#the trial of hiram mcdaniels

[windwenn]

Obsessed with how good wtnv is at manipulating you. They'll tell you that you feel as though youre staring into the void at the end of an episode and you will truly be feeling as though you have gazed into the dark abyss and seen no distant light at all. And you WILL NOT realise until the last minute.

[w2nv]

EVERY EPISODE SO FAR THAT DOESNT END WITH “GOODNIGHT, NIGHT VALE. GOODNIGHT”

SO I finished the list today! This list includes any variation of the phrase, episodes where he just doesn’t say it although present, and episode where he doesn’t say it because he’s not present. I decided to mark colour code them as a result!

• variation, • no goodnight, • no Cecil

Before I start:

I did not include extra episodes like snippets from the lives shows and such.

For the quotes here I only took the final phrase. So anything that breaks the usual scheme like a lack of “stay tuned next” or any lengthy monologue about anything relating to the goodnight phrase, I didn’t quote

I’m thinking about making a video compilation later on but for now I DONT have the space to dowload all these episodes so this will do for now!

If I missed any, lmk!

———————————————————————————

• 1 — Pilot

Good night, listeners. Good night.

• 2 — Glow Cloud

Good night, listeners. Good night.

• 3 — Station Management

Good night, Night Vale. And goodbye.

• 4 — PTA Meeting

Good night, listeners. Good night.

• 5 — The Shape in Grove Park

Good night, listeners. Good night.

• 6 — The Drawbridge

Buenas noches, Night Vale. Good night.

• 7 — History Week

And, from this moment in history, the one that’s happening right now, good night.

• 8 — The lights in Radon Canyon

It is a good night, listeners. Good night.

• 9 — “PYRAMID”

Speaking of the nighttime, I truly hope you have a good one, Night Vale. Goodnight.

• 10 — Feral Dogs

Get your sleep, Night Vale. And don’t forget to dream. Good Night.

• 14 — The Man in the Tan Jacket

Good night, Night Vale. Be alert, and write down everything you cannot comprehend. Until next time.

• 15 — Street Cleaning Day

Good night. Good night. Good night.

• 19B — The sandstorm

Kevin: Until next time, Desert Bluffs, Until next time.

• 46 — Parade day

And until next time, Good Night, Night Va- Hey. Hey. No. What are you-

• 47 — Company Picnic

Kevin: And, as always, until next time, Greater Desert Bluffs Metropolitan Area. Until next time.

• 49A — Old Oak Doors (Part A)

Listeners, there is someone knocking on my station door, which must mean…Carlos? Carlos, is that you? Come in, and welcome home, my sweet Car…

• 53 — The September Monologues

Well, that's it for the September Monologues. We've said so much. What more is there to say?

• 65 — Voicemails

Kevin: Until next time, Cecil. Until next time.

• 67 — [Best Of?]

Leonard Burton: And as always "See ya, Night Vale. See ya."

• 70A — Taking Off

Kevin: Until next time, new Desert Bluffs, until next time. Oh. Oh no. This is so sad. No. I don’t like this. I am sad. No. No.

• 85 — The April Monologues

And so we reach the end of the April Monologues. There is much that could be said. I will say none of it.

• 86 — Standing and Breathing

Good night, Night Vale. (Maybe lock those windows too.) Good night.

• 87 — The Trial of Hiram McDaniels

Good night. I guess.

• 88 — Things Fall Apart

Hello? [very faint breathing] Hello? [very faint breathing] Who is this? [distant dog bark]

• 89 — Who’s a good boy? (Part 1)

“I want nothing, Cecil. Nothing at all. And I will have it.” Huff huff huff. Huff huff Huff.

• 94 — All Right

All right Night Vale. Good night.

• 98 — Flight

Good night.

• 100 — Toast

Good night, Night Vale, and every person who can hear my voice. Good night.

• 101 — Guidelines for Retrieval

Happy purging, Night Vale. And goodnight.

• 104 — The Hierarchy of Angels

Good night, Night Vale. Josie was beautiful. And angels are real. Good night.

• 109 — A Story About Huntokar

Huntokar: Good night, my Night Vale. Good night.

• 111 — Summer 2017, Night Vale, USA

Good night, listeners. Good night.

