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(transcript) Episode 110: "Matryoshka"
🕑 Added 2020-06-02 21:26:27 +0000 UTC CECIL: I once was lost, but now am fine with that. Welcome to Night Vale.STEVE: First I wanted to say that there are glowing arrows in the sky. You can’t see them even though you should. I can see them.
There are dotted lines and arrows and circles. The sky is a chart that explains the entire world. For reference I printed up this diagram on posterboard. Notice the arrows here, which curve around the circles. And the dotted lines.
It's pretty clear if you just look at it.
Please look at it.
You're not looking at it.
Well, I'll just leave it here on this easel, and you can look at it later. Or while I'm talking. Lots of people like to look at other things while I'm talking. It puts them at ease.
I say things people don't like to hear.
I show people things they don't like to see.
My brother-in-law sometimes says I give off a smell that people don't like to smell.
[pause]
Well, I thought it was funny. It hurt my feelings a bit, but he kept doing it. I mean it was kind of funny, I guess.
CECIL: Fun fact: did you know that a group of dragons is called a "weyr"? [note for cecil: this word rhymes with beer]
A pride of lions, a murmuration of starlings, an ennui of buffalo, a weyr of dragons.
Interesting, right?
And now the news.
There's a weyr of five-headed dragons burning down City Hall right now. There is another weyr of dragons stomping great holes in Route 800, the only highway leading out of Night Vale. And yet one more weyr - did you know it's also correct to refer to this as a "flight of dragons" or even a "thunder of dragons"? - tearing open the aqueducts along the town reservoir. More on the complete annihilation of our city as this story develops.
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I've gotten several frustrated calls and letters about our program a couple of weeks ago. Because the program was called "A Story About Huntokar," many listeners rightly anticipated a story about Huntokar, but all they heard was radio static over faint sounds of inhuman screaming.
We apologize for the disappointment, and will more closely review any programs before putting them on air.
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I'm sure it was a tough time for you to voluntarily listen to a subpar radio program. The town is nearly empty, save for flaming buildings, irate dragons, and a sky that has all but been replaced by an enormous hole, out of which pours continuous darkness, confounding visions, and a deafening ripping noise. But again, sorry you didn't like that one radio show.
In related news, the city is on fire and completely in control of Hadassah McDaniels and the five-headed dragons. The holes that have torn across our sky have merged into one giant hole, and false realities are converging into our own. Many citizens, including our mayor, have chosen to run from their own unpleasant reality toward some more pleasant options offered up by the collapsing of all space and time into one.
Frances Donaldson, owner of the Antiques mall, said she discovered a reality where antiques were not sentient, venomous creatures, but in fact just old items one could resell. Frances left this Night Vale last week to go live in another Night Vale which occupies the exact same space.
Bob Sturm, vice president of finance for the Night Vale Auto Insurance Company, found a reality where cars were made of stilton cheese and another where insurance executives made almost $2,000 more a year on average. He's still weighing which reality better suits his lifestyle.
STEVE: I see you're looking at my chart now. I think I should have gone with a classier font like Helvetica, but this one looks just like the writing in comic strips. I couldn't resist. It's just so funny. Makes all of these terrible messages so much easier to bear.
These arrows and lines in the sky are a message from someone named Huntokar. I learned this on the radio last week. Is she a god, as she claims? Maybe, although I'm not religious. The folks over at the Joyous Congregation said there is no god but the Smiling God. I asked if she could be the Smiling God, and they asked if she was smiling. I said I didn't know. It was on the radio. They made weird gestures with their fists and told me I would know once we were all devoured.
I asked my other brother-in-law who's a scientist, and he said the arrows and lines were probably a bunch of comets or solar flares or possibly an aurora. Then he got really excited talking about space and skipped away while laughing and clutching his hands to his chest, so I'm not sure if there's a natural explanation.
What I do know is I'm not the only one who can see them. For a long time I thought that I was. I told Cecil, and he scoffed. I told Leann Hart at the Daily Journal and she threw a hatchet at me. I showed them to my daughter, Janice, but she's a teenager and isn't really interested in what her parents are interested in. My wife said she believed me but showed little interest, so I think she was just saying that to be nice.
