CECIL:
The trees are dying again. You know it. I know it. The trees know it. They have known it for decades, centuries in some cases. The shiver of cyclic, symbolic death. A rattle in the cold night air. A rustle in the footsteps of a hungry deer. It is October and something is different. It is October and the trees draw the crackling red and orange curtain on the year’s final act. It is October. And so, listeners, dear listeners, Night Vale Community Radio is proud to introduce...the October Monologues...
FACELESS OLD WOMAN:
I am lonely.
Oh, I see people. I see lots of people. Every day. I see you right now. I see you, Caleb, sitting in your rolling desk chair hunched over your computer. I am a Faceless Old Woman who secretly lives in your home watching you download yet another video game, Caleb.
But seeing people and being with people are different things. Different ideas all together. I miss touch most of all. A father’s hand. A friend’s arms. A lover’s chest.
I still touch. Am touched. But it’s not the same. It is not a mutual touch. My touch is unwelcome, unfriendly, unwanted.
Yet I touch because I love. And I love you, Caleb. I do. I know you don’t believe me, after what I did to you tonight, but I do. My love is not romantic, nor maternal. It’s not platonic either. I love you the way a deer loves a cornfield. It is safe. It is nourishing. It is in its DNA to want to be there. To hide. To eat. To play.
You’re very much like a cornstalk, Caleb. You are loved and you are benign… better than benign… you are a contribution to this world. The cornstalk is unaware that a deer loves it so much that it will bend it and stomp it until its edible morsels spill out from its crumpled, empty husk. The cornstalks – there are so many cornstalks – do not understand that they are so loved by the deer as to be devoured.
You’ve seen a kitten before, Caleb. I know you have. Sometimes kittens are so cute. SO SO SO CUTE that you want to put them in your mouth. Do you understand that kind of love, Caleb? That kind of touch?
You do not. No one does. And this is why I am lonely.
But I think you know that. You’re different. You’re lonely, too.
That’s not what makes you different. We’re all lonely in our own way. You’re different, Caleb, because you know I am here. You see me even when I do not want to be seen. No one has been able to do that in at least 200 years. Sometimes you speak to me. Not in terror, not in rage. I have heard many of these voices in my life from those who feared and detested my presence. No, you ask me my name. (I won’t tell you. Not yet.) You tell me about your day. (I’m sorry your new boss is so mean. I will rectify this.) And last night, you prepared a dinner for me.
You’re not a good cook. I can smell that much. But it was your gesture of generosity that touched me. You made cacio e pepe, a recipe you learned from TikTok. And you prepared a bowl just for me. You waited to see if I would appear, and when I did not, you told me you understood wanting to eat alone, so you left it for me on the dining room table, as you went to play the new Flight Simulator.
Few men have ever been this kind to me without being frightened into it first. Or without using their kindness as a disguise. I think you genuinely understand your own quiet desperation among the mass of men. And in turn, you understand others’ too.
I don’t trust the kindness of men, Caleb. I don’t trust the kindness of women either. Or anyone else’s kindness, to be truthful. But I especially do not trust men’s kindness.
There are exceptions. Andre, whose kindness was loyalty and honesty. And Albert – although his was a much different kind of kindness. But Caleb… 23-year-old, unshaven, video-game-loving, boss-hating, aimless Caleb… your kindness frightens me.
I am scared of what you want. What it is you plan to take from me. Kind men have stolen my childhood, my morals, my money, my love, my life, and my family. What will you take from me, Caleb, that I have not already lost?
I am afraid. I am afraid to respond to your gentle bait of friendship. Because I am afraid you will take my loneliness from me. I am lonely, and that is a choice I have made for myself.
One day, Caleb, you will die. I know exactly when. It will not be at my hand. Although, I will do nothing to stop it. It is my fate, my path, to know such things. And in your death, you will return my loneliness to me, and it will be a horror to behold, bloody and misshapen. My loneliness, not recognizing its former owner, will howl an unholy and unceasing cry. And I will not be able to bear it.
