[Music intro cue: inspired by some kind of jaunty “technical difficulties” type bumper music, whatever that means to you]

LEONARD

Hi, folks. Leonard Burton here. You may remember me as the previous host of Night Vale Community Radio, before I was hit and killed by a truck on Mesa Avenue. Your usual host, Cecil Palmer, is currently missing. Please do not be alarmed. Because whether you’re alarmed or not, he’ll still be missing. If you’re alarmed, the only difference will be that you’re making the situation about you. No one likes that.

I used to enjoy fried egg sandwiches. I loved collecting rocks. At one time in my life, I wore hats. Then hats went out of style so I got rid of them and I got rid of the rocks because it made me self-conscious when people saw so many of them in my house and I stopped eating fried eggs in public because the yolks were too messy. My top three regrets from life are being embarrassed over hats and eggs and rocks. Just a little insight for you, from wherever I am now. But I don’t want to make this about me either. I just don’t have the opportunity to be on the air much anymore so I wanted to share.

While Cecil’s gone, we’ll be taking a trip down memory lane and playing some archival episodes from the vault! The vault is out here with me, in a chasm of oblivion between time and space and about a hundred other dimensions that you won’t be able to comprehend until you’re out here too. If you’re ever out here. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let us instead look backwards: Today’s episode comes to us from August 1, 1987.

Hope everyone enjoys the nostalgia! I was dead by then, but yearning for something you never had is its own special kind of nostalgia. Less about memory, more about unobtainable desire. Anyway. Let’s roll the tape.

CECIL

You’re getting warmer…Warrrrmer…Colder. Freezing. Ice cold. Hypothermic. False warmth. Memory lapses. Hallucinations. Your pulse is barely detectable. Close your eyes. You are at peace now.

Welcome to Night Vale.

Do you know what today is, listeners? Aside from being the ninth day in a row of a record breaking heat wave, it’s the grand opening of the Night Vale Mall! There’s still a lot of structural work to be completed, like lights and running water and walls and a ceiling and three floors of retail shops and bathrooms and a modern atrium featuring a trendy gladiator-style fighting colosseum, but the developers have already run out of money and are opening early to try and generate some capital to finish ‘er up.

“There’s still plenty to see and do at the new mall, even in its current phase,” head developer Blair Powell assured the public in a press statement. “There are six escalators, for example. They go up and down all day long out there in the desert. That alone is worth the price of admission, which is a fifty dollar cover charge.”

Powell continued: “I know what you guys are thinking. This is the guy who blew his entire trust fund on buying a fleet of party yachts for a town with no bodies of water, then took out massive loans on a grotesque amount of Clydesdale horses to pull the yachts across the sand, which did not end well. Not for the people, not for the boats, not for the horses. All I can say is I’ve learned the lessons of the past, and we will soon raise the funds needed to complete a beautiful modern galleria where we can all shop and socialize and get pizza on a stick or whatever, and dig ourselves out of the abject financial abyss we find ourselves in today. Work with me here, people. The creditors are really breathing down my neck. And I’m not talking about loan officers from the bank, you know? I’m talking about serious underworld [shit//censored] here. And not the criminal underworld either. God, I wish. I mean demons of chaos and violence, devourers of souls, that kind of underworld [shit//censored].”

Sweat rolled down Powell’s face as he stammered on, but he remained cool and fashionable-looking in his loose-drape Brooks Brothers power suit and matching power cape and power mask. He then ended his statement mid-sentence, commanded no one in particular to hold his calls, and locked himself in the stateroom of his beached yacht in the financial district.

Speaking of the financial district, the stock market is booming today. It’s making a loud booming sound every few hours, like some kind of explosions are happening inside of it. Experts say this is a natural geo-economical process that indicates an eruption is imminent. In the coming weeks, we can expect an increase in earthquakes, natural gas emissions, and rising temperatures from the mountain where the stock market is located. The trees and plant life in the immediate vicinity will die off as magma breaks through layers of solid rock and finds its way onto the trading floor. Price fluctuations and executive leadership shakeups may occur as lava courses through the market, burying whatever gets in its way, vaporizing mutual funds and IPOs with extreme heat and devastating physical force. Now is a good time to check in with your financial advisor about what this may mean for your portfolio—but traditional wisdom dictates that it’s better to hold onto what you have despite clear and repeated warning signs than to endure the short-term discomfort of making a change.

Now, the community calendar.

On Sunday, it’s Disco Never Died Night at the roller rink. Put on your best starched lamé petticoats and sequined beaver skin trapper hats as Pipe Organist Gus plays his rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s Straight Outta Bethlehem for three hours. Then it’s time to boogie oogie oogie with a funky feast of warm gelatin fondue in the snack shack. And you’ll burn, baby, burn when the whole place gets lit on fire at the end of the night.

Monday, everything is half-off at the Ralph’s. Partially filled milk jugs. Bisected bagels. Asparagus with no tips. Everything, literally cut in half. Same great price.

Is it only Wednesday? you’ll ask yourself on Wednesday. Even though it’s just three days in, you’re already exhausted. Crawl under the covers until Friday. Don’t answer the phone. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t eat or drink or watch anything except for the shadows moving slowly across the wall. But watch those very closely. Shadows tell the secrets that light tries to hide.

Friday is the official deadline to turn in all your BetaMax videotapes to the public health department.

And on Saturday, Moms Against Fun are holding an event in Mission Grove Park. There will be carnival games, pony rides, live heavy metal music, a smoking patio, and a beer garden, and they better not catch you doing any of it.

Back to the grand opening of the Night Vale Mall.

Nearly ten people have shown up so far to celebrate the idea of a mall. When asked about her hopes for the future shopping center, 7th grader Betty Lucero said that she was most looking forward to just hanging out in the food court with her friends. “I’ve never been to a food court before,” she said, “but I think it will be great to finally have a proper place to hold trials for food crimes.”

VCR repairman Ajay Mahalla said he hoped the mall would include a nice photo studio to take family portraits because he and his wife were expecting their first and planned to have at least one more. He wants to document all the important milestones, he told reporters, and it would be a real bonus if that documentation could include professional hairstyling and matching sweaters and props and laser light backdrops, soft lens diffusion, maybe a star filter, possibly double exposures, and plenty of options for fake moustaches, wigs, and prosthetic creature makeup to best capture life’s precious moments.

Fried ice cream pushcart vendor Lucy Tropic, who usually sells her wares in front of the missile silo between launches, said she was gunning for a physical location in one of the mall’s storefronts. “Other businesses will come and go, but I’ll outlast them all,” she predicted. “Do you hear me, Orange Julius? We both know you’re not as healthy as you claim. At least what I do is honest work. I’m selling fat and sugar that is both cold and hot, and I’m proud of it. I’m looking at you too, Macy’s. Designer acid wash jeans are like the least refreshing thing you can possibly eat on a hot summer day.” She then shouted: “Fried ice cream is forever, dillweeds!” and began aggressively dropping giant scoops of ice cream into her mobile deep fryer and selling them to the other attendees before getting dragged away by mall security.

Now a word from our sponsors.

BRIE (already recorded)

[sexy vocal tone] Are you all alone tonight? Need a special friend? Want to talk about bassoons? The bassoon is a double-reeded woodwind instrument in the bass to tenor range. 1-900-BASSOON. If you completely unraveled a bassoon and laid all the pieces end to end, it would stretch to eight and a half feet long. That’s the same length as a Canadian pool table or, if you stacked it up, the height of an ostrich. The ostrich is our largest living dinosaur, aside from the tyrannosaurus rex. Call now. If you completely unraveled a t-rex, it would stretch to 43 feet long. That’s roughly the size of a Class A luxury motorhome. Interested in buying a car, truck, or recreational vehicle? Want to take a road trip and get away from it all? Ever tried to and found that no matter how far you drove, you always ended up right back in the same place, like you were stuck in some kind of mobius strip? But also, something was always a little different each time you returned, like your haircut had changed, or the laundromat at the corner had become a bank, or sometimes you had a twin sister and sometimes, no family at all. Operators are standing by. The best modern bassoons are made from aged maple wood. Lesser quality models are made from resin. Let’s talk about it tonight, special friend.

1-900-BASSOON

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Listeners, I just saw Blair Powell drive by the station in a flat bed float truck hauling a cardboard model of the future Night Vale Mall. He was shouting things into a bullhorn like “follow me, everyone!” and “grand opening today! Be there or be scared!” Then he laughed nervously into the bullhorn the rest of the way down the block.

Meanwhile, the escalators out there are now scalding hot since there are no shade structures to keep the sun off. Many riders have suffered 2nd and 3rd burns and are being dragged away by mall security. “You’re not being removed because you’re injured,” the guards patiently explained to the burn victims. “You’re being removed because you’re screaming.”

Which reminds me, don’t forget to cover yourselves in a generous layer of cooking lard before going outdoors today so you can make the most of those beautifying solar rays. I personally have the sunroof of the studio open so I can lay out while I do my broadcast.

I’m getting word that many at the mall opening have marched off into the desert in pursuit of a Hickory Farms mirage that has appeared on the horizon. It’s been categorized as a class 4 mirage, complete with the odors of summer sausage and smoked cheese.

Those who have remained onsite are demanding refunds from tormented developer Blair Powell who has just arrived on the scene.

“Listen, I get it, I understand,” the profusely sweating Powell rambled to the crowd. “But I just need to hang onto your money for a teeny tiny bit longer. Cuz I mean, they’re coming for me, no joke. I can totally get you all some IOUs though, I promise I’m good for it. Look, we can still have fun!”

He began drawing tic tac toe boards in the dirt with a stick.

“Who wants to play?” he attempted to rally the group. “Let’s make it interesting! I’ll give a three-point spread on the favorite! I’ll take anyone, double or nothing! Triple!”

As the future mallgoers began to back away from the desperate Powell, the earth below the escalators began to rumble.

“Oh god, no. No!” Blair whimpered, falling to his knees as his hastily constructed mall replica collapsed nearby. “They’re here,” he whispered, looking down at the sand below his sockless loafers in terror.

While I agree that a rumbling earth is usually the sign of approaching demons who are coming to collect their debts, I just want to remind everyone that it could also be whatever’s going on with the stock market right now.

Let’s take a look at the weather to be sure.

[WEATHER]

There has been another grand opening at the Night Vale Mall. A grand opening has split the earth apart below the escalators. Flames, green smoke, and sparkly purple smoke were reported. The smell of sizzling flesh was reported. The sounds of wailing and eternal lament were reported. Blair Powell attempted to run for the shelter of the Hickory Farms mirage, where many are currently feasting on free samples, but was dragged by some invisible force back across the sand to the mall site. He was last seen riding down one of the escalators against his will, stuck to the scalding staircase like a magnet, descending into the darkness of the bottomless ravine and shrieking “No, no, give me another week! I swear I’m good for iiiit!”

Then the earth closed up again and that was the last anyone ever saw of Blair Powell. I mean, this only happened a few minutes ago, but I feel confident saying “ever” because no one comes back from the underworld. Much like fried ice cream, the underworld is forever.

A legal notice was left behind informing citizens that the development and ownership of the Mall will henceforth belong to a soul-devouring entity called Abyzous (a-BEE-zoos), infinitely for all time, per the condition of Powell’s defaulted loan.

I’m personally hopeful about this change in leadership. Not to speak ill of the recently damned, but Blair was never great about seeing things through. He had a lot of big ideas, sure, but…the dude was a flake. Again, no offense. Looking at the situation optimistically though, we can all agree that the completion of the Mall is critical to our community, and soul devourers do tend to have a strong work ethic. Like, I recently hired one to remodel the efficiency kitchen in my bachelor pad and it got done in like a day. So let’s all just take a chill pill and see what happens! Oh, speaking of, I just learned where the phrase “chill pill” comes from. It's a shortening of "chinchilla pillows." Which are used by farmers to make sure their chinchillas get a relaxing night’s sleep. Just a little slang term fun fact to close the show today.

Stay tuned for television. You are at the mercy of whatever it wants to show you. Could be a game show. Might be a sitcom. Maybe millions of spiders crawling around to fast-paced violin music. A milkshake falling off a table, over and over, in slow motion. Sometimes, the screen is a mirror. Other times, it’s an all-seeing eye.

Goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

PROVERB: Where there’s a will, there’s a way to get your name in there and collect some inheritance.