I told Mayor Cardinal, and Mayor Winchell before her. Mayor Cardinal said she would look into it, but I'm positive she never did. Mayor Winchell totally agreed and got really excited about it, but she started telling me about how there's a man who lives in the sun and all he does all day is sit at a little table with a phone on it. The phone isn't plugged in, but he waits and waits for it to ring. One day, the man often says to no one (because the sun is so loud and hot and large, no one can hear him), I will receive the call. I cannot leave, for I do not have an answering machine. But when that phone rings, boy howdy, will that be splendid. Based on this story, I'm positive Mayor Winchell and I were talking about different things.
For a long time I thought all of these people didn't believe me. They politely or impolitely urged me away from that line of conversation. They said sure sure and no way and you got something on your shirt, and then they'd poke my nose when I looked down.
I'll get to the angels in a second. I promise this relates.
CECIL: An update on the estate of Old Woman Josie. The hearing to decide the legal ownership of Josie's estate has been postponed indefinitely, as City Hall is completely overrun with dragons, and they're not letting anyone schedule the hearing room, not even for like thirty minutes. Josie's daughter Alondra Ortiz and her lawyer Emilio Tavares have claimed that in absence of a will, the estate should go to the next of kin, in this case Alondra.
However the angels who cared for Josie in her final years have claimed that they have joint ownership and stake in Josie's assets, as they built and maintained her home and helped develop Josie's cultural foundation. The angels' biggest hurdle so far in this ugly battle is that they legally don't exist, as they are angels.
The Hall of Public Records is holding a hearing today to determine the validity of the angels' existence and whether to officially recognize their being.
We'll report back when a decision is reached.
STEVE: But it's not that people don't believe me. They do believe me. You believe me. You just can't accept it. Acknowledge it and understand it. We have customers in our bank all the time who don't want to know their account balance. We can just print it on their receipt, but they always decline because they don't want to know there's only $168 and rent is due in a week. They know, but they don't want to have to acknowledge it.
Which brings me to the angels.
They're real. You can see them. They're standing at the back of the room right now. And yes I hear the city's Angels Acknowledged Sirens and I see you, Sheriff Sam, sitting right there on the front row taking out your handcuffs. But there they are in the back of the room. Just turn around. Look. They're super tall and have several arms and long faces and wings. You see them? They're the ones that glow bright black and sound like french horns. Yeah. Them.
Wave at them. They're waving back.
There are a great many crises facing our town: the holes in the sky; the dragons chasing us into hiding; the Woman from Italy threatening to flay us alive; the Distant Prince slowly creeping less distant; all of the unrepaired potholes. All kinds of stuff that may seem more important than a simple, clerical matter of existence.
But I ask the city officials present, the administrators of the hall of public records, the people of Night Vale, please legalize the acknowledgment of these angels.
They are protectors. They have saved our city from evil corporate encampments, from that beagle. They built us an opera house. They cared for Old Woman Josie through hospice. They are recorders. They memorize our history without judgment. They are beggars. They have like a billion dollars in our bank, but they constantly roam the streets asking people for ten bucks.
It's not because they need money. It's because they need connection. They just want to know you heard them ask.
CECIL:
Listeners, I'm getting word that the dragons have stopped their rampage across town. No more burning buildings or crushed cars or devouring of pets. Every single dragon in town has gathered out in the scrublands, near the sandwastes. They are facing out toward the mountains, silently watching for something.
The city is quiet again. I do take some comfort in not hearing shouts for help or glass shattering. It is a relief to not hear reptilian roars or car alarms, to not see plumes of smoke.
But there is little solace in inexplicable peace. The chaos in our streets was normal, predictable. It was upsetting, but we knew why it was happening. But for no clear reason the dragons have stopped, something they have not done since they began months ago.
The last remnants of the sky have gone. There are hundreds of people out wandering the streets, but they aren't actually here. They're living in some other Night Vale that is not attacked by dragons, some other reality that is not in flames. I can see them, solid figures moving through each other, unaware of the layers upon layers of reality.
My brother returned to see me last night, but I do not have a brother. Nearly all of his hair and teeth were gone and he could barely walk. Every few steps he would fall, only to get back up and walk slowly again toward me, a line of dried blood down the front of his polo shirt. He couldn't speak, only groaned "the bomb" over and over "the bomb" He grabbed my arm and I couldn't pull away. I only said "You're not real." But he just stared distantly, as only a person who has seen death can stare.
