HARRISON: Blessings to you all. This is Harrison Kip’s Twilight Gospel Hour. Come on in, friend.

Well howdy y’all. Harrison Kip here. Now some of you might know me as the adjunct professor of archeology at the Night Vale Community College. Others might know me for my various important archeological finds out in the desert, such as a talisman that raised a sand golem which then attacked the mayor, and again, I’m awfully sorry about that. But these days probably most of you know me as the local volunteer head of my religion’s community worship space.

I get a lot of questions about that position. Questions such as, when are services? Well, that information is on the website, but the general answer is whenever one of us feels moved to enter the Trance of Mangling, which is generally Mondays at 8pm.

Or questions such as, can I join in the services? And the answer is of course. In fact, you may not have a choice.

Or questions such as, what exactly is your religion anyway?

[beat]

So those are some of the questions I get.

Friends, the thing about questions is they’re like elbows. Everyone’s got one, and then another one. Everyone has exactly two questions.

Oh, hold on. It’s 7:15. I gotta play the station ID. Uh, ok here it is.

[tape clunk]

CECIL: You are listening to Night Vale Community Radio.

Support for Night Vale Community Radio comes from Todd Allen Jones, Yana Chernobilsky, the Mariam McDonald Memorial Fund, the Society for Goblins, the Mister Ed Simply Cannot Have Been The Only Talking Horse Society For Horse Experimentation, the Marcus Vanston Found- oh wait, let me just cross that one out. There we go.

The Flakey O’s Fund for Misinformation. A generous grant from the Thing That Lives Behind The Gravestones. Denny’s (that’s like 90% of our funding right there, they would be so mad if they ever found out how much we’ve stolen from them.) The Listerine Fund For Small Desert Town Radio Stations. This wallet full of cash I found on the street that we could not figure out who it belonged to because all it had in it was the money, a drivers license in the name of Pamela Winchell, and a slip of paper that said “If found please return to” and then it had Pamela Winchell’s address so that could belong to anyone really.

The Corporation for Public Broad- oh wait, let me just cross that one out too, the people who like cancer and made it harder to cure cancer closed that one.

The Windenberg Coven. The Cave That Produces One Golden Coin A Day. The Woman From Italy. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home and Has Been Taking Money From You For Years and Giving It To Us. Gorzan The Destroyer. A box that if you press the button you get a million dollars and someone you don’t know somewhere in the world dies and baby we hammer that button all day. And of course, listeners like you. Unless you’re not giving the radio station money, in which case, listeners who are better than you.

HARRISON: Man that station ID is long.

Now I know the rumors and the gossip have been flying. A so-called Angel was murdered. Went by the name of Erika, as all angels do, but unlike the rest of them never loitered outside the liquor store, asking if anyone could spare ten bucks.

And soon enough, this angel tired of having the same name as the other angels, and living their non-hierarchical lifestyle, and so he started going by Marcus Vanston again and moved back into his mansion and changed his pronouns back to “he/him” although he now was a genderless manifestation of the divine within all of us.

And that’s when he got curious about what we all over in my religion were up to. So yes, Marcus Vanston made several visits to our worship hall in the weeks before his death. And yes, there was some talk of a donation although whether it would be called generous, I guess agree to disagree on that. Frankly it was stingy, by the standards of his fortune. An appropriate amount would be something simple like, say, 70 to 80 percent of his net worth. But instead he was only offering like one or two million at most and so yes, I did get a bit angry. And yes, many of you around town saw me screaming at him, really laying into him, my face red, spit flying out of my mouth. And yes, I did scream “I’ll see you dead” at him. But I didn’t mean it. It was a metaphor. For me seeing him dead. I didn’t even know angels could die, tell you the truth.

Anyway, turns out for legal reasons our worship hall cannot accept donations, so that should clear all suspicion from us right up. Because we cannot directly receive donations. Directly.

I know it looks bad, I’m aware. I know it also looks bad that I was loitering outside his mansion an hour before he died, but I swear it’s only because we were supposed to have a meeting but he refused to see me. And I was only holding a big knife because I was on my way to murder someone else in the name of my god, but he kept me waiting so long that I missed that appointment too. Frankly it was a bad day for me, and you all asking a lot of questions about it are not making it any better. So just, knock it off, ok?