• 113 — Niecelet

Any second now. Any second. Any... second.

• 120 — All Smiles’ Eve

Lauren: Good night, Kevin. And good night, Desert Bluffs Too.

Kevin: Good night.

• 128 — A Matter of Blood (Part 2)

Oh god, it’s here.

• 133 — Are You Sure?

Is this the first time you’ve heard me say this? Are you sure? Welcome to Night Vale.

• 135 — The Mudstone Abyss (Part 1)

Kevin: Until next time, Desert Bluffs, Until next time.

• 136 — The Mudstone Abyss (Part 2)

Charles: Kevin. I. Handlebar cereal, okay? Handlebar cereal.

VM: End of message.

• 137 — The Mudstone Abyss (Part 3)

Kevin: Until next time, Desert Bluffs, Until next time.

• 148 — The Broadcaster

Leonard Burton: And until tomorrow, "See ya, Night Vale. See ya."

• 156 — The Trouble with Time

Listeners. I must go. I must talk to my husband. We can be together forever, don’t you see? A new world awaits us in the future. I must talk to Carlos. I must.

• 157 — The Promise of Time

Kasper: Believe in a smiling god, buddy. Believe in a smiling god.

• 164 — The Faceless Old Woman (Live)

FOW: And I will be seeing you very, very… soon.

• 171 — Go To The Mirror?

Won’t you have a good night, Night Vale? Won’t you have a good night?

• 175 — The October Monologues

And as the leaves are done, so are the October Monologues. All that can be said has been said. And all that can be said will be said again.

• 177 — Bloody Laws, Bloody Claws: The Murder of Frank Chen

That about does it for me, Night Vale. That about does it for me.

• 195 — Silas the Thief (Part 1)

Silas: And my name is Silas. Not Khoshekh. Okay? Okay.

• 196 — Silas the Thief (Part 2)

And one I have to consider. Am I Khoshekh? I don’t know if I’m ready to admit that just yet.

• 199 — Guidelines for Retrieval

Happy hoarding, Night Vale. Goodnight.

• 200 — Susan Willman Comes Clean

Susan Willman: So let me begin. This is a story about Huntokar, said a voice on the radio. A voice you had never heard before, though she has been speaking to you your whole life.

• 203 — The Kareem Nazari Show

Kareem: Again, really sorry. Uh, so… Take care. I guess.

• 216 — The Ball Is Where The Win Is

Steve: You have already made me so proud

• 221 — The Glow Cloud, Explained

All Hail, Night Vale. All Hail.

• 227 — A Word With Dr. Jones

Lubelle: Show over, Night Vale. Show over.

• 230 — Carlos, Explained

Good night, my Night Vale restored. Good night.

• 237 — Frown Night

Kevin: Until next time, Desert Bluffs Too, Until next time.

• 239 — Sister Cities: Vermillion Falls

Frank Luna: Good evening, Vermillion Falls. Good evening.

• 240 — He Is Holding a Knife

He is holding a knife. He takes the knife, and sets it against the microphone cord. And with one smooth and easy motion, he cuts the co-

• 249 – Rifts

I would say good night, Night Vale…But if a tree falls in the forest, you know?

[nomsfaultau]

Fault crew in nightvale :D

Nightvale of course bristles against interlopers, but this time the discrimination is that they’re new in town, not that they’re anomalous. Progress! And obviously if Nightvale decides to keep them there’s not much the crew can do to leave, so eventually they might even settle into a proper place in the town. Having like actual jobs and homes is crazy for The Blade and Wilbur. They’re remarkable only insofar as they’re something new to gossip about, which is a game changer. Everyone is very skittish of Carlos at first bc of the Foundation, and would probably murder Dr. Janey Lubelle if she’s around when they’re there. The Dr. Blake vibe is just too much.

Tommy as an intern bc hello red shirt! In a purely goof sense I can just picture that because everything is so insanely dangerous, he can just try to pet Khoshekh at the end of each shift and The Blade is instantly summoned. This is how he gets a ride back home. Tommy is likely in the most in danger due to having minimal protection and being nosy. Immediately tries to break into the dog park because he wants to see puppers.

