Home is where the heart is. You can hear it beating as you approach the front door. Blood pumps freely out the windows. The aorta is in the attic.

Welcome to Night Vale.

It’s good to be back, listeners. Feels like it’s been forever. So much has changed in the last few months. Not here in town, things here are exactly the same, even down to the half-eaten egg salad sandwich I left on my desk. Mmm (chewing). Delicious. But a lot has changed for me.

I’m sure many of you are wondering where I’ve been for the last few months. It’s a hard question to answer. Through darkness, I have seen things. Through silence, I have heard things. Through emptiness, I have found substance. I‘ve been on a journey inside of myself, questioning everything I thought I knew.

I’ve been behind the sky.

Specifically, to a really nice mountain cabin retreat behind the sky. Did you know there are mountains behind the sky? There are tons of them, and this one has a lake and a ski lift. And it was super quiet out there because there are no birds. Birds can only live inside the sky and will die instantly if they get behind it, which happens sometimes and isn’t the most fun thing to watch. But if you hang strands of paracord evenly spaced at 2-inch intervals along the back of the sky, it does help prevent avian deaths, and I was required to do this for eight hours a day when I first arrived. But let me back up.

You may recall that right after I broke the story about Marcus Vanston being killed by god for the sin of promising money to Harrison Kip’s religion, I had a visitor in my studio. An entity we know as Harrison Kip’s god. The god’s name is Dale, and Dale had recently torn through the sky and entered the streets of our town. A man with a face that flickers like a television screen, who stood on the ceiling and reached out for me. That was the last you heard from me, listeners—but for me, it was only the beginning.

More on that after the headlines.

In political news, election season is heating up. If you’re anything like me, you find it easy to get overwhelmed by voter handbooks full of dense, contradictory propaganda. To make things easier, I’ve compiled a primer on some of the most important measures and candidates.

Measure 27. Ban on Cake Walks. This is proposed safety legislation to make it illegal to use cake walks as a fundraising activity because of that one time at the community center when an unfortunate combination of yelling random numbers and playing music and marching backwards in a circle accidentally summoned a demon. For those who survived that night, I’m sure a yes vote is a no-brainer. For those who were possessed that night, I'm guessing you're voting no. This is an addendum to the existing legislation that bans hopscotch, bingo, and musical chairs for similar reasons.

Rodeo King. There are a record number of candidates this year for the coveted municipal position that oversees the rodeo, literally, by watching it from really high up and wearing an ermine cape and waving a scepter to declare the winners. There’s Larry Leroy, out on the edge of town, whose qualifications include having had a horse once. It wasn’t his horse, more of a petsitting gig, but he says he got a lot out of it. There’s Shifty Carter, an old cowboy ghost who normally resides at Rattlesnake Rest Cemetery but gets one day a year to travel outside the graveyard as long as it’s within city limits, and this is what he wants to do with that time. And there’s Missy Wilks from Kessler Street who once shot a man, and because of that, believes she possesses the necessary grit and western spirit to perform the job. It’s a tough decision, and you really just have to go with your gut on this one.

However, the teacher’s union has endorsed Missy Wilks.

Looks like there’s a lot more to get through on the ballot, so I’ll continue breaking down these hot button political issues as election season continues.

Now back to what I did on my summer vacation. I guess I can’t quite call it “vacation” since I was technically abducted and held against my will. But Dale told me many times that I was his guest and not his captive, and I did waterski at one point, so it’s a bit of a gray area.

The place I was brought to is known as The Cleansing Grove, and it’s located between the false sky and the realm beyond, like a layer of cream filling between wafer cookies, if one wafer is a flat facade and the other is incomprehensible infinity. Dale said I wasn’t ready to see the realm beyond, because the beauty of it would be so overwhelming that I would instantly claw my own eyes out. He told me I would be safe and happy in The Cleansing Grove, and that if I followed his divine revelations, I would be allowed to text my family on his burner phone once a week to let them know how safe and happy I was.