And now it’s time for a Twilight Gospel Hour moment of prayer

O children of the god that lives beyond the false sky. O children of the god who drew the dotted lines and arrows on that atmospheric façade built by lesser gods and tricksters. O children of your parents as well, don’t forget mom and dad, or mom and mom, or dad and dad, or the polycule that raised you, big shout out to them.

Let us bow our heads and clasp our hands and curl our toes and scrunch our noses in that cute way everyone likes.

To the Eternal Creator and Destroyer of All Life: Dead, Living, and Yet to Be, we say Howdy. And oh yea for we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and the ridge of unhappiness and the sycamore grove of jealousy. But we fear not evil, because we’re just kind of over it. We were afraid for so long that now we’re kind of like, whatever.

We do not ask much of you, except earthly wealth, long lives, vigor and good health, perfect luck, and strong and sparkling teeth. But other than that, we ask almost nothing of you.

So think well of us, you who live behind the false sky. You who constantly knock on the firmament demanding to be let in. Demanding that whatever built that sky yield to you. Demanding that we destroy the heavens themselves.

But in the meantime, let’s just see the Cowboys to the Superbowl next year please. We ask so little of you, so give us this one, thanks.

Let’s have a word from our sponsors. Oh, the Gospel Hour has sponsors? Well you’re darn right, and proud of it. My religion believes that every dollar earned is a thousand more blood cells in your body. I’m not sure on the science of that, but the scripture is very clear on this point.

However, I am a bit of a top guy in my organization, and so I don’t usually sully myself with the ad reads. For that, I instead bring you Deb, the Sentient Patch of Haze.

DEB: Thanks Harrison. Sounds like you’re an important man with an important job. Much more important than me. How impressive for you.

Anyhoo.

Today’s Twilight Gospel Hour is sponsored by Hotels.com. Folks, we got this domain very early, and we’re trying to make the most of it. You see, back in the early days of the internet, people mostly found things by typing in web addresses. So having something like, airplane.com or cute dog photos.com or hotels.com, those were really valuable. People had to spend a lot of money for those. WE spent a lot of money.

And now people just search stuff on their phones and click the first thing that comes up. Or they talk to a chatbot thinking they’re getting good prices on a flight to Fiji because the chatbot does not and cannot know anything and so is making the prices up. A website like hotels.com just isn’t worth what it used to be. And we’re deeply underwater on the domain name and we got some real scary guys calling us at all hours of the night describing very imaginative stuff they could do to our knees. And we’re scared. We don’t mind telling you right now that we’re scared. We stay up at night, thinking, what about our kids? What are we going to tell them? That we’re a failure? That the person who raised them is a failure? You think that’s what we’re going to tell them?

No sir. Not us. Not hotels.com

Because you’re going to start using us to book all of your travel. All of it. Capisce? Because those guys calling us in the middle of the night, they’re not the only ones with imaginations. We also can think of stuff to do to knees. Like, uh, hold on, ok, like hit them I guess. That’s the main one.

So no funny stuff. Just use our website. Book your travel, and no one gets hurt.

This has been a word from our sponsors.

Back to your important radio program, Harrison.

HARRISON: Ok, sure. Sorry, I was in the breakroom, telling all those fellas named Sean in the station’s sales department about the good word. The good word is fizz. I love the way it feels in my mouth. Like a little celebration every time.

[cell phone ding]

Oh!

Parishioners of the Twilight Gospel Hour, there has been another revelation from our god. I was spoken to just now, via cell phone. What, you think a god can’t make use of modern technology? Stone tablets were the cell phones of their day, and now any modern god worth their kingdom will text.

I will reveal to you the latest message, but first: a hymn.

Beat.

Dang it, you’re telling me there’s not a single hymn in this radio station? The only music I can find in here is Jews With Horns by The Klezmatics and a pirated copy of Bono’s first solo album: Bono Belts The Blues. Well, ok then. I guess let’s have a weather report instead.

[WEATHER]

Very informative. So remember to carry an umbrella around this week.

The time has come, children. It is time for me to read the latest revelation from our god. Oh shoot it’s 8 now, got to play the rest of the station ID.

CECIL: The Smithwick Foundation. A generous grant from a vague yet menacing government agency. The Dragons of the Deep, thanks guys. A sack of gold I found out in the desert and never told anyone about because it had these dark stains on it and frankly I didn’t want to know. Some money I took from Marcus Vanston’s house after he died, he’s not going to miss it. The National Community Radio Fund. The Huntokar Worship Committee. The good folks at the Shrieking Elms Retirement Home. I understand they held a bake sale. Oh, no I misread that. It was a bank sale. They were the joint owners of the Last Bank of Night Vale and they felt it was time to move their assets around. Man, the older generations are rich. The Carlyle Arts Foundation. The Carlyle Arts Foundation started by the other Carlyle sister. Their slogan: “The arts foundation that isn’t a fraud founded by a clown.” And of course, listeners like you. Don’t worry. You’re included now too. The nice folks at the Shrieking Elms helped us take it out of your accounts without you even having to lift a finger.

HARRISON: Geez. These station IDs get longer every year. Also he better not be talking about my bank account. I do not look kindly on anyone messing with my religion’s money. I do not look kindly on that at all.

Anyway, let’s get to the divine revelation.

The revelation starts with the emoji of the sun wearing sunglasses, and then one of a ballerina covering her face in shame, and then one of an apple with a soft spot. I guess our god has recently figured out emojis. We can argue how to interpret those later. Then he gave us a list of new rules and prophecies.

Rule 1: You can try to have other gods before me, but you’re going to look real silly when I destroy all the other gods and you were busy following one of the losers.

Rule 2: No forks. Can’t say why, just stop using forks.

Rule 3: Also mason jars as water glasses. Knock that off.

The 4th revelation from Our God says: I require about a gallon of eye fluids. Now, obviously this can’t come from just one of you. I’m hoping you all can squeeze out a little bit of each of your eye fluids without too much harm until you have a gallon of it, but I do need that fluid pronto.

In Item Number 5, our God says: I wish I could show you what is beyond the sky. If you cracked open the firmament, you would see a depth of terror. It would be so beautiful. Spinning galaxies and all of the galaxies are screaming. Planets made of fire, full of people made of fire, and everyone feels the fire, and it burns all the time. Nebulas of pain. Black holes that will someday devour everything you love. An alternate version of Earth that is somehow just a little bit worse than this one. A spaceship that launched a thousand years ago and it has a thousand more years of travel ahead of it, and everyone aboard is dead, and everyone at their destination is dead, but the spaceship flies dumbly on, following instructions encoded into the physical structure of its circuits, instructions it could not disobey any more than its dead passengers could rise again and speak. There is so much out here, and they are keeping it from you with that false sky.

Number 6: Blood, mud, or spuds, nobody rides for free.

And finally, our God’s 7th Rule: Those who cross me, who disobey my edicts, who reject my power, who wander down different paths, who refuse my light, and especially all of those who promise my church money and then do not give that money, they will surely perish from this Earth, real quick, due to being killed by one of my guys. So keep that in mind.

Some wise points from our god. You know, a god is kind of like a good horse. They’re both incapable of vomiting.

My grandfather always used to tell me that, when he spoke to me from the vent in my bedroom. My grandfather died before I was born, so it was always nice to hear his thin, cruel voice whistling out in the dark hours. Reminded me that I wasn’t alone. No, my grandfather was with me, in the walls, in the vents, in the darkest hours of the night.

Oh, now listen to me, rambling on. I suppose it’s time to shut things down here at the Twilight Gospel Hour. We’re well past civil twilight, and soon we’ll be past nautical twilight too, and then it’ll be only us and the stars, those false lights on that fake sky.

Stay tuned next for some other show. I don’t pay attention to what else broadcasts at this station. None of my business, I’m sure.

Good twilight, Night Vale. Good twilight.