While happy to finally be able to walk in broad daylight, The Blade is NOT pleased with the government surveillance state and corruption and has declared war on the night vale city council. Him and Sheriff Sam are beefing hard. It’s ON SIGHT. There’s probably a plot where he tries to take down the Nightvale government and due to a random old law somehow ends up mayor and hates it. Excited to meet John Peters, you know, the farmer, and is extremely disappointed about the invisible corn. Not sure how a Huntokar and The Blood God meeting would go but I think they should. Like…a protector who is a destroyer, do you get me.

On the other hand, city council is really mad at Tubbo for all the forbidden secrets they’re just randomly stumbling across bc of the omnipresence of the swarms. Tubbo gets locked up in the radon canyon like every other day and Phil breaks them out whenever they get board of watching HBO. Tried to follow along with one of Earl Harlan’s cooking segments and got very disturbed, but Wilbur just followed the recipe not aware anything was abnormal. Plus in Tubbos’ backstory there IS an old woman Josie reference, so it’s possible they already know her and she has been using their honey in recipes for years.

Parallel between the faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home and the half faceless young man who secretly lives in no home is fascinating. She keeps leaving him like centipedes in his drawers or whatever and it just goes ‘oh nice a snack’ which probably irks her. Likes hanging with the glow cloud bc the ambient lighting stops the void, who is itself pretty chuffed with all the dead animal carcasses

Philza got a letter for jury duty during Hiram McDaniel’s trial and blew it off bc he was dealing with the Foundation. I think he’d be very chill with Josh Crayton, bonding over different forms and getting stuck in a form you didn’t plan on. Impressed with Tamika Flynn’s Librarian wrangling as a teen, though is more supportive of people growing and changing interests than Cecil dreaming of the glory days. And uhhh technically he’s responsible for the death of many nightvale interns since in chapter Phthalo I used wtnv interns to name Foundation employees. Possibly interesting implications if Chad Bowinger, Maureen Johnson, and Kareem Nazari went to work for the Foundation at some point…?

[kevin--of-desert-bluffs]

what's your favorite episode/event in nightvale? I really love the street cleaning day episode

Oh that is a good one!!

Recently, I really enjoyed A Story About Him but also the whole trial of Hiram McDaniels arc has me on edge even today and I know how it ends!

Can I be really basic and say I still love 19A/B? Mirroring events like that was so interesting!

A close second is Are you sure? regardless of the ending you listen to lol

[stubbornvulpixquotes]

Numbers don't lie, but humans using numbers lie all the time.

-Cecil Palmer, Welcome to Night Vale, 87 - The Trial of Hiram McDaniels

[sybilius]

"Numbers don't lie. But humans, using numbers? Lie all the time. Welcome to Nightvale."

- Welcome to Nightvale, Episode 87: The Trial of Hiram McDaniels

[arataka-reigen]

I mean... the entire trial of Hiram McDaniels was a critique of the justice system and how the innocent suffer the consequences of this unjust system and that episode was already incredibly hard to watch and left you with a bad feeling in your heart, but to actually watch the only innocent head get violently killed was something I never expected and now i'm sad

[wtnvcrossword]

WTNV - Ep 173 - The Hundred Year Play

Across

2. The name of the true crime podcast Cecil started was called “Bloody Laws, Bloody ___: The Murder of Frank Chen”

7. As an intern what did Cecil paint on Station Management’s doors as part of a ritual of the slumbering ancients? (plural)

9. Frank Chen’s body was found covered in claw marks and what? (plural)

12. The Judge indicated she would issue her ruling within how many years?

13. What forms the squelching mud of sentience?

14. What did Hannah Hershman do at the end of the play?

15. Night Vale Medical Board said listeners must suck dry the what?

16. How many changes of judges had there been in the trial?

17. Cecil was first present on which night of the 100 year play?

18. Changes of venue for the trial were due to some attacks by what creatures? (plural)

Down

1. What is the name of the judge in the case “The Estate of Franklin Chen vs. the City of Night Vale”.

3. On Thursday Josh Crayton would be taking the form of what so that neighborhood kids may swim in him?

4. The family of Frank Chen want the appropriate parties, in this case the city of Night Vale, Hiram McDaniels, and an ___ conception of God, to take responsibility for their part in Frank’s death.

