Robert sat on the school bus and stared out the window. This was nothing new; he did this almost every day. There was something about moving vehicles that compelled you to look out of them and watch things pass by, unless you had something better to do. Robert had nothing better to do.
Other people on the bus did. Some were talking with the people next to them, others were finishing their last minute homework, a few were reading, and many were on their phone, texting or listening to music or something. Robert didn't have friends or acquaintances or even enemies on the bus to chat with. He had no unfinished homework or books or electronic devices with him. And even if he did, he might still have sat there, staring out the window. Robert liked this state of being, simply existing, doing nothing in particular, thinking of nothing in particular, letting thoughts and ideas and sounds drift in and out of his attention, much in the same way that the houses and trees entered his field of vision through the window, then slipped out.
The staticky radio voices tugged at his attention for a moment.
"42 to Control One," a woman said on the radio. "There's construction work on 58th street. Can I go around it by turning left at the intersection..."
Robert tuned her out as his thoughts drifted. He briefly wondered what it was like to be Control One (or at Control One? Or work for Control One? What exactly was Control One anyway?) and listen to the drivers of school buses explain whatever problems they had caused or encountered and find a solution for all of them. For a name that felt like it belonged in a spy movie, Control One seemed rather dull. Robert's thoughts continued to wander.
And then were interrupted by a sudden change from the radio. Robert was not still consciously listening to the radio, but his attention was drawn back towards it when Control One was interrupted from telling 42 to go ahead with that other route by a voice that was much clearer, smoother, and less static filled than what normally came out of that radio.
"Listeners? Night Vale?" the deep voice asked. He sounded fearful and worried, but only mildly so. "The singing orb that the band students had sent to the radio station has enveloped me in a cloud of light and I found myself here, standing in the middle of a field. I don't know where I am." The man's voice was unlike anyone's Robert had heard. It was nice, like creamy, melted, dark chocolate; or like the calm of lying under the shade of a tree on a warm, sunny day; and steady, like an unblinking star in the midst of a vast, chaotic world.
The words were odd too. He wondered, with a sort of vague, detached concern, how this voice appeared on the radio instead of the normal bus radio chatter. Was it a prank? This would be an unusual and likely difficult prank to play with no obvious purpose. At least, not yet.
The bus driver frantically looked up at the mirror that showed the rest of the bus in its reflection, as if expecting, or maybe hoping that it was a kid playing a joke. Those towards the back of the bus could not hear the radio, and had not noticed anything different and were going about their business as usual. The people at the front of the bus, those who had nothing better to occupy their attention and ears, exchanged concerned glances. Nothing suspicious. The bus driver pulled down the speaking device that would reach Control One and be broadcasted on all the buses' radios.
"85 to Control One." The bus driver sounded scared and confused. "85 to Control One?" There was no reply. The strange man on the radio continued talking all the while. He had not heard 85's bus driver.
"I do not know if you can hear me, Night Vale. I am holding a microphone, but it is not connected to anything."
The bus driver flipped a switch on the radio, presumably to try to turn it off. When nothing happened and the voice continued speaking, the bus driver gave the radio and the mirror and the world a distressed look.
"There is nothing for it to be connected to. Only grass and distant trees."
Robert wondered how the mysterious man's voice, assuming that what he was saying was real, was being transmitted if his microphone wasn't connected to anything. He wondered how it found this signal and how it blocked everything else that would normally be broadcasted and why turning off the radio did nothing to affect the voice.
"I think I see mountains beyond those trees, listeners. But of course, mountains are a myth and do not exist. Perhaps they are an illusion, created by mountain believers in order to trick me into thinking that mountains are a thing. Or maybe I am in another world where mountains do exist, like the Desert Otherworld."
The bus driver, not knowing what else to do, continued on the route as normal. There weren't any more students left to pick up, only a fifteen minute long ride through rural and suburban land to the school.
"But this place is not the Desert Otherworld. It isn't even a desert. The field in which I am standing in is muddy and filled with the kind of grasses that require lots of water. The grey sky above me holds the promise of rain. And it is cold. My breath comes out like foggy steam," the mysterious speaker observed. "I don't know what else I can say to you listeners, if there are any of you out there. I have no news to read, no reports to make, no weather to take you to. And even if I did, would there be any point? This is not Night Vale. This is a different place with different people. My words about it would hold little meaning to you.
"It's odd how something that is my world, a place that contains everything I care about, can mean nothing to another person. And their world, their life, their home, might be a location I have never even heard of. They have never survived the Strangers, or risen up against StrexCorp and Desert Bluffs, or nearly lost their mayor to four of the five heads of Hiram McDaniels, the five-headed dragon, and the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. Or maybe not your home, listeners of another place, but just in mine.
"Yet there are things that we all share, things that are not limited by geography. Awe in the presence of the incomprehensibly vast universe, for example. Or the experience of the bewildering, strange thing that is time, in one form or another, or the universal fear of librarians and books and all the dangers they hold. It is the experiences and things that surrounds a person that make up the person. Without Night Vale, and everything that holds, who am I? Just a person speaking in soft, warm tones to counter the silence. Without the things that are so vital to you, who are you?"
The bus was louder than normal, the riders trying to cover up their uneasy fear and the strange man's voice with chatter. Robert, who sat in the very front, could still hear the man perfectly. His words were strange - it had to be some sort of weird joke, because really, five headed dragons and dangerous librarians? But the meanings and questions behind the crazy world the man described were somehow both soothing and exciting. They said things Robert had always sort of known but never heard quite like that.
There was a pause, as Robert continued to watch the window, paying little attention to the view, merely giving his eyes a thing to do. The bus passed a field bordered by trees, and standing in the middle, facing away from the road, was a person of average shape and proportions. Afterward, Robert couldn't recall what the figure looked like, only that it wore the oddest clothes that combined made for an even more bizarre outfit.
"Oh!" the speaker exclaimed. "An orb of singing light has just appeared in front of me. It looks identical to the one that the combined energies of the Night Vale High marching band created. I must say that I am never underestimating a marching band again."
A brightly glowing ball, about the size of the man's head appeared in the field, next to the figure. Over the sound of the bus's engine and between the spaces in the speaker's words, Robert thought that he could almost hear a musical humming. The sphere, that seemed to be composed of light, elegantly expanded into a cloud-like form, growing to cover Robert's view of the figure.
"The orb has increased in size, and is turning gas-like, just as it did before I came here. I hope I am returning to Night Vale! Goodbye, other world!"
The light abruptly vanished, leaving behind nothing but what had always been there. As Robert's view of the place where the strange man from Night Vale disappeared, the normal bus radio reappeared as if it had never gone, much to the relief and confusion of the bus driver. There was a conversation between the upset bus driver and Control One, who was very certain that there had been nothing wrong on any of the other buses, and it must have just been a malfunction, but it was working now. All evidence that anything out of the ordinary had happened was vanishing, leaving only memories, also quickly fading, to prove the man's appearance.
Robert turned back to his window, just like before, his mind filled with a strange place called Night Vale and a stranger man on the radio.