The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe (2 page)

I Googled “Night Vale” to find some explanation for where these millions of downloads were coming from. Surely some major television network had told everyone to listen to our show. Nope. We searched Twitter for mentions. We found nothing that would indicate such a surge in popularity. We had comic book–style interrobangs above our heads that whole summer.

Then a friend of Cecil's said, “Hey, Cecil. You should search your name on Tumblr.” Boom.
Night Vale
was everywhere on Tumblr. Fan art. Fan fiction. Slash fiction. Arguments over canon. Lovefests over how cute Cecil and Carlos were. Heck Yeah Tamika Flynn. And so on. We were no longer giddy. We were . . . um . . . errr . . . [
wild gesticulation
].

“How did you do it? How did you make such a successful thing?” We're not marketers or demographics experts. We're just writers who've never had more than a couple hundred people ever watch or read or listen to anything we've ever created. Honestly, we made a successful thing in the exact same way we made every other nonsuccessful thing we'd done prior.

Here are a few things I think contributed to the show's popularity, though.

One: I think we wrote a good story. That's not bragging. At this point in my life, I feel like I'm a good writer. I'm not saying I can guarantee bestsellers or that other people will like my work, but that I know mostly what I'm doing. Joseph and I have been writing and creating (and Cecil has been acting) long enough to know what is good art. Good art is, of course, no guarantee of popular or critical success, but it is almost certainly a prerequisite for those things.

You can always argue subjective quality of art, but there are quite a few objective measurements of art as well. We put out a show twice a month, on time. It is of consistent length and format. We consider limitations of the medium, universe continuity, social issues, and we have a thorough editing schedule and process.

Two: Episode 25, “First Date,” was posted on June 15, 2013. In this episode, we see the culmination of the relationship between host Cecil Palmer and Carlos the scientist. Many fans have told us that this relationship means so much to them.

Quite a bit of popular fiction (whether book or movie or television) features teased-out will-they-won't-they same-sex relationships.
^*
These couples are drawn close but never allowed to get together as a loving couple. Joseph, Cecil, and I were more interested in a couple that falls in love without getting hung up on outdated hetero-assumptive conditions.

Combine this with the fan fiction community on Tumblr, where many fans had been writing Cecil/Carlos slash fiction, creatively narrating these two men together before they were canonically together. And then, bam, they're not heterosexual, and they're in love. It's canon. Tumblr explodes into flower-crowns and Arby's logos.

Three: No one else was doing what we were doing at the time. The
Thrilling Adventure Hour
is the one exception I can think of, but their show was primarily a live show that was recorded and then distributed in segments via podcasting platforms. (
Note
: The
TAH
folks were crazy helpful when we first started touring live shows. We did a couple of crossover shows with those guys, which were great fun.) But as far as podcasts go, there weren't any long-form fiction serials in early 2012, and certainly none that were like
Night Vale
.

Ultimately, though, the answer to why a thing gets popular is “who knows?” I mean, once it is popular, it's easy to come up with all kinds of reasons. Really though, we were successful from the moment we began because we were making a thing we liked and respected with people we liked and respected. We are still doing this. It just involves live show tours, novels, scripts books, starting a podcast network, etc., now.

But even if, four years later, it were the same fifty or so people listening from episode one, we'd still be doing this. We'd have different day jobs than we have now, but we'd be pleased to be making art we loved with people we loved. That's really the only kind of success you have control over.

—Jeffrey Cranor, cowriter of
Welcome to Night Vale

^*
This was true when I wrote this introduction. I hope it is not still true in whatever future time you live in.

EPISODE 26:

“FACELESS OLD WOMAN”

JULY 1, 2013

GUEST VOICE: MARA WILSON

I'
VE ALWAYS WANTED TO BE SCARY
.

There's no question that I was an intense little kid, but there was never anything scary about me. My earliest memories are of being surrounded by grown-ups and cool big kids. I wanted to be one of them, powerful and intimidating. I knew I wasn't. I couldn't do all the things by which I judged people to be grown up: I was afraid to watch scary movies, to go on roller coasters, to cross the street by myself. They weren't. They were free, they were brave, and worst of all, they got to know everything.

I had to find my own way. I listened in on every conversation within earshot. I went through my brother's backpacks and my mother's purses. I'd often get in trouble, but I couldn't help myself. Other people's business was just more interesting than my own.

When I got a little older, having successfully leveraged my middle-child syndrome into a somewhat successful child acting career, people would ask me if I was anything like the characters I played. The answer was usually yes. Superficially, they were all like me. I was a little girl, my characters were all little girls. Most of them like to read and use big words. Some of them were mischievous, and had a bit of my desire to learn everything, to get in on whatever it was the grown-ups and other kids were talking about. It was never the driving need in them that it was in me.