5. The trial had been going on for how many months?

6. All oceans are one ocean that we have arbitrarily categorized by what?

7. The Night Vale Players Playhouse had what kind of problem with the venue?

8. Cecil’s best tux had scales and what kind of canon?

9. In the play, one actor said, “We… are… all of us… moved… by time.  Not… one of us dies… in the world… we were ___ into.”

10. The trial included spirited what performed by the playhouse performers in between their work on the hundred year play? (plural)

11. In the play, Mr. Spreckle, the gardener, murdered the victim with what kind of venomous animal?

[iamtheglow-cloud]

Oh

Spoilers ahead. Only read if you have listened to Condos and Matryoshka or don’t mind the spoilers.

—————————————————————

I’m currently listening to Matryoshka again. I had this thought occur to me and I went back and listened to The Story of Huntokar again which inevitably made me realize the thought couldn’t be true. But then, I decided to listen to Matryoshka again. And I am. And god guys I’ve had a realization.

In Condos Hiram comes on Cecil’s show after The Faceless Old Woman because apparently it’s a matter of legality and political candidates are supposed to have equal airtime on the radio to present their campaign. Hiram goes on to talk about why he is running for NightVale mayor and he tells this story.

When we was very young he was in a town. Not NightVale, somewhere else. He hadn’t heard of NightVale yet. And, as he was hungry, he asked a passerby where a good place to eat was. The passerby promptly screamed in fear and ran away. Obviously Hiram was hungry and sad after this.

But then, years later, he had a similar experience in NightVale. But instead of running away screaming the man did a weird thing with his mouth and pointed towards the Moonlite All-Nite Diner.

Hiram presents this as his favorite memory- when he realized he had found a place that accepted him despite his dragonly-appearance. This was why he was running for Mayor- because NightVale was a place he could truly call home.

Then Old Oak Doors happened. Then, Review happened. Then, The Trial of Hiram McDaniels happened.

Then, Execution Day happened.

Hiram leaves NightVale after the devastating accidental execution of his Violet Head. In Matryoshka, he returns, for one last time. Asking the rest of the dragons to leave NightVale alone, to uphold the treaties Huntokar had set in place.

And he says, “They attack me only because they are scared of me. We cannot find forgiveness in relentlessness.”

In short, Hiram McDaniels came to NightVale and thought it was the one place he could truly call home.

But in the end, it ending up being still very similar to the rest of the world. The world that ran away from him, screaming.

And I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I think that’s actually kinda sad. Not “oh shame on NightVale” sad (no hecking way NightVale’s actions were still justified,,, almost all of them anyway), just... it makes me feel sorry for Hiram in a way.

Edit: note that obviously none of this excuses any of Hiram’s actions. He made his own choices and they came back to haunt him. Most of the consequences Hiram received were justified and his own fault. But Cecil and even Dana later admit that the death of Violet was unnecessary. Which is the one action of NightVale’s that I feel WASN’T justified. That’s where this post came from, from that canonly-admitted overreaction to Hiram’s actions.

[leksiriot]

[secretlyafiveheadeddragon]

*sobs very loudly in The Trial of Hiram McDaniels*

Where you ever caught and arrested for tax fraud? It's been nine years.

You... haven't finished that arc yet, have you?

*cries in night vale*

[littleforestfairy]

g o d I need to so badly catch up with wtnv I forgot how much I love Cecil and Carlos ;~; maybe after I catch up with taz I'll finally start listening to wtnv again I rlly rlly miss it

[lesbiancervidologist]

its been like 2 months and im still thinking ab wtnv year 4. did you really think you could just hand me stuff like triptych, one normal town and the trial of hiram mcdaniels and have me NOT think about it for the next 30 years?

[grave-gift]

I reblogged this earlier but I just realized, and feel the need to inform everyone, that this episode dropped February 1st, 2017, and was probably about the upcoming Trump presidency. It's a great testament to how the escalation over the last 4 years was fully predictable.

“You can bring an entire year to the landfill. But you are limited to one per resident. So please make sure you’re selecting the right year. We invite you to remember that a year that seems uniquely terrible could in fact be merely the gateway to an era of terror, the launching point and not the peak. Choose wisely.”