This is what I fear, Caleb. And this is why I took the bowl of cacio e pepe you left for me and hurled it against the wall, just missing your cheek. I’m not sad that you screamed at me. I am happy that you did so. This is how it has to be. We are not enemies, Caleb. No no. I love you deeply. Deeper than you can know. I am your deer, Caleb, and you are my corn.
CECIL:
The fiery flash of fall leaves stuns us, captivates us. Fireworks in slow motion. Or the crackling embers of a finishing flame. Upon the leaves are written instructions for how to make oxygen. How to give life with every exhalation. How to find flare in fading grace. And how to raise new life by falling to your death. The leaves know they will return again. So much will return again. We return now to the October Monologues.
MICHELLE:
There’s this new song I like. But I don’t want to tell you what it is. I find it kind of embarrassing.
Usually I love to talk about my favorite music. There was that summer I was obsessed with the new single by St. Vincent. The single came in the form of a glazed vase containing three blue flowers. Only one was ever made, and I got the only copy. I found it very catchy, but the flowers eventually died.
Or the year I spent listening over and over to that new Janelle Monae album. I forget the name, but the cover was a black and white picture of a well, and if you didn’t share it with someone else in seven days you’d die. Of course, no one ever died because the album was so good people just couldn’t stop telling their friends to listen.
My favorite song of all time is a blank cassette tape, still in its plastic wrapper. It was owned by a man named Gary Choi. He was a real estate lawyer, reasonably successful, but he always dreamed of being a singer songwriter. He dreamed all the time of quitting his job and writing songs, but he had never even written one song. Then one day, in a fit of optimism and energy, he bought this cassette, intending to make his first demo. But the day got away from him, and then the week, and then the rest of his life, and he never quit being a lawyer, and he never wrote even one song. This blank cassette tape, still in its wrapper, contains the potential of all the songs he could have written, but never did, which is better and more powerful than any actual song anyone’s managed to actually write. The potential of a thing is always more perfect than the reality of the thing. However, and this is the crucial drawback, the potential is absolutely useless and the reality, however imperfect, can be quite useful. Anyway, I like to hold Gary Choi’s unwritten demo, and imagine what it would be like.
Hold on sorry, there’s a customer.
[off-mic]
Welcome to Dark Owl Records.
What?
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.
Ok, bye.
[on-mic]
Sorry about that. Some people are so unreasonable. I don’t even know what a Taylor Swift is.
But there’s a new song I like. And it’s not cool like my other favorite songs. It’s not a song that fits the kind of image I like to project. When I put on my mirrored leggings, and my extra long jorts, and my really big hat, people expect something from me. They expect me to be on the cutting edge. They expect me to only be into bands that aren’t popular yet, or will never be popular, or that frankly don’t know how to play their instruments very well.
And the song I like now, it’s not any of those things. It’s ordinary. It’s...popular.
I don’t want to say what it is. Remember when I only listened to the sound of bees buzzing? That was a good summer. Of course, I got stung once or twice or thirty times.
Hold on, sorry, there’s a customer.
[off-mic]
Welcome to Dark Owl Records.
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!
Hey!!
Hey!!!
Thanks, nice to see you again.
[back on mic]
Sorry about that.
I’m tired of being cool. I was going to say “trying to be cool”, but trying implies the possibility of failure, and there has never been a moment where I failed to be cool. But here’s the hard truth I’ve come up against: Being cool is a young person’s game.
And that’s not because young people are better or more interesting than older people. God no. God no. God no. It’s that coolness itself is a concept tied to youth. Coolness is a reactionary manifestation of insecurity. The more insecure you are, the more cool you need to be. It’s colorful plumage.
But as I’ve gotten older, I no longer need flashy plumage. I just want to sit in the comfort of who I am, and not worry about what that looks like from the outside.
Anyway, I can’t stop listening to Karma Police by Radiohead. It’s just…….a good song, you know?
Hold on, sorry, there’s a customer.
[off-mic]
You’ll never catch me alive!
[sound of running away. Sound of a door slamming]
CECIL:
An abundance of words. Words falling, fluttering to the earth. Words crunching beneath our feet. They were beautiful once, the words. Now they are beginning to rot, to wilt, to compost, to ferment new growth. To fertilize new words, growing upon great trunks of paragraphs and chapters. But not now. Those will come later. Now, the words sputter and drop in spiraling arcs to the ground. Here, then are the final few brightly painted words falling upon you now… The October Monologues.
