Welcome to Night Vale Fan Episode: Curly Fries

I wrote this Welcome to Night Vale fan episode for fun. I had a lot of fun writing out an outline of the story and coming up with ideas for dialogue. I might not have built up the outro as well as I wanted to, it’s kind of emotionally discordant with the story, but I had fun writing it all anyway. Honestly the entire story is based on me hearing the song I chose for the weather three times in one day, associating it with a concept from the series, and imagining Carlos and Cecil driving while it plays in the background. I wrote around that idea and this is what I came up with. I don’t promise official quality but I hope you enjoy!  -------------------------- Cecil: Not all who wander...are lost. 

...But, uh, we are. We are very lost. Please help. Welc-

Carlos: Ooh, let me do it! Carlos: Welcome...to Night Vale! Cecil: Listeners, today’s broadcast is very special, because as I’m sure you’ve already deduced, we have a special guest in our midst- my husband, Carlos! With whom I am hopelessly lost in the desert. Carlos: Hi everybody, really glad to be here! Cecil, we’re not hopelessly lost. We’re talking to Night Vale right now! They’ll help us! Cecil:  I’m...sure they will. Not terrified in the least. We’re definitely not going to wander this hellscape for eternity. Anyway, uh, Carlos, what brings you to the show today? Carlos: Well, Cecil, as you know, we were out on a date at the  Night Vale Harbor and Waterfront Recreation Area, on a sunset stroll across the boardwalk, when we came across a vendor renting out metal detectors.

We rented one, went down to the...uh, beach...or, as much of a beach as it can be, considering there’s no water, and the ocean is only visible from the boardwalk itself, and started searching for treasures.

Cecil: Untold treasures.

Carlos: Yes, excuse me, untold treasures. Of the deep, you know, that sort of thing. But we wandered too far from the boardwalk and were swept out to sea by the phantom ocean, and we woke up...uh, here. 

And now we’re stuck here, and we don’t know how to get home, and it’s very boring, so we’re putting on a broadcast together! 

Cecil: Oh, it feels so good to be back on the air. Listeners, I don’t know how long we’ve been trapped here. My portable radio equipment doesn’t seem to be broadcasting, and my phone is dead. So I couldn’t reach anyone for help. Help we desperately need. Or we’re going to die here.

Carlos’ phone is fine, but he’s got no signal at all. He’s been trying to play Pokemon Go all morning and it’s just not working. It just shows his cute little trainer standing there in a big empty void of space, which is normal for the desert, but none of the Pokemon are showing up and it’s just been very frustrating for both of us.

Also, I wore these new boots, and I’m very upset that they are hurting my feet. They’re 6 inch high platform boots with a goldfish swimming in a little fish bowl embedded permanently in the platform with no hope of escape and no source of food, and after days of trying to break them in they still just aren’t comfortable for some reason. All things considered, this has not been a good morning for us.

