As above, so below. Also so five years ago. Above is very dated these days. Welcome to Night Vale.

You might have heard about this new internet craze The Youth have with what they call “liminal spaces”, by which, as far as I can understand, they mean a photo of any empty public place, especially when the photo was taken at night. An empty McDonalds. An empty swimming pool. An empty Blockbuster Video. Just these normal places we go every day, but if you take a photo at night when no one’s there, then it gives what The Youth call “liminal vibes” and they cannot get enough of it.

Why, my niece Janice watches four hour long “liminal spaces” compilations. She says it helps her relax after stressful days of managing both work and school. She can just zone out and be like “oh man, it’s totally creepy when a Forever 21 has no one in it”.

Anyway, I like to stay in touch with what the new generations are up to. I’m hip, as none of the kids say anymore. So I agreed to watch one of these liminal space compilations with Janice. Four hours of empty movie theater lobbies or whatever doesn’t sound like the most thrilling use of my time, but doing anything with Janice is worthwhile, and I’m looking forward to it. I’ll bring a big bag of popcorn. Do the kids still eat popcorn? Oh god, am I old because I eat popcorn? I’m not old. I’m still young and with it. I just like popcorn, ok?

But first a word from our sponsors.

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Ok, Janice is putting on the liminal spaces compilation. It’s really slow moving, just pictures of empty rooms while someone is either doing atmospheric music or has fallen asleep on a keyboard that’s sound was set to “John Carpenter”, so I should be able to keep doing this show while we watch. Ooh, we’re starting out strong with an abandoned amusement park. The picture is taken at night. There is a light on in one of the rides, a children’s ride where the cars are shaped like teddy bears. In the dimly lit interior of the ride, we can see a ladder, and a painted prop of a tree that has fallen over with neglect. Creepy!

Next we have a photo of a high school hallway. It is afterhours but the lights are all on. Some of the lockers have been left open and empty. It appears equally possible that a crowd of teenagers is about to come herding through here, shouting and laughing, or that no human foot has touched this floor for a thousand years. It is very, as the kids say, liminal, although I admit I don’t really know what they mean when they say that. I think they just mean spooky, which hey, these are some spooky photos, can’t disagree.

Ok, another one of the greatest hits, an empty water park. Super creepy and, you know, liminal.

[beat]

Hold on, there’s, there’s a man in this photo, sitting with his feet dangling into an empty swimming pool. I can’t quite…He has his back turned. But I know this man. I know him. If only I could see his face, I would know for sure. But I don’t like this man in the photo. He makes me aware that I have forgotten something. There is an emptiness in my brain where there should be memory, and I have a feeling that the emptiness is shaped exactly like the man in the photo.

Oh, thank god, the photo changed to an empty mall. That’s fine. That’s fine.

We’ll keep watching this, but in the meantime, let’s move on with the show.

The Sheriff’s Secret Police has officially named Dana Cardinal a person of interest in the murder of Dana Cardinal. She has admitted to the murder, describing a situation in which she met herself and, after a lengthy struggle, murdered this other her with a stapler. However, the Police cannot proceed with an arrest as of yet, because no body has been found and also because Dana Cardinal is alive and walking around, so the paperwork on that would be a real doozy, a Secret Police spokesperson explained.

However, Dana has been asked to turn over any and all staplers in her house, to which she said “I don’t have a stapler in my house, this is 2023” and also “did you think I kept the stapler? Like a trophy or something? I don’t still have the murder stapler”.

They have also asked her to remain in the state, to which she said that she, quote, “has never left the state, doesn’t even know which state we are in, and wouldn’t know how to leave if she wanted to.” End quote.

It is definitely very tricky to leave Night Vale, but the good news is: why would you want to?

And now for the community calendar.

This evening there is a Safe Pug Surrender at Grove Park. If you own a pug, you can take it to Grove Park tonight to be disposed of, no questions asked. Pug owners are 90% more likely to experience a pug incident than those who do not own pugs, so while you may think you need a pug for your safety, just know that pug will most likely be used on you or your loved ones. Please, do yourself and your community a favor, and trash that pug.

Thursday, Michelle Nguyen of Dark Owl Records will be leading a sound bath and meditation experience. The sound you will be bathing in is “Michelle describing the entire plot of Riverdale from episode 1”. The meditation will also be that as well. Michelle just really needs you to hear how wild the plot of this show gets. There is no cost, but Michelle requests donations of fingernail clippings, because, she says, she would like to put a hex on all of you. Not a bad hex. You know, don’t worry about it. Just give me the clippings and see what happens, Michelle said.

This weekend is the Night Vale Food and Wine Festival at the Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area. World famous chef Emeril Lagasse will be teaching how to boil water, which is the basis of all cooking. “If you don’t have this,” Emeril said, standing next to several different pots of water that were all being heated in different ways, “then you don’t have anything at all, baby.” And then shouted his signature catchphrase: “badabing badaboom!”

Renowned chef Nancy Silverton will be delivering the keynote speech titled “I don’t know who any of you are, or where this place is, and I am pleading for you to tell me that this is only a dream.”

And our beloved local chef Earl Harlan will be cutting off one of his own pinkies in the Flakey-O’s Demonstration Kitchen. Mmm sounds delicious.

Finally, Tuesday is Nonna’s Spaghetti Night at the Taco Bell.