— Welcome to Night Vale, episode 101 “Guidelines for Disposal”

[cecilspeaks]

173 - The Hundred Year Play

Quoth the raven: [bird noises] Welcome to Night Vale.

Listeners, some exciting news from the world of theatre! The 100 year play is about to reach its final scene. Yes, this is the play that has been running continuously since 1920. Written by a brilliant playwright Hannah Hershman, designed to take exactly 100 years to perform. And the tireless volunteer of the Night Vale Players Playhouse have been going through those scenes, one after another, for decade upon decade. There’s little time to rehearse, for each hour brings new scenes and each scene will only be performed once the play moves on, in order to keep up with the tight schedule needed to execute the entire script before a century elapses.

It is a monumental work of theatre, but like all work, it must some day cease. Today, specifically. I will be in attendance at that historic moment, when the final scene is performed and the curtain closes on the 100 year play.   More soon, but first the news.

We bring you the latest on the lawsuit “The estate of Franklin Chen vs. the city of Night Vale”. As you know, this case has grown so large and complicated that I’ve not had the time to discuss it in my usual community radio broadcasts. But instead, have started a true crime podcast called “Bloody Laws, Bloody Claws: The Murder of Frank Chen”, in which I strive to get to the truth of just what happened on that fateful night when five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels met Frank Chen, and then later Frank Chen’s body was found covered in burns and claw marks. It’s a confounding mystery. The Sheriff’s Secret Police announce that it seems really complicated and they’re not even gonna try to solve that sucker. “Oh, what?” a Secret Police spokesman muttered at an earthworm he found in his garden. “You want us to fail? You wanna see us fail? That’s why you want us to investigate this case, to see us fail at it?” The family of Frank Chen say they merely want the appropriate parties, in this case the city of Night Vale, Hiram McDaniels and an omniscient conception of God, to take responsibility for their part in this tragedy. The trial is now in its 10th month, and has included spirited re-enactments of the supposed murder by helpful Players Playhouse performers in between their work on the 100 year play. 3 changes of judge and venue due to “some dragon attacks and constant interruptions from a local audio journalist, who hosts a widely respected true crime podcast”. Still, with all this, we near a verdict. Judge Chaplin has indicated she will issue her ruling soon. “Like in the next year or so?” she said. “Certainly within 5 years. Listen, I don’t owe you a verdict, just because you’re paying me to do a job, you can’t rush me to do it. The verdict will be done when. It’s. Done.” Chaplin then huffed out of the courtroom followed by journalists shouting recommendations for episodes of their podcast to listen to.

I was present, you know, on opening night of the 100 year play. Ah, how the theatre buzzed! Of course this was partly the audience, thrilled to be at the start of such an unprecedented work, but mostly – it was the insects. The Night Vale Players Playhouse had quite a pest problem at the time, and still does. It’s difficult to do pest control when there is a 100 year long play being performed on stage at every hour of every day. The curtain opened those many years ago on a simple set of a studio apartment,  a kitchen, a cot, a window overlooking a brick wall. A man sits in the corner deep in thought. A doorbell rings. “Come in, it’s open,” the man says. A woman enters, flustered. She is holding a newborn. “There’s been a murder!” she says. “The victim was alone in a room, and all the doors and windows were locked. “My god!” the man says and springs up. “Who could have done this, and how?!” the woman tells him: “It turns out to be the gardener, Mr. Spreckle. He served with the victim in the war and never could forgive him for what happened there. He threw a venomous snake through an air vent.” The man sits back down, nodding. “Aah! So the mystery is solved.” As a playwright, Hannah Hershman did not believe in stringing up mysteries a second longer than was necessary. The baby in the woman’s arm stirs. “Shush, shush little one!” the woman says. The man looks out the window where he cannot see the sky. “It might look like rain,” he says. “Who knows?” Thus began a journey of 100 years.