There's only been one character who has that same drive. She's nothing like me. She doesn't care about scary movies or roller coasters, and she doesn't need to cross the street. But she's everywhere, and she knows how I feel, and she understands. She knows and she understands more than anyone.

And there's no way I would have ever had this chance if Joseph, Jeffrey, Meg, Cecil, and the whole
Night Vale
crew hadn't let me tag along. The cool big kids have given me what I always wanted.

—Mara Wilson, Voice of the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home

Trumpets playing soft jazz from out of the dark desert distance. They come tomorrow. It is too late for us.

WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE.

Did you know there's a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home? It's true. She's there now. She's always there, just out of your sight. Always just out of your sight.

Because you cannot see her, you were probably completely unaware that this woman likes to sift through photos of you and your loved ones. She softly touches each face as if wishing it were her own, or perhaps claiming it as her own, or perhaps simply cursing that person. It's hard to say. You've never seen her doing this.

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home does lots of things. Ever wonder why your Web browser's history is filled with Bing searches for (quote) pictures of dead wolves or (quote) the melting point of birds? Or why sometimes your shower drain gets clogged with organ meats or why sometimes you hear crying from behind the walls? Or scratching at the front door? Or you awaken to find long silver hairs on the pillow next to you?

Or maybe you've never noticed any of those things. You've lived your life to this point completely oblivious to this old woman who has no face. And truth be told, I think she's probably harmless. But maybe you shouldn't sleep in your home anymore. Just in case.

Ladies and gentlemen, Dana has continued to send me texts from beyond the tall, black fences of the Dog Park. Even though the Dog Park is forbidden to citizens and their dogs, Dana managed to get in and is now trapped there for who knows how long.

First off, she says she's okay. She says she has met some nice people and she's never bored. She met the Man in the Tan Jacket who has been haunting this city for the past few months. In fact, Dana says the Man in the Tan Jacket is quite nice, and they've really struck up quite a friendship.

She's still trying to figure out what the man's involvement is with the hooded figures and the recently deceased Apache Tracker and the tiny, underground civilization of warmongers who live below lane five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. He has seemed to pop up in relation to a lot of strange events.

She's also trying to figure out what he looks like. Every time she steps away from that guy she can't remember a thing about him, just that he's wearing a tan jacket and carrying a deerskin briefcase.

Oh, and that briefcase, Dana says, is kind of weird because it's full of flies, and that's kind of creepy at first until you realize that he's a fly salesman and that they're all trained. They can retrieve mail and speak German and play dead and all kinds of cute things. She says he's a pretty cool guy if you get to know him.

Oh, and I almost forgot, Dana wonders if any listeners with a good arm can get kind of close to the Dog Park and throw some beans or chips or beef jerky or something over the tall fence. She's very hungry. In fact, it took me a while to get through her typos, listeners, she must be shaking really badly.

And now a public service announcement from the Greater Night Vale Medical Community. Are you feeling run-down, even after eight hours of sleep? Are you having trouble breathing between the hours of two and four? Are you gaining several extra pounds of weight only to lose those pounds suddenly and then gain them back, all in five- to six-hour stretches of time? Are you craving soil, like all the time? Rich, dark soil that you just want cooling your tongue, filling your throat, your sinuses, your lungs, your belly? Are you digging up the earth in the early morning, screaming at the half-formed sun, as if it would cordially leave, returning you to the darkness you so richly deserve and physiologically demand?

If you answered yes to all of those questions, then you're fine. The program is working. All tests have been successful and phase four is imminent. This has been Community Health Tips.

More on the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home. She has issued a statement to the media just now. Here is that statement.

FACELESS OLD WOMAN:
I'm confused. There's no sense to how you organize the objects in your fridge. I cannot determine any sense of order. What systems do you use to contain your vegetables, your cans, your jars, your food stains? There are stains. Organic brown and pink smears that tell the esoteric history of your food. I like the yellowish one near the crisper because I think it is the oldest. It has a topography.

Oh, I do not like all of these bugs you have in your home. I like some of them. I also changed your sheets. You do not change your sheets enough. I do not think you are unsanitary, but I think you would feel better if you changed your sheets from time to time. And time is weird because it doesn't exist for me in the same way, so your sheets are already covered with your bones and hair and blood, but not yet. Not really yet.

I wish you could see me. Just cleaning and reorganizing. Making sense of the nonsense plants and muscles in your fridge. But you never look. If you would just glance left or right every so often, you'd see me. I'm right next to you, right now. I'm even in the mirrors. But you just stare at yourself. Staring only at your overripe potato of a face. