A word to the wise. Three words to the unwise. A long paragraph with a lot of explanatory illustrations for the simple. Welcome to Night Vale.

I’m proud to say that my brother-in-law Steve Carlsberg is making a big difference at his workplace. Up until now, everyone at Labyrinth has been known as either the man who is not short or the man who is not tall. Gender identity does not apply, and these terms are universal for all employees. But Steve has been learning his co-workers’ names. Like Jaden, who collects birds, despite Night Vale Game and Wildlife asking him to please stop doing that. And Tabitha, who has been painstakingly restoring a classic 2023 Hyundai Ioniq in her spare time. And Scarlet, who runs a charity providing support and housing for androids who are starting to wonder if they were programmed to love.

These were faceless members of a faceless cabal, but they are also human beings, with all the foibles and follies and fancies that implies. And Steve wants them to step out of the shadows and get to know each other.

Labyrinth management has released a murder of crows to indicate that they are troubled about what these new developments will mean for their organizational structure, that has, up until now, relied on everyone acting as interchangeable parts of an unchangeable system.

“Inevitability relies on the impression of inevitability. If people stop believing in power, the power goes away. So stop chatting amongst yourselves, ok?,” Labyrinth management communicated with the birds.

I hope Steve knows what he’s doing stirring up trouble like this. He might have been an outspoken critic of the city and federal government in the past, but I’m worried he’s getting in over his head here.

Hey so, small update on the food situation. You might have noticed that there’s no food. Due to the supply chain and how it’s impossible to enter or leave Night Vale. And our only farmer, John Peters, you know, the uh, the, well, you know him. He only grows imaginary corn which is a favorite local snack but is tasteless, odorless, and contains no nutritional value. But don’t worry! Worrying won’t make a difference to the eventual outcome, and it uses valuable calories. Calories you might need, and quite soon.

And now for a word from our sponsors.

Today’s sponsor is Kool Aid.

You know what. F off. Go absolutely F yourself. We’ve had it up to F’ing here with all of you.

Oh don’t drink the Kool aid. Oh, he drank the Kool Aid.

It wasn’t even F’ing Kool Aid. Did you A’holes know that? Did you little S’s know that? Ooo look who just believes what they’re told now. Little pigs. Little pigs just oink oink oink, eating their slop. That’s what all of you look like to us.

Because listen up you B-holes. All we wanted to do, ok, was just make some red water that tasted good. Is that so F’ing hard to understand? Just take water, make it red, make it sweet. That’s all.

And instead you made it a big thing “oh, don’t drink the kool aid”. Well guess what F’os (like “fuckos”)? We’re not making Kool Aid anymore. That’s right, you F’ed it up for everyone and now you’re S out of L.

Kool Aid. You won’t have us to kick around anymore. F’ers. You MF’ers. You S heads. Oh you made us mad.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

All is not well in the house of Steve Carlsberg. Now I shouldn’t be talking out of school about this, especially not on the radio, but you didn’t hear it from me, ok? Abby says that he has been working such late hours that she sometimes hears him creeping in from work at 1 or 2 in the morning. And sometimes they make him come into the office as early as 3 or 4. Why, do the math, and he’s had shifts that started right about when the last one ended, and he sleeps a few fitful hours in the front seat of his car, with the radio murmuring away to keep the night from feeling lonely. And his daughter Janice says that the last time they talked, he sounded real hollow and sad, like the job was taking something from him that he didn’t even know was missing. And yet she said he talked a lot about his new friends at work, like Seamus, who does distance biking on the weekends, deep into the sandwastes. And Anton, whose family has owned the donut shop in Night Vale for generations, but he doesn’t want to work at a donut shop, and so now here he is, a man who isn’t short. And Georgia, who is always asking people to try a new kind of cheese she has invented. In many ways, Janice feels like Steve is closer with these co-workers than his own family, and it breaks her heart.

Hey so, one thing about the whole food situation is, and this HASN’T COME UP YET, so don’t get all in a panic, but it just might come up and soon, like literally at any moment. But if we can’t get food into town, we might have to eat each other. Now that sounds way worse than it actually is. We’re not talking about some kind of The Most Dangerous Game type hunt, with your former friends and neighbors taking after you with torches and axes, seeking the living meat from off your bones. And we’re not talking about some kind of The Lottery situation, in which you have the marked card and the crowd closes in around you as you scream “It doesn’t have to be like this! Please! It doesn’t have to be like this!” None of that, yet. Maybe next week if things keep going as they are, but that’s a problem for future us. No, what we’re talking about here is merely some simple eating of people who have already died. That’s what they would have wanted us to do, and even if they explicitly said they didn’t want that before dying, we’re pretty sure it’s not legally binding, so don’t worry about it. Don’t even think about it. We’re not quite there yet.

I’m getting word that Steve is inviting everyone at Labyrinth to a company party in the parking lot this afternoon. He thinks it could be a great way for everyone to get to know each other outside of the context of hauling mysterious crates out into the desert. Speaking of which, there are trucks and vans full of crates, waiting to be carried to their uncertain end, and yet no one is driving those vans, no one is piloting those trucks. Everyone is instead making runs to CostCo for beverages and party supplies. A crow caws angrily from atop the Labyrinth building, but no one pays it any mind. Meanwhile, Steve’s phone vibrates. It’s Abby, asking if he’ll be home for dinner tonight. He doesn’t see the text. This isn’t a malicious action. It is only idle carelessness. But maliciousness is not required in order to cause great hurt.