People ask all the time, are we at the end? Is this it? And I tell them no. We must keep moving forward. That's all we can do. But I'm lying. I can hold tight to what I think is real here, but it's done no good. I'm just one person. I'm afraid we've broken it. We've broken Night Vale. I'm so sorry.
Stay tuned next for everything and nothing. And for one last time, from the voice of your town, to all listeners out there, goodbye, night vale. Goodbye.
[pause; maybe outro music]
Hang on.
I just thought of something. While I go figure this out, have a listen to today's weather.
[WEATHER]
STEVE: Unless we pay attention to our true reality, all will be lost. I believe recognizing angels is a vital first step.
It’s like my brother-in-law saying mean things all the time. I tried to ignore the mean bits. I just put my head down and kept moving. The main thing was to keep moving, not to bog down in tears and fights and emotions. Just move forward, because facing it would mean pain.
But then a few weeks ago, I looked him in the eye and said stop. He looked shocked. I inhaled, and just as I did, he did too. And in a synchronous moment of breath, I started crying. I wasn't weeping in sadness, just crying from the intimacy of truly seeing someone and having them see me. We were vulnerable and raw, and I said "It hurts me when you joke. If you don't like me, just tell me why, and we can work through it."
And he told me about his childhood and his mother and his tumultuous relationship with his sister, and how difficult it is to let strangers into his world, and it was just easier for him to keep me as an interloper in his life. I could never understand his difficult childhood. And I said he was right. But that I could try.
He let me hug him. He even hugged back, which is rare for Cecil. He's stopped saying rude jokes about me, in fact, even saying nice things about me. We acknowledged our issues. Nothing is perfect. I don't think it will ever be, but it is better. Perfection doesn't exist. All we can hope for is better.
Thank you, officers of the Hall of Public Records, for letting me speak at the hearing today.
CECIL:
My brother-in-law Steve Carlsberg didn't know Old Woman Josie, not like I did. I loved her like a mother. Steve did not know the angels either. I'm sure he had heard me talk about them. I'm sure, like all of us, he had seen them and known them to be real but averted his eyes for fear of violating the arcane law against acknowledging angels. Yet he went to the hearing to support them.
Because I am doing this show today, I could not attend the hearing, a hearing I desperately wanted to be at, to proclaim my passion, to change our out-of-date laws. I am sad I could not.
But Steve told me he would speak for me at the hearing. He listened attentively as I told him everything I felt about the issue, and then he said "it's like the arrows in the sky - the dotted lines." I rolled my eyes, because Steve has always been a conspiracy theorist, seeing patterns where there are none. He got upset at my dismissiveness.
My sister Abby and I rarely got along, but after our mother died, that began to change. I spent so much time with her, and with her infant daughter Janice, whose spina bifida was costly and terrifying and exhausting. Then Abby met Steve. And Steve took care of Janice, financially, and of Abby, spiritually, and I was just an uncle again. I was no longer wringing my hands every day over the health of this struggling girl anymore. I wasn't spending away my savings on medical care. I wasn't having to comfort a sobbing mother.
Steve took all that away from me. You could read that two ways. Steve relieved me from stress. Or: Steve relieved me from duty. I interpreted it as the latter. It was hard to forgive him for simply being a responsible husband and step-father. But I am learning to let my anger go.
I've said terrible things about Steve, and he's been nothing but supportive of me, of my sister, of my niece. He's a good father, and brother-in-law, and a good citizen of Night Vale. He's a patient friend, and I love him for that. I even think his arrows in the sky theory might be right.
Did you ever have one of those dolls that opens up and inside is another doll and inside that another?
I sometimes think we're one of those dolls, inside a similar doll, outside a similar doll. Each one nestled in another. Infinite possible dolls all in one visible doll.
But all of the dolls have been opened and removed from one another, their split halves strewn across the floor.
Which parts go together? And which doll were we? Did our doll have the blond hair or the brown hair, the red bow or the one with green lace trim, the headscarf with the floral print or the dotted print?
The angels' hearing is completed and the Hall of Public Records has officially recognized the existence of angels as Night Vale citizens.