And now a word from our sponsors. Today’s episode is sponsored by the Night Vale Medical Board, which would like to remind you that it is important to drink enough water throughout the day. Drink more water! Your body cannot function without water. Without water, you are just dust made animate. Water forms the squelching mud of sentience. Try to have at least ten big glasses of water. Not over the entire day, right now. See if you can get all ten of them down. Explore the capacity of your stomach. See if you can make it burst. You will either feel so much better, or an organ will explode and you will day painfully. And either one is more interesting than the mundane now. You should drink even more water than that. Wander out of your door, search the Earth for liquids. Find a lake and drain the entire thing, until the bottom feeders flop helplessly on the flatlands. Laugh slushingly as you look upon the destruction you have wrought. The power that you possess now that you are well hydrated. Move on from the lake and come to the shore of an ocean. All oceans are one ocean that we have arbitrarily categorized by language. The sea knows no separation, and neither will you when you lay belly down on the sand, put your lips against the waves and guzzle the ocean. The ocean is salty. It will not be very hydrating, so you’ll need to drink a lot of it. Keep going until the tower tops of Atlantis see sky again for the first time in centuries, until the strange glowing creatures of the deep-deep are exposed, splayed out from their bodies now that they no longer have the immense pressure of the ocean depths to keep their structure intact. And once you have drunk the oceans, turn your eyes to the stars. For there is water out there too, and you must suck dry the universe. This has been a message from the Night Vale Medical Board.

20 years passed without me thinking about the 100 year play. You know how it is. One day you’re an intern at the local radio station doing all the normal errands like getting coffee and painting pentacles upon Station Management doors as part of the ritual of the slumbering ancients. Then 20 years passes and everything is different for you. Your boss is gone and now you are a host of the community radio station, and there are so many new responsibilities and worries and lucid nightmares in which you explore a broken landscape of colossal ruins. So with all of that, I just kind of forgot the 100 year play was happening. But they were toiling away in there, doing scenes around the clock, building and tearing down sets at a frantic pace, trying to keep up with the script that relentlessly went on, page after page. And sometimes one of the people working on the play would wonder: how does this all end? But before they could flip ahead and look, there would be another scene that had to be performed and they wouldn’t have a chance. So no one knew how it ended. No one except Hannah Hershman, the mysterious author of this centennial play.

Soon after becoming radio host, during the reading of a Community Calendar, I was reminded that the play was still going on, and so decided to check in. I put on my best tux, you know it’s the one with the scales and the confetti canon. And then took myself to a night at the theatre. I can’t say what happened in the plot since that first scene, but certainly much had transpired. We were now in a space colony thousands of years from now, and the set was simple, just some sleek chairs and a black backdrop dotted with white stars of paint. A woman was giving a monologue about the distance she felt between the planet she was born on, which I believe was supposed to be Earth, and the planet she now stood on. I understood from what she was saying that the trip she had taken to this planet was one way, and that she would never return to the place she was born. “We… are… all of us… moved… by time,” she whispered in a cracked, hoarse voice. “Not… one of us dies… in the world… we were born into.” Sitting in my seat in that darkened theatre, I knew two facts with certainty. The first was that this woman had been giving a monologue for several days now. She wavered on her feet, speaking the entire four hours that I was there. And I don’t know how much longer she spoke after I left, but it could have been weeks. She was pale and her voice was barely audible, but there was something transfixing about it, and the audience sat in perfect silence, leaning forward to hear her words. The other fact I understood was that this woman was the newborn from the very first scene. Not just the same character, but the same actor. 20 years later, she was still on that stage, still portraying the life to the child we had been introduced to in the opening lines. She was an extraordinary performer, presumably, having had a literal lifetime of practice. And that was the last time I saw the play, until tonight, when I will go to watch the final scene.

But first, let’s have a look at that Community Calendar. Tonight the school board is meeting to discuss the issues of school lunches. It seems that some in power argue that it isn’t enough that for some reason we charge the kids actual money for these lunches. They argue that the students should also be required to give devotion and worship to a great glowing cloud, whose benevolent power will fill their lives with purpose. Due to new privacy rules, we cannot say which member of the school board made this suggestion. The board will be taking public comment in a small flimsy wooden booth out by the highway. Just enter the damp, dark interior and whisper your comment, and it will be heard. Perhaps not by the school board, but certainly by something.

Tuesday morning, Lee Marvin will be offering free acting classes at the rec center. The class is entitled “Acting is just lying. We’ll teach you how acting is just saying things that aren’t true, with emotions you don’t feel, so that you may fool those watching with these mistruths.” Fortunately, Marvin commented: “Most people don’t want to be told the truth and prefer the quiet comfort of a lie well told.” Classes are pay what you want, starting at 10,000 dollars.

