Free The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe by Joseph Fink Page A

what we know. There is a blinking light up on the mountain. There is a mountain on the floodplain. There is a floodplain under the imminent army. There is an imminent army maybe a couple hours’ march from here. I do not believe now that we are leaving anything out.
    If you have homes, I suggest you flee them. If you have friends, I suggest you warn them. If you have children, did you not know how dangerous and unpredictable the world was when you created a defenseless tiny human within it?
    And much like Madeline LaFleur, head of the Night Vale Tourism Board, I will now control the one part of my life that is under my control. Let us go now, and I do hope we come back, to the weather.
    WEATHER: “Never Be Famous” by Hussalonia
    Well, we did come back. Here we are. Postweather.
    Carlos finally took a look at the situation. The blinking light up on the mountain and all that came with it. Horrific invading army, etc.
    â€œOh that,” he said, gesturing with a spatula he had until moments before been using to cook, “that’s a mirage. I’ve seen that one before. When you get the clouds in a certain way and the temperature is where it’s at, you can sometimes get this blinking light–mountain floodplain–masked army mirage. Wow, this is a pretty strong one. Should disappear in an hour or two.”
    And it did. Completely gone. Well, the mountain and the blinking light and the floodplain disappeared. The masked army turned out to be real, but they weren’t coming to attack us, just passing through on their way to attacking someone else, and they provided some valuable traffic for local business. A few of them even took a bus tour of Radon Canyon.
    Madeline LaFleur was both relieved and pleased. “I’m relieved,” she said. “I’m also pleased.” She still was sipping her coffee too often. Perhaps her feeling of lack of control stems from a personal issue rather than the impending doom we imagined. Stress from her failure to live up to her own self-imposed life goals for instance. Or a relationship that wasn’t exactly the relationship she had envisioned it would be.
    But who knows? No one. No one has ever known anything. Not really.
    Still, nonetheless, we have come to another end. We have come to it as we always do: blind, ignorant, groping. I take comfort in that consistency.
    There is no blinking light up on the mountain. There is no mountain towering over a muddy plain. There is no muddy plain under an invading army. There was an invading army, but they’re gone now. What is left? Well, what is always left?
    Night Vale. Our little city, our tiny town, our Night Vale. Proud. Safe. Existent.
    Stay tuned next for the background hum of the universe, amplified, and with live color commentary.
    Good night, Night Vale. Good night.
    PROVERB: Throw your hands in the air. Now your arms. Keep detaching limbs and throwing them in the air. Hopefully, the birds will be sated and leave.

EPISODE 32:
    â€œYELLOW HELICOPTERS”
    OCTOBER 1, 2013
    GUEST VOICE: JACKSON PUBLICK
    O VER THE COURSE OF OUR FIRST YEAR, WE DEVELOPED THE STORY OF Cecil and Carlos’s relationship, culminating in their getting together in episode 25, “One Year Later.” When we first started we didn’t really plan to have any long story arcs. It’s not that we rejected the idea. We just didn’t really plan any. Cecil and Carlos happened organically based on intuition.
    As year two began, we continued writing some one-off episodes (“Summer Reading Program” and “Subway,” to name a couple) with the thought that these new story lines could and would come back later, but nothing as far as a major plot arc goes.
    Then as the Dana story line unfolded with the desert otherworld, and as Joseph and I talked about what Desert Bluffs might be up to, we came to episode 32, “Yellow Helicopters.”
    We had only loosely discussed down-the-road ideas. It