The angels celebrated with poorly-aimed high fives, which were warmly reciprocated by fellow non-angel citizens, now legally allowed to see the angels as real.
The recognition and acknowledgment of angels seems a small victory in light of our ending world, but as I speak to you now, part of the sky has returned.
As has Hiram McDaniels.
Out in the scrublands, the gathered dragons welcomed back one of their own. Hiram had left town to be alone, to gather himself. His violet head was executed by Night Vale officials last year, the incident that sparked this entire conflict.
Hiram spoke to the other dragons. "A great injustice has been perpetrated upon me," his gold head announced, in a quiet, tired voice. "We've been trying to make sense of why it happened," his blue head said. "We've been very emotional," his gray head said. "BUT WE ARE LEARNING TO LET GO OF OUR ANGER" his green head shouted hoarsely.
Hiram asked that the dragons leave Night Vale, and all return back to their world. "We have truces to uphold. They attack me only because they are scared of me," his gold head said. "We cannot find forgiveness in relentlessness."
There was grumbling and dissent, but the dragons have called off their attack for now.
But it was not the dragons who tore open our sky and split our realities. We are not safe merely because there is peace.
We are the ones who tore apart our realities, by refusing to see them for what they were. Our years of denial, carefully cultivated, has made our reality fragile. Look at the angels, Night Vale. They are real. They always have been. Right there in front of us. They are our protectors, and we deny them. We loved Old Woman Josie so much, and yet we couldn't accept those whom she loved as her own family.
Look at what we did to Hiram. He conspired to kill our mayor, but the one head who tried to stop the others was the one we executed. And in the throes of our town’s ironclad denial, we could not own up to our mistake.
We are just one wooden doll inside many similar wooden dolls, but if we don't notice the little details, we won't know which one we are when they are all dismantled.
As the dragons began to leave town, Mayor Dana Cardinal approached them and asked for forgiveness for the death of Violet. "Your destruction of our town did not bring Violet back. It did not fix anything. I remain fearful of and angry at you for this," she said. "But that does not change the fact that I made a grave error. Hiram, I am sorry."
The dragons paused to hear her words. When she finished, they left Night Vale without reply.
And a bit of the sky returned.
Following the hearing, Alondra Ortiz said she was incredibly moved by the angels' case and that she had never really thought of them as anything but imaginary freeloaders. But now that she had taken time to see how much love and effort they put into Josie's health, life, and artistic endeavors, she plans to re-work her claim on her mother's estate to include only personal items and heirlooms. She also said she would like to stay in Night Vale a while longer, to spend time with her mother’s friends.
And a bit of the sky returned.
Members of the vague yet menacing government agency resumed their routine of following people and recording private conversations, and those under surveillance waved hello at the agents.
“Have you ever noticed,” we all asked each other, “that we are being watched by secret agents? That’s not normal. That doesn’t happen in normal places.”
And a bit of the sky returned.
The librarians slithered, or possibly skittered, back into the library ready to devour booklovers. The City Council returned to their chambers after a much needed vacation in the Catskills, except for their newest member, 16-year-old Tamika Flynn, who, instead of vacationing, amassed a disturbing amount of weaponry.
“Most towns, I think, aren’t run by literal monsters and heavily armed teenagers,” we said to each other.
And a bit of the sky returned.
The radiation-sick man in my home, named Cal, is gone once again, as are the countless layers of people walking our streets but existing in some other streets.
As the angels were acknowledged as truly existing, the other realities began to fade. As we began to accept the full reality of our world. As Mayor Cardinal remembered that her father had died years ago, and the father she was with was not her reality. As we looked each doll over carefully, we began to truly notice the fine details of what made ours particular and special. And we could nestle them all back together into a single doll, each multitude safely contained.
And the last bit of the sky returned
Our reality is badly damaged, and the only thing keeping it together is our acknowledgement, finally, of this strange town that we live in. No more denial. We must see ourselves clearly or risk losing ourselves forever.
Angels are real. Our town is a deeply weird place. We know and acknowledge that it is a deeply weird place. There are dotted lines and arrows in the sky. And I love my family, and I love my brother Steve. He was right about everything. He always has been.
Stay tuned next for eye contact and breathing in unison.
And as always, and for as long as I can keep saying it. Good night, Night Vale. good Night.
