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All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But then, you know Jack — he was well on his way to dull already. There’s just no helping some people.
Welcome to Night Vale.
It’s pledge drive day here at Night Vale Community Radio, listeners. Station management has caught on to the fact that we haven’t had a pledge week here at the station in several decades, and they’ve decided to hold me responsible.
‘But Management,’ I said to them, ‘I’ve simply been exercising my municipally protected right to ignore any part of my employment which I find uninteresting!” To which management replied — well, they replied in a series of indecipherable growls, but I assume that those growls translated roughly to a reminder that it is their equally municipally protected right to devour and replace any radio host who fails to meet their pledge quota, and that I have failed to meet that quota every year consistently since 1895 when Italian inventor Guglielmo Marconi first transmitted a wireless Morse Code message more than a kilometer.
Of course, hosting a dearly beloved community radio show is an art, not a science, so I don’t tend to keep track of petty things like numbers and metrics, but Management has apparently chosen this week to feel differently. So there you have it, listeners. If you like what we do here, and you think I would serve our little town better as an unmasticated radio host of full physical and structural integrity, consider donating to our pledge drive. And if your small business wants to sponsor our show, please follow that impulse through to the fullest extent of your generosity.
And now, the news.
The Toy Soldier showed up for bowling practice this week! Or, anyway, a Toy Soldier showed up. I don’t want to impugn the honor of a teammate by suggesting that its incarceration, which has thus far prevented it from making it to practice on time — or ever — might also have interfered with its ability to kill its double, thus allowing said double to infiltrate its position in society while it’s incapacitated, but I will say that while a figure calling itself the Toy Soldier appeared for bowling practice, we have not heard any word of a prison break which would have made the original Toy Soldier’s presence possible.
“It’s acting kind of weird,” Crime-boss-god and probably-legally-elected Mayor Ashes O’Reilly said after the Toy Soldier or its double bowled its third strike in a row, “But then, it’s always weird, and it seems to be better at bowling now, so maybe let’s not question it?”
[the sound of a gunshot is heard]
Oh, don’t worry about that, listeners, that was just me shooting my double. I know what I said about the intimacy of a good stabbing, and I did follow through on it several times, but my double seems to just keep popping back up, and at this point I’m about as interested in efficiency as I am in the song of blood which calls out to us all.
[the sound of an ominous clanking can be heard, and when the radio host speaks again, it is louder and more cheerfully, as if in an attempt to drown out the sound of the clanking.]
In an update to our ongoing coverage of the summer reading program, it has been suggested that the recent influx of murderous and murderable doubles may be the byproduct of an arcane ritual worked by some of the children participating in the program in an attempt to unlock the whole new worlds which reading can open for them, as advertised on summer reading program fliers. Said mortal and vegetarian librarian Ivy Alexandria, “This is why the summer reading program is so important! Reading comprehension isn’t just literal and mechanical, it’s cultural and figurative as well. Reading opens up metaphorical new worlds, and worlds of the imagination. Inter-dimensional portals are still highly regulated and only semi-legal technologies, and should not be opened by unsupervised children, no matter how much the perils of our municipally required coming-of-age rituals have aged them before their time."
Current summer reading program front-runner Lyfrassir Edda could not be reached for comment by broadcast time because—[the sound of a muffled shriek, a scuffle, rapid footsteps. When the radio host speaks again, he is out of breath and seems to be running as he talks]
—because they were last seen drawing pursuit away from a knot of other participants by scaling the library’s lightning spire in what appeared to be Victorian mountain-climbing gear.
[the sound of a door clanking closed. When the radio host speaks again, his voice is muffled to nearly a whisper]
Listeners, Station Management remind me that today’s pledge drive is vitally important for your humble host’s continued employment and, by extension, material and organic existence, so I’d like to urge you — if you listen to our show when you can’t sleep at night, flipping it on as you make yourself a late-night scrambled desert-lizard egg, not because you’re hungry but just because the smell of something cooking on the stove makes your apartment feel more like a home and less like a place you just happen to live; if our coverage of local events helps you feel like a more informed voter and engaged citizen; if radios seem to switch themselves on inside other people’s parked cars as you walk past them leaving a muffled whisper of acknowledgment and burned out car batteries behind you in your wake, the voice on the radio humming through your body like the purring of a stray cat attempting to follow you home; if our helpful household hints have been useful to your adjustment to life in the desert; if we’ve made you laugh, cry, or think at any time since the first time you listened to Night Vale Community Radio, please consider donating one dollar, five dollars, a dark secret you never thought you’d share, or plasma to help keep our station running. We’re counting on your support.
[the muffled popping sound of gunshots via a silencer can be heard, and then a muffled thump and dragging sound, followed by a knock on a door.]
GUNPOWDER TIM: Jonny? Are you in there? I don’t think I killed it, but it’s definitely wounded and in retreat.
Listeners, you’re not going to believe this, but our town’s dreamiest hired killer has set his rifle sights on Station Management. And Station Management seems to have actually been harmed by the bullets!
Gunpowder Tim: Yeah, I wasn’t sure that could even happen here, but I had to try— wait, you’re not still recording, are you? You’re bleeding—
Of course I’m still recording — we haven’t reached the end of my time slot, and it’s almost time for Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner.
Listeners, today’s Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner segment is about gun silencers. They’re a bit of a misnomer! After all, Tim had a silencer on his rifle when he shot at Station Management just now, and you still heard those shots, right?
Gunpowder Tim: Well, yeah, at this close of range, you’re still going to hear something, especially so near to your microphone. What happens is, the sound of the shot comes from both the bullet breaking the sound barrier and the gasses getting shoved out the muzzle of the gun. The silencer is this part here, see? It diverts the gasses, slowing them down so that that part of the sound is lessened, but they still make some sound, and the bullet still breaks the sound barrier, so yeah, it’s not fully silent.
There you have it, kids! Silencers — not actually silent. Still useful, though, especially, as we have heard today, in the case of employment disputes. This feels like a great place to wrap up our show for the day, but remember: nothing good comes for free, even the public good that is solid community journalism. Either you’ll pay in generous pledges that keep our station running and help us maintain our journalistic excellence, our I’ll pay in flesh, presumably some time when heroic sniper Gunpowder Tim isn’t around to help out.
Good night, Night Vale. Good night.