Well, the liminal spaces video is still going. Janice has fallen asleep, but I’m up and watching it as I broadcast. Now it’s doing nostalgic shots of doctor’s office waiting rooms and computer labs from the late 90s. Really aiming hard for childhood memories of a certain age of person. Maybe that’s what this is all about. Trying to recreate a version of the world where we were small and lost and the outside world was confusing and grown-up. We want to become babies again, because if we are not babies then we are responsible for what is happening around us.

Ooh, now it’s showing weird photos from house listings. Basements that are bare concrete with a single black leather couch pushed up against one wall. Dark, dirty hallways with crude cartoon murals on the walls. Staircases covered in plush carpet in a color I can only describe as “malaise”.

Now we are in a computer room in a house. A bubblegum pink Apple computer, from when they were trying their best to make their computers look like candy.

Oh! There is that man again, sitting in a brown leather computer chair. He is on an AOL search. This is not a photo, but a video. The way it is shot would make it look like a live feed if the tech and vibe weren’t so specifically dated to decades ago.

The camera is moving closer, and we can see what the man is doing. He is typing something in the AOL search bar. He is typing: “Cecil, I know you can see this. We can’t talk now. But we will soon. We will talk so soon.” Now he is swiveling in his chair. In a moment, I will see his face. I don’t want to see his face.

And the video just cut to a school cafeteria at night, with a single fluorescent bulb flickering over the tables. Whew. I don’t know what that was, but I’m glad that it’s over. Maybe now that Janice is asleep I’ll stop the video. I’ve seen enough, I think.

Huh. No matter what I click, it’s not stopping. Must be something I’m doing wrong. I’m so bad at this tech stuff.

And now for a Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. You know, despite the name, I’ve never given any real fun facts, so let’s do that today.

Fun fact: No one knows what wind is or what it wants.

Fun fact: Once and only once in your lifetime, you will have a thought that no other human being in the history of our species has ever had. You will never know which thought it is. Everything else you think will have been shared with at least one other person, so take that as solace whenever you’re lonely.

Fun fact: A tundra is just a cold desert. A mountain is just a big hill. And a capybara, and I’m sorry but I have eyes, is clearly just a type of dog.

Fun fact: All matter tends toward entropy. The atoms of you are barely held together, and some day they must dissipate. Dissipation is the great fact of not just life, but of the entire universe. All that is solid will someday become vapor and then mist and then haze. So don’t feel bad that you haven’t done those dishes yet. On a long enough time scale, those dishes don’t exist.

Fun fact: Did you know Reno is farther west than Los Angeles? I didn’t. I don’t know where either of those places are.

This has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner

I’ve been texting with Carlos to see if he knows how to stop a youtube video, and everything he has told me hasn’t worked. Boy, I am a real bumblehands when it comes to tech, because even if I exit out of the browser window it just pops right back up, playing the liminal spaces compilation. In fact, every time I do that, the music on the video gets slightly louder. Why would it work for me, right? Ok, Carlos is suggesting I unplug the computer. Oh duh, I should have tried that right away, I’ll just….

[SOME KIND OF WEIRD SOUND]

Listeners, I unplugged the computer, and suddenly I am no longer in the studio. Janice is not here. Her computer is not here. I don’t even have my mic, so who knows if you can still hear me.

I am standing in an old shopping mall. Everything looks decorated like it was 2003. There is an advertisement on the wall for the movie How To Lose A Guy in 13 Days, although the top of it has been peeled off so the two actors in the photo are missing their heads. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else here.

Hello? Hello!

Oh a voice just shouted back, from what sounded like a long, long way away. The voice said, “You shouldn’t have stopped the video Cecil. You shouldn’t have done that.”

Listeners, I don’t love what’s happening here. While I try to find my way out of this weird mall, let’s take you to the weather.

[WEATHER]

I walked through the mall, searching for any way out, any way back to my studio. All of the stores had names I didn’t recognize. Slant. Ned’s Gifts ‘n More. Thomas Alan Bradley Sports. And the flagship department store, which didn’t have a name, only a large red square logo over its door.

Finally I saw a green exit sign, and I stepped through, only to find myself in an office hallway. The carpets were beige, as were the walls. I could smell, faintly, fresh photocopies, and I could hear, as though from on the other side of a great crevasse, the sound of a vacuum running. I wandered for a bit, until I stepped through a door that led to a doctor’s waiting room from the 90s, full of issues of Highlights and that one toy where you move little blocks around on a track. Another door farther and I was in an empty Subway Sandwich Shop at night, then another door led to a hotel elevator, which took me up 30 floors and deposited me in a house that had a carpet the color of malaise. I recognized this house, although I didn’t know why.

I walked through the house, following an instinct I could not name, and there was the computer room, with the bubblegum pink Apple computer, and the brown leather chair. In the chair was the man. He was facing away from me.

“Where am I and how do I get home?” I said.

“This is your home,” he said.

“This is not my home,” I said, but even as I did, I felt that I was lying. This was not my home now, but it was my home once. When was it my home? I didn’t remember.

“What do you want from me?” I demanded.

The man turned his chair around. His face was perfectly normal and terrifyingly familiar. I had seen it once in an old VHS copy of Cat Ballou, and then again in the murals that were painted around town.

“I want you to remember,” he said.

“I don’t want to remember,” I said.

“You will though,” he said. “You have no choice.” And then, quite loudly through the room, I heard the old modem dial up sound, which was totally nostalgic, and I was back in my studio, sitting next to Janice, with the plug of her computer in my hand.

Well I don’t know what that means, and I refuse to look into it further.

Stay tuned next for a liminal moment, since every moment is only a transit into the next.

And good night, Night Vale. Good night.