Carlos: At first I thought we may be in the Desert Otherworld somehow, but that was quickly disproven when I realized my phone had no signal. Also, there are no mountains, or lighthouses, or crippling post traumatic stress reactions, or masked armies, or geographical loops. But mostly no cell phone reception. That place had incredible cell phone reception. Cecil: Really, the only thing here is lots and lots of sand, and also old televisions, refrigerators, mysterious piles of magnetic shavings, all sorts of neat stuff. It really takes my mind off the inevitable bleached skeletons we’re going to leave here in the desert. I’ve been playing with this metal detector and honestly, this place is a gold mine for neat junk that if we ever manage to find our way out with, I’m going to take home and then put in the garage, and every time I look at it I’ll think “Why did I bring this home with me? What was I thinking?”, before formulating plans to organize or dispose of it, only to keep it there forever as a monument to my obsessive need to collect mementos and symbols representative of my experiences in an attempt to create a physical record of the fact that I did something, went somewhere, was someone, even if they pile uselessly in a corner serving only to remind me that I opted for material goods and trinkets in lieu of crafting meaningful personal memories of events and loved ones that only I could ever truly understand that would die with me rather than be thrust upon whoever is saddled with the task of organizing my affairs after death, walking into my garage, seeing my pile of junk, and not grasping for even a second the depth of what I wanted it to mean and represent and communicate about my life, tossing it into the trash and along with it any dreams I may have had in the back of my mind of being immortal by way of inspiring others with my personality made manifest by collected worldly goods. Oh! And radio equipment! We found some radio equipment that seems to be working just fine, unlike mine. And to elaborate on this phenomenon, it’s time for the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner! Carlos? Carlos: Cecil, and kids at home, my running theory is that we are trapped in another time entirely. You see, we’ve dug up a lot of stuff here. But all of it is from the past. When scientists do a lot of digging- it’s called Earth Science, by the way- they often find things underground organized in layers of sediment, one on top of the other. As you dig further down, you find older things, and that’s how we know which fossils are older than other fossils. But here, no matter where we dig, we seem to find things at random, completely disorganized. It’s very unscientific of these random objects to appear all in the top layer of dirt. Meanwhile, Cecil’s portable broadcasting equipment seems to work, but based on how none of you came out here to rescue us during our first several broadcasts, it doesn’t seem to be reaching you. I believe that it can only broadcast to the present day, and- because we are surrounded by anachronisms, we are not in the present day. It’s 2019, I think. So we should, in theory, only be surrounded by things people use in 2019. But we’ve dug up several Furbys and at least one toot-a-loop, which indicate that it is not 2019, wherever we are. We’ve found such a wide range of things there’s no telling what year it really is! But this set of radio equipment we found is timelessly elegant in its design, and so I believe it probably broadcasts to any point in time. Also I can pick it up on the portable radio we brought with us to the beach, so it’s definitely working. Cecil: It is true that my equipment only seems to broadcast to the present day. I know my phone back at the studio sometimes makes and receives calls through time itself, but I don’t know that I’ve ever broadcast to another era...but it is also possible that our listeners just plain aren’t feeling very helpful today. Maybe they’re busy. Maybe we’re doomed. Maybe we’re just doomed.  Carlos: Cecil, nobody is ever too busy to listen to your show. And we’re not doomed. Cecil: Oh, Carlos, you’re embarrassing me. And we’re probably doomed. Carlos: I’m sorry, but it’s true. And it has to be, otherwise my theory sounds ridiculous. And we’re not doomed. Cecil: Fair enough. It sounds very scientific to me! Anyway, this has been the Children’s Fun Fact Science Corner. Also we’re doomed. Carlos: Cecil, I’m going to go run some tests with the metal detector and see if I can find anything to help us figure out where and when we are. And maybe a refrigerator that still has food in it. So far, besides the radio equipment, everything’s just a bunch of junk. I’ll take my radio with me so I can hear your broadcast, be sure to call me back if you need anything! Try to stay calm, alright? Cecil: Good luck, Carlos! Listeners, in the meantime, let’s get to the news. Local radio host Cecil Gershwin Palmer was reported as saying that despite the suffocating fear of eternity or the dark void of ceased existence, he doesn’t really mind being trapped in an endless mysterious desert, as long as it’s with his husband Carlos. He could, quote, “Do science here forever”, as long as it was with his handsome husband. Aw, isn’t that sweet?

Meanwhile, we’ve got...uh...there’s...hm.  I’ll level with you, Night Vale. This place is booooo-ring. Nothing’s happening at all. There’s barely any plants. I’ve only seen one animal, and it was a lizard, and it was a very boring lizard. It only had 4 legs, and it just kind of sat there on a rock for a while. The fish in my shoes died, so their senseless agony is no longer a viable source of tragic entertainment. I can’t check my tumblr. It’s just dirt and sand and rocks and sun and junk. If we were going to be whisked away to a mysterious time and place, couldn’t it at least have been an interesting one? I do have to admit...I’ve tried to keep a strong, stoic face about this whole situation, but I’m getting a little worried. We don’t know how long we’ve been here. Carlos claims it’s only been a few hours, but you know how he is with time and perception and facts. There’s never any wiggle room with him for senseless anxiety and baseless assumptions of doom. I shouldn’t make fun, I’m sure he’s worried too. At least we’re here together, I suppose. Better than being lost in the desert alone... Oh, uh, looks like it’s time for Traffic.