I told him that sounded fair, and he was well pleased.

All guests of The Cleansing Grove must first undergo a personal development workshop led by Dale called Finding the Real You Within by Crawling Inside Your Own Mouth. It was a lot more physical than I anticipated and really pushed my boundaries of comfort, but luckily, I didn’t have to go too far inside. The real me was, in fact, located about halfway down my esophagus. It was soft and small and colorless, like a wad of well-chewed gum, and within it, I witnessed the most essential core of my being.

More on that after today’s word jumble. The following five words will, when their letters are rearranged, produce a simple phrase we all know well. Get your pens and paper out. Here are this week’s words: GIRAFFE, PHALANX, UNFATHOMABLE, BLUSTERY, MIRACLE

Reassemble the letters of those words into a common phrase. You won’t win anything but you’ll feel a short burst of self-satisfaction.

The answer to last week’s jumble was the common idiom: "In the indifference of nature, the life of man is valued no higher than the badger or the dandelion. Humankind has become a disease of rapidly dividing cells destroying its host. But it can only succeed as far as its own destruction. The host will recover and move on. The fate of the badgers and the dandelions remains to be seen."

Good luck!

Now back to the most transformative summer of my life. Aside from August 2011 when the Moonlite All Nite Diner was offering all-you-can-eat Nutella banana crepes for a dollar. I learned a lot about myself then too—about my limits and what I’m capable of—but that’s another story.

When I was behind the sky, confronted with the gummy wad of my eternal essence, I was surprised to find that it contained only one thing—a small transmitting device. It beeped and flashed and appeared to be sending and receiving signals constantly. At first I was alarmed. I thought someone had bugged my core, that my innermost self was being surveilled, that my very soul was being tracked by unknown watchers for sinister purposes. Which, yes, may be true. But through intense self examination, I came to realize that the transmitter, while definitely physical and real, is also a symbol of who I am, and that’s the more important thing to focus on. I am a communicator. My purpose in life is to receive and interpret and relay information. Once I correctly deciphered this personal revelation from Dale, I was rewarded with fun activities like lying around alone on the dark, silent beach.

There’s no wind in The Cleansing Grove, which adds to the extreme quiet, and there’s no sun or moon either, so it’s pitch black all the time. Super relaxing. Part of the lifestyle there is being removed from all stimulus so that you start to wonder if you even have a body, or if your thoughts are your own, or if time is real. This makes you open to receiving Dale’s more extreme revelations when the time comes.

One day, an envelope blew down the beach toward me. As I said earlier, there’s no wind—so that told me the message was supernatural and important. The envelope had a wax seal featuring some kind of cloud and wings design, which I later found out was the logo of the vape shop that Dale owns out in Red Mesa. Inside was an invitation, which said: The Time Has Come.

Before I get to that, let’s check in with traffic.

There are new pavement markings at the intersection of Earl and Desert Elm Drive. These are not the typical stop lines or directional arrows or inverted pentagrams of the Transportation Department, but puffy red welts rising from the surface of the asphalt. Some have erupted into fluid-filled boils, while others more closely resemble a scattering of hives or pox. The Night Vale Medical Board has agreed that this is most likely an allergic reaction or a stress response. It may be performance anxiety due to a rerouting of the elementary school pickup line that has caused an increase in activity through the intersection on weekday afternoons. It might have to do with loose pet hair coming from the groomers on the southwest corner, who recently switched to an air conditioning unit that blows exhaust into the street. Or it could be some personal issue going on at the intersection that’s none of our business. As psychologist Carl Jung said, one can use an intersection every day but one can never truly know an intersection. Please refrain from driving through it for 5-7 days to prevent further irritation. It will most likely clear up on its own.

Now back to my time at The Cleansing Grove.

The invitation I received contained instructions to meet Dale in his Office of Devout Righteousness, which is a freestanding room out in the middle of the lake. It just kind of drifts around, so I had to swim in circles for a while to find it, flailing out in the darkness with my arms and legs until I finally hit something solid. At first, I wasn’t sure how to enter since it’s a floating cube with no doors, then realized I could dive down underneath.

