to be abandoning their machine and running home. Oh, that explains everything. It was only something pretending to be a hooded figure! Now the rest of the hooded figures will stop twisting space, time and reality. All is well again.
The TARDIS is dematerializing with that distinctive sound that it makes when it is not going to return for some time. I guess the Doctor didn't pick up the extradimensionality filter after all. But he'll be ok after the runcinate transmogrifier on his TARDIS reboots. That always cleans extradimensionality filters. I wonder if I'll see him again? He did mention that he's going to talk to Carlos later, and pass along the care package of cookies I baked him. At least I have that.
Nightvale is returning to its normal, peaceful routine. Goodnight, listeners, Good night.