Hey so, one more thing about the food situation. The city council would like me to remind you that we’re all in this together. This is about neighbors helping neighbors, mutual aid, all those various good buzzwords that none of us quite know what they mean. So if you’re caught hoarding food, unfortunately you will be put in the hole. If you take more than your share of the communal food, you will be put in the hole. Trying to sneak food away from your fellow citizen? Put into the hole. Listen, this isn’t about the hole. Don’t think about the hole, and not only because thinking about the hole is an offense punishable by being put in the hole. You should be doing this stuff because it’s the right thing to do. But also: if you don’t do the right thing, you will be put into the hole. Thanks for your understanding.

The men who are not tall and the men who are not short, of every height and gender expression, are milling about in the parking lot of Labyrinth, drinking seltzers from a cooler and eating enchiladas from the lady who sells them down the street. They are introducing themselves to each other, learning about their hobbies and kids and pets and favorite cryptids. Labyrinth has never felt like this before. Like people. Like human beings. Not like the rising and falling tide, not like the wind that blows or doesn’t, nothing so cold and inhuman as nature.

No crates are driven into the desert. No vans or box trucks with a Labyrinth logo cruise the streets. The work of secrecy is left undone.

And now, a furious cascade of birds rises up from behind the Labyrinth building. Not only crows, but also starlings and robins, sparrows and woodpeckers, herons and flamingos, pelicans and swans, cuckoos and finches, and flying alone at the end, one enormous California condor. A booming voice of indistinct age and sex comes with the cloud of birds. “Steve Carlsberg,” it says. “Please report to the head office immediately.”

I don’t like the sound of that. Let me give Steve a call. While I do that, let’s go to the weather.

[WEATHER]

Steve didn’t hear his phone ringing. Had left it on his desk. He walked down the long hallway of the Labyrinth headquarters. It is only ever called the long hallway, and it only can be accessed when someone is asked to report to the head office. Then a green door appears on a wall that otherwise holds a Cute Puppies and Cuter Cacti Calendar from 2008 and a post-it that says in an angry scrawl “whoever is eating my tasty lunch fruit from the work fridge, knock that off. And stop sending me poems. I do NOT care how sweet and cold they were!!!!”

Steve opened the green door and he walked down the long hallway. The long hallway smelled of pencil shavings and old coffee. The walls of the long hallway were bare. Occasionally there was a window. Each window showed a different landscape. A thick jungle, teeming with creatures unknown in our reality. A city bustling with hovering crafts and tall humanoids with blue skin and wide saucer eyes. The surface of the moon, our own Earth rising up over the horizon. Steve wondered if he opened a window, could he climb through, and, if he looked back, would there be a window to return to or would his choice be final?

He didn’t try any of the windows. One world was enough for him.

At the end of the long hallway was a red door. Steve opened the red door and entered the head office. It was a small, cluttered room, full of overstuffed ledgers. At the desk sat a harried old woman. The woman was both not short and not tall. “Sit down,” she muttered, without looking up from her ledger. She wrote a number into the ledger that was so long it spilled onto three separate lines, and then finally she looked up at Steve, blinking at him as though he were a light set a little too bright.

“Well, Steve, how have you been liking working for our organization?” she said. Her voice was raspy and kind.

STEVE: I’ve been liking it very much.

CECIL: “Right well, maybe a little too much,” said the woman. “You’ve been fraternizing. You know that word, fraternizing?”

STEVE: I know that word, sure. And I only wanted to get to know-

CECIL: “Well you don’t get to know,” said the woman. “Do you know how many things we never get to know? The big stuff sure, what happens after we die, why no other planet is allowed to contact Earth even though they all know we’re here, what xantham gum really is. But also the little stuff, the stuff that only matters to us, and only when we happen to notice them. When is the last time in your life you’ll say ‘hey, can we get the bill please’ and will you know it’s the last time when it happens? Why is the car making that sound and how much is it going to cost? Hey, what is in this sandwich that makes it taste so good? We never get to know any of that stuff. So why do you think you get to know who your co-workers are? What makes you different?”

And Steve thought about this. Because it was a good question. He had always been different, it was true. So what made him different?

“When I was eight,” Steve said, and the woman nodded, as though this were the sensible reply to everything she had said.

STEVE: When I was eight, I was outside with my father, playing catch. A cliché, I know, but it does happen in real life. And he said keep your eye on the ball. And I did, and as it flew through the air, I saw them. Dotted lines in the sky. Glowing arrows. Circles. The sky was a chart that explained the entire world, only I couldn’t read it yet.

The ball went flying off somewhere, who knows where. It wasn’t important anymore. Or, it was important to my dad, but not to me. To me, the only thing that was important was following that dotted line in the sky. And I have ever since. And it’s made me hated and feared and befriended and loved. It’s made me everything I am. But that’s not why I do it. I do it because this is just the way I happened to turn out. It’s me, for good or bad.

CECIL: The woman who was not short and not tall nodded. Took a large bronze stamp out of her desk and stamped it onto the ledger. When she lifted it, Steve could see that the stamp was a photorealistic portrait of his face.

“We need you to try harder to be a man who is not tall,” said the woman. “Do you understand?”

Steve gave something between a nod and a shrug

There was the crashing sound of waves, and the sudden strong smell of sea water. Steve had a vision of a fleet of ships, their sails each bearing the symbol of a Labyrinth. He felt dizzy and scared. When he came to, the woman was smiling at him, not maliciously, but gently. As if she understood his fear, and maybe felt it herself, or had once anyway.

He retreated back down the long hallway. The windows were all dark now, whatever connection they once held now severed. When he passed through the green door, he looked behind him, and was unsurprised to find only the same old wall. No door. The calendar opened to the page where a gorgeous tabby was playing with the cutest saguaro.

Stay tuned next for the passage of time, as expressed into and through our bodies.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.