There’s no floor or ceiling in Dale’s office, only the skyless sky above and the murky water below. Dale was inside waiting for me, hovering in the air with his arms folded and his face flickering. There was no furniture except for a bobbing desk with a skull on it—almost human but not quite. I treaded water and complimented him on his massive collection of velvet paintings of animals and clowns, which covered every inch of the interior walls.

Then Dale delivered his new revelations to me. The first one was that all other gods are out of touch with humanity and he is the One True God of the People. Most gods are nepo gods, he explained—they come from a long line of deities and become gods through birthright and divine succession. Dale, however, was once a mortal man. He attended a rigorous religious studies program and bootstrapped his way to god status through years of hard work and education. He showed me his diploma, a blood-soaked hide hanging on the wall between a velvet juggling harlequin and a velvet hammerhead shark with sunglasses.

The second revelation was that a full blown apocalypse is imminent. There is a great turmoil brewing between the gods in Night Vale right now, and lo, it will not end well. He doesn’t like to be an alarmist because he considers himself a pretty laid back guy as far as gods go, but he’s one hundred percent positive about this one, both because he has a deep knowledge of apocalyptic history, which he minored in, and also because of the visions he’s been having. Unspeakable visions—that he spoke about at great length and in horrific detail. More on that in a moment.

First, the weather.

[THE WEATHER]

Now, back to Dale’s apocalyptic visions.

First, he said, everyone in town will start singing the same song and won’t be able to stop. The singing will be constant and forever, and each day a little louder than the day before. He isn’t sure what the song will be yet, but man, no matter what it is, it’s gonna get real annoying, real quick. Then, the sun will turn into a lava lamp and the water will turn to milk. Rivers, oceans, kitchen faucets. All water—milk. We’ll be drinking only milk, boiling our pasta in it, washing our clothes in it, bathing in it, watering our lawns with it. Next comes the plague of lemurs. That will be cute at first, but a plague of anything is no picnic. Except to the lemurs. They will be feasting on everything in sight, from crops to items in the grocery stores to the food in our houses. This will be followed by a plague of locusts, but that won’t be too bad, because the lemurs will also eat the locusts. So that one’s kind of canceled out. Then, the dead will rise from their graves and be hanging around everywhere, grunting and smelling bad, which will be gross. The stars will cry. You won’t see it, but you’ll hear it. And finally, the trees will vomit. Like, anytime and without warning. You could be going for a walk around the block and suddenly from way up high, a tree will just unload all over you.

At this point, Dale stopped speaking to me in words, but as I stared into his flickering face, I saw the vision play out in my mind as real as if I was standing there.

What I observed was truly a nightmare. Especially the tree vomit part. You’d think it would just be like, earthy…like dirt or mulch or something…but man. I don’t know what the trees are eating, y’all, but let’s just say they’re much more omnivorous than you’d think.

“I know there are a lot of doomsday gods out there,” Dale said, “and I know they have plenty of followers—though I honestly think a lot of those are bots from click farms. But that’s not what I’m trying to do. I’m out here trying to prevent doomsday. I know that makes me a little controversial, in addition to all the blood sacrifices my congregation makes at my direct behest, but I really do have the best interests of the citizens of Night Vale at heart. And you’re the only one who can help me, Cecil.”

Then he told me his third and final revelation and sent me home, armed with a doomsday prevention strategy that I’ll get into with everyone very soon. For now, all I want to do is hug my family and take a nap. It’s good to be back with you all, in the brightness and noise of the world below the false sky.

Stay tuned for two roads diverging ahead of you. One leads to a life of happiness, the other to misery and death. They look identical. Kind of a coin-flip thing. Good luck.

And goodnight, Night Vale. Goodnight.

PROVERB: A watched pot never boils. Do you like being watched when you’re trying to do something? Mind your business and you’ll get your hot water.