A car, gliding effortlessly across the sands of a vast desert. The man inside turns up the radio, and hears a familiar story- familiar because it’s literally happening, right now. The radio describes his every action. The way he glances at the radio as if it is another human being to make eye contact with, questioning its words with his eyes. It describes the way he turns the dial to increase the volume. The way he furrows his brow, attempting to understand how the voice on the radio knows what he’s doing. The way he pulls out a set of beakers and places them carefully on the dashboard, normally a reckless act while driving, but completely safe in the flat, closed-course, car commercial style desert he’s driving on. He sends some colored liquids through swirling crazy straw tubes from one container to another, a bunsen burner aflame, attempting to science some sort of sense out of this disembodied narrator. The liquids are turbulent and sloshing, but he does not care. He looks out the windshield and stares at a dot, in the distance- and the dot stares back. He focuses all his energy, all of the vehicle’s horsepower, the entire weight of his leg on the gas pedal, and every photon receptor in his eyes on that tiny...little...dot. He stares with such intensity that his eyes start to lose track of their own interpretation of the light that enters them, blurring into one solid color, forcing him to focus on something else to be able to focus back on his goal. He blinks furiously. The dot becomes bigger, and bigger, and bigger, until finally- he sees that it’s me! Hi Carlos! This has been, Traffic. Carlos: Cecil, look! The metal detector came through! I found a 1987 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am 2-door coupe! And a renewed interest in those psychic energies I told you that you sometimes give off and that I really need you to let me probe into! Cecil: A car, that’s wonderful! We can use that to get...home. Assuming it’s...nearby, and that we’re...in the same timeline as home, and...in the same year. Maybe we’ll even be back by dark! The sun is starting to set... Carlos: Cecil, I know how to get back home. We’re going to be okay. Get in the car. Wait- first, help me take the t-tops off. On the drive back we may as well enjoy the weather. [THE WEATHER] Cecil: Listeners, we are home. As we drove dramatically with sweeping camera angles and rolling hills through that sudden downpour of mysterious flashes of light, pink clouds, psychedelic wind, nostalgic VHS fog, and laser beams erupting from the desert floor, the sun set and we could see in the distance a guiding light. As we drove towards it, we reached an old dirt road, and down that dirt road, we found a fence, and a gate, and a sign. I turned around in my seat to read the sign, and...well, you remember a few years ago, when we got the new landfill, which doesn’t accept any physical items?  Carlos: My theory had one major flaw. I thought based on all the anachronisms we had found in the dirt, all at the same layer of sediment, we must be in some sort of mishmashed timeline, outside of the linear time that we’re normally outside of, but also outside of the non-linear time we’re normally not outside of. Some third form of time never before seen. But they...well, they weren’t anachronistic. There weren’t any items from the future. That would be anachronistic. Everything we found was from the past. Which is...normal. That’s just normal. That’s how time works, even here. Cecil: Yeah, we were...just...in the old landfill. Also my portable radio equipment was working fine, I just...forgot to...plug in the microphone. I was very stressed. I forget to plug in microphones when I’m stressed. Carlos: I guess the sand blew over top of it over time and hid it entirely, and the phantom ocean must have created a phantom beach next to the raised sands as a result, and we washed up on top of it. But, hey, even if my science was flawed, at least we got to spend the day together, and I got to be a big part of your show! Plus, it was my day off, so I really didn’t want to do any accurate science anyway. Cecil: Yes, we’ve never done a show together like this. It was a lot of fun even if I was terrified the entire time. Carlos: Cecil, I was scared too, but I didn’t want you to worry, so I tried to be strong, for you. And you know,  despite the suffocating fear of eternity or the dark void of ceased existence, I also wouldn’t really mind being trapped in an endless mysterious desert, as long as it’s with you. I could, quote, “Do radio broadcasts there forever”. Cecil: Aw, you were listening! And so intently. That’s almost word for word, with adorable changes in perspective. And it’s a good segue into an inappropriately sappy closing statement for tonight’s broadcast. Listeners, Steve Carlsberg, my brother in law, speaks often of lights and guiding markers in the sky, telling him exactly how the universe works. I’ve never really believed in any of that stuff.  But today, some lights in the sky showed Carlos and I the way home from the old landfill. As soon as we crested the horizon I saw them- and I’d recognize those lights no matter where they were, Arby’s or not. Sometimes I wonder if maybe they’re part of something bigger, too, like the lights in the sky Steve talks about. They lead us home today. And they lead us to each other years ago. Carlos, I’m glad we have each other. I’m glad we have this place. I’m glad we have delicious roast beef sandwiches and curly fries with horsey sauce. We have not eaten in days. I love you.

Carlos (mouth full of curly fries): Aw, Cecil, I love you too.

Cecil (mouth full of curly fries): Today’s broadcast is sponsored by Arby’s. Not officially, it’s just, (swallows), we’re currently eating Arby’s and I don’t know how to end the broadcast. I don’t normally do broadcasts off the cuff like this. Carlos: I know how to end it! Can I end it? Cecil: Well, I mean, it’s my show...I always...um. You know what, sure, it’s fine. Go ahead. Carlos: Good night, Night Vale! Carlos and Cecil: Good night.