Chapter Text
“That’s odd….” The blonde girl with the pretty blue eyes hidden behind wire framed glasses trailed off, taking a moment to blow the heat off of her drink. Her delicate and beautifully painted teacup was filled with Tim Horton’s coffee despite the pair’s whereabouts of being in a desert town several hundred miles away from any decent coffee shop. The teacup stated her name was Jules so it had to be true.
“Hmmm?” The red head sitting across from the blonde mumbled around a mouthful of coconut fortune cookies since wheat and wheat by products were still banned. The fortune inside the cylindrical cookie hinted that her name was Mel.
“I was just thinking that….that it’s a funny thing that Steve Carlsburg is Steve Carlsburg even in Desert Bluff.” Jules mused. She stole the little paper fortune from Mel and in by doing so stole her future and her name.
“He doesn’t deserve another name. That guy’s a jerk.” Mel who had just lost her name but didn’t seem to mind. She had others in her back pocket and there was still a half full box of coconut fortune cookies so her future, at least one of them, was safe and interchangeable. “And everyone knows he is a spoilsport.”
“I know, I know.” Jules sighed, setting false futures alight with her will and her want to do. “Poor Cecil though, he seemed so terrified by Desert Bluff, the poor dear. Kevin freaks me out a bit.”
“I see Desert Bluff….” and she did. Mel had green, green eyes when they decided to be the color of prophesy. “I see Desert Bluff. It is an ancient city made of bone whose marrows still bleed wet and red and sour, the city of the long dead, a mixture of old and new with all the fluidity of a patchwork corpse.”
“Hmmmm, that would fit.” Jules nodded wisely. “But the worse is how they act. My God.”
“It’s citizens walk around with forced smiles on their faces, some facilitated by masks that are seared permanently into their scarred, tortured flesh while others have had their grins sewn in with thread. They get to choose the color of their smile of course.” Mel droned on like a vacant and ignored Cassandra of old Greek myths. “Unlike Night Vale, their clocks are real, so utterly and horribly real. And they cry and tremble when the minutes run out on them…..”
“…..As they all inevitably do.”
“Oh dear….” Jules murmured, throwing her teacup of delicious coffee into the redhead’s face to snap her out of the trance. Mel would go on for hours if anyone let her. “Yes, yes. That would totally fit. That’s where those strangers should have gone to hunt, but then again maybe its better they came to Night Vale instead. I really don’t want them to set foot in Desert Bluffs.”
Jules suddenly leaned in to whisper. “The angels were right. Kill your double.”
Taking the sudden segway in conversation with grace and applaud and just a touch of insanity, Mel plucked a piece of paper out of Jules’s teacup. “The city council has sent you a notice. It appears to be a note only slightly moistened with Timmie’s coffee that did not have salt added to it this morning. The notices reads ‘angels lie and are not real. Report to city hall for re-education and de-education.’. Oh dear….”
“Oh.” Jules blinked, looking blankly morose but accepting of her fate. “Oh well, see you in a month.”
“Yes….” Mel fell back into a trance, though not the same one from before. “…but will you be you or the other you….the one we don’t talk about but stands right behind you, staring at the back of your head.”
Jules stared at Mel in answer whose eyes were the green gold of true observation. “I was not supposed to mention that…..forget I said anything.” Mel said, looking slightly embarrassed. “….and do not look too closely at pictures of yourself…..Sometimes your shadow is not always there or yours to begin with….”
“Hmmmm….thanks for reminding me.” Jules said in icy tones as cold at the false fingers that were grazing her back, letting her know that she was never truly alone. Never. “Oh dear, my neighbors have been gone for a while now. They should probably have stayed in their blood stone circle.”
“It’s their own fault. The apocalypse’s schedule was clearly posted in the origami flower fliers the hooded figures left on our door mats last week.” Mel dismissed with a curl of lip to denote her obvious disgust and low opinion of unvigilant people. “That’s just negligence on their part. Shameful really.”
“Yes, I know.”, Jules tsked who never liked to talk ill of people but did because of the curse branded on her tongue. “Like those persons of interest that let their kids play outside when there is a chance of hawk helicopters…..not that I know anything about them.”
Mel shook her head sadly in agreement. “It’s that kind of radical parenting that don’t even arm their children with light assault rights. In my day, we never left the house with nothing less.”
“Hmmm, I believe you. Even in my time at least they would make a sacrificial ritual to prevent regrettable accidents.” Jules nodded, all sage and stolen wisdom.
“Speaking of which, the Glow Cloud- ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD-……what was I saying?” Mel blanked out mid-sentence to look worriedly around her.
“ALL HAIL THE GLOW CLOUD.” Jules stated back before descending into a mutual confusion which was comforting as little pink spiders on bare skin. “….I don’t know. Something about Arby’s?”
“…..anyway, the school board has incorporated Enochian into its language program……for reasons I don’t know and find particularly odd for some reason….” Mel whispered to throw off the secret police. They hated it when words were spoken softly and lacking fervent hand gestures.
“Good. Enochian is something every young one should be able to know.” Jules mumbled back.
“Darling, I have been saying that for years or just now. Who really knows or can prove anything? A society can not subsist on ancient Sumerian alone. What angels with living in town and all…..” Mel paused as she cracked open another coconut fortune cookies to find an extensive note hidden within instead of a fortune or a future. “Oh dear, I’ve seemed to have received a note via my coconut fortune cookie from the city council. It looks like I’ll be joining you in re-education and de-education.”
“Remember when Steve Carlsberg tried to place English class? English?!” Jules spat out in contempt, her brain simmering like a crock-pot of beef stew and mystery. “What a shameful person this Steve Carlsberg is!”
“….and not that you or I know anything about angelic beings in Night Vale.” Jules added, her blue eyes darting back and forth, searching the corners as she memorized the positioning of the shadows.
“Angels? What are you talking about?” Mel hummed to herself and rocked in place before checking back into this reality. “I know, right?! English class? Pssssssh. Can nothing be done about this madman and his tiring suggestions? His dry scones and note taking of the minutes are insult upon the senses enough.”
“Oh! I am so happy about the new free wifi at the old abandoned mine….” Jules started to say to be interrupted.
“Pardon me listeners but it seems someone has let wild animals into the booth who appear to be having coffee in teacups and sharing a box of coconut fortune cookies. I am attempting to shoo them away considering they are having quite a chatter and rudely disrupting the program.” Cecil glared, giving the owl and fox seated near him a hard look.
The owl apologized but it was Canadian so that was sort of expected. The fox piddled in a corner which an intern had to clean up later on and subsequently died while doing so. That’s what interns were there for after all
Cecil was perfectly fine though mildly annoyed. The talking animals hadn’t offered him any coffee at all but had left the coconut fortune cookies so the future was looking up for him. Or down depending on where one‘s head was at or positioned on their body.