Thursday Josh Crayton will be taking the form of a waterfall in Grove Park, so that neighborhood kids may swim in him. There is not a lot of swimming opportunities in a town as dry as Night Vale, and so this is a generous move on Josh’s part. He has promised that he has been working on the form and has added a water slide and a sunbathing deck. He asks that everyone swim safely and please not leave any trash on him.

Friday, the corn field will appear in the middle of town, right where it does each September, as the air turns cooler and the sky in the west takes on a certain shade of green. The corn field emanates a power electric and awful. Please, do not go into the corn field, as we don’t know what lives in there or what it wants. The City Council would like to remind you that the corn field is perfectly safe. It is perfect and it is safe. 

Finally, Saturday never happened. Not if you know what’s good for you. Got it? This has been the Community Calendar.

Oh! Look at the time. Here I am blathering on and the play is about to end. OK, let me grab my new mini recorder that Carlos got me for my birthday. It’s only 35 pounds and the antenna is a highly reasonable 7 feet. And I’ll see you all there.

Ah. What’s the weather like for my commute?

[Shallow Eyes” by Brad Bensko. https://www.bradbenskomusic.com/]

Carlos and I are at the theatre! The audience is a buzz, with excitement yes, but also many of them are the insects that infest this theatre. The bugs became entranced by the story over the years, passing down through brief generation after brief generation, the history of all that happened before. The story of the play became something of a religion to this creepy crawly civilization. And so now the bugs are jittering on the walls, thrilled to be the generation that gets to see the end of this great tale.

The curtain rises on a scene I recognize well. It is the simple set of a studio apartment. A kitchen, a cot, a window overlooking a brick wall. A man sits in the corner deep in thought. A doorbell rings. “Come on, it’s open,” the man calls. A woman enters. She is very old, tottering unsteadily on legs that have carried for her many many years. “Please take my seat,” the man says with genuine concern. “Thank you,” she says, collapsing with relief onto the cushions and then looking out, as if for the first time, noticing the audience. I know this woman. I first saw her as a baby and later as a 20-year-old. It seems she has lived her whole life on this stage, taking part in this play. “My name,” the woman says, “is Hannah Hershman. I was born in this theatre, clutching a script in my arms that was bigger than I was. My twin, in a way. I started acting in that script of mine before I was even aware of the world. I grew up in that script, lived my entire life in the play I had written from infancy to now.” And she rises, and the man reaches out to help, but she waves him away. She speaks, her- her voice is strong, ringing out through the theatre. “The play ends with my death, because the play is my life. It is bounded by the same hours and minutes that I am.” the audience is rapt, many have tears in their eyes. Even the insects weep. “Thank you for these hundred years,” Hannah Hershman says. “This script is complete.” She walks to the window. “It might look like rain,” she says. “Who knows?” The lights dim.

Thunderous applause, cries of acclaim, and Hannah Hershman dies to the best possible sound a person can hear: concrete evidence of the good they have done in the lives of other humans.

Stay tuned next for the second ever Night Vale Players Playhouse production, now that they finally finished this one. They’re going to do “Godspell”. And from the script of a life I have not yet finished performing, Good night, Night Vale, Good night.

Today’s proverb: Many are called, but few are chosen. And fewer still pick up. Because most calls are spam these days.

[arataka-reigen]

I'll be honest, the overarching arc of year four was not the most interesting arc so far, but to compensate year four had some incredible standalone episodes that leave you heartbroken, with a sinking feeling in your stomach and a bittersweet taste in your mouth. Like "The Trial of Hiram McDaniels" in which we expect justice to prevail, at least for Violet, and what we get instead is a clear criticism of the death penalty when Hiram is cruelly sentenced to death, or "One Normal Town" in which we see Cecil grow as a character and finally see that the people from Desert Bluffs are just people and deserve respect and compassion, or "Lost in the Mail" an anti war episode in which a daughter tells the story of how the war tore her father away from her, OR TRIPTYCH DO I EVEN NEED TO TALK ABOUT TRIPTYCH IS THAT NOT THE BEST EPISODE EVER