STEVE:
What does it mean to be believed?
I’ve always known that Night Vale isn’t like other places. As long as I can remember, I could see that. I also could see that no one else could see it. I was alone in my knowledge. Knowledge may be power, but power is often lonely. My grandfather knew. He could see that I was like him. “Steve,” he would say. “Us Carlsbergs have always been the town pariahs. But just because they hate you doesn’t mean they’re right.”
I would sit at night as a kid, and listen to Cecil on the radio. He was the same age as he is now, and at the time he seemed so wise. But I would hear him dismiss what I knew shouldn’t be dismissed. I would hear him cover up what should be uncovered. And I would know with a child’s certainty that it was wrong. I loved him still. Everyone in town loves Cecil. It is possible to love someone who you know is doing wrong. It’s terribly easy, in fact.
What does it mean to be believed?
As a teenager, I started trying to express what I saw about the world. I gave a presentation in my social studies class, called: Night Vale: There’s Literally No Where Like It. I thought it was informative. The class all plugged their ears in unison. The teacher stopped me a minute in, glancing nervously at the eight surveillance cameras monitoring the classroom. “Are you trying to get us all killed?” the teacher hissed at me. I remember that her breath smelled like strawberry jolly ranchers, and there was a loose crumb of mascara in the sweat of her temples.
“No,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. It’s not the kind of question that demands a sincere answer. That report earned me a trip to the principal’s office, and then the Reeducation Pit, which honestly is not as bad as its name. I mean, almost not as bad. It’s pretty bad. It’s a pit. For reeducation. So.
I certainly learned something from that reeducation. I learned that you’re equally likely to be punished for being right as you are for being wrong.
What does it mean to be believed?
I was a young man, entering the workforce, and I had long ago learned to hide away what I knew about our city. I had learned the handshake and the smile, the nod and the necktie, all the signifiers that hid what I truly signified. All of life is a code, and I had been taught the key against my will.
I got a job as a bank teller at The Last Bank of Night Vale. I studied with great interest the townsfolk who came and went there. I learned about their lives, and their secrets, and what kind of money they made from the whispered deals out back in quiet parking lots just before the sun went down, pulled up next to a black sedan that contained their handler who they only knew by a false first name.
But I couldn’t forget what I knew, even if I learned to playact that I had. What I know shapes who I am. I can’t close my eyes, not to this town I love. This weird and secret town I love.
What does it mean to be believed?
Then I married into the family of Cecil Palmer, host of Night Vale Community Radio. And he hated me. Because he could see that I knew. And after all these years, my mask had slipped a little. I had lost my interest in hiding. I wanted to speak the truth as I knew it. Nothing could be more threatening to Cecil. His life and livelihood depending on speaking the truth as the City Council wanted it, or as the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agencies crafted it. And here I was. Pointing out to him the sky.
There are glowing arrows in the sky.
There are dotted lines and arrows and circles. The sky is a chart that explains the entire world.
I tried to tell this to him, and this only made him hate me more.
I tried to share who I was with him, and this only made him recoil.
Abby listened to my stories, but she never shared my enthusiasm for the truth. “Let it lie,” she would say. “Let it lie.”
But that’s the point. I can’t let it lie and I can’t lie. We’ve done that for too long. We’ve let our town sit heavy under the weight of euphemism and half truth. And unless someone just said what they saw for once, we would be crushed eventually by that weight.
Then it all changed. I wasn’t alone. The others saw that we lived in a weird place. And do you know what? We kept existing. Our world didn’t end merely because we dared acknowledge it.
Cecil and I are friends now. I haven’t forgotten how he treated me. But I understand it. And I forgive it. Forgiveness and understanding are not the same as forgetting.
What does it mean to be believed?
It means everything.
It means it all.
CECIL:
And as the leaves are done, so are the October Monologues. All that can be said has been said. And all that can be said will be said again.
Today’s proverb: Listen, it might seem like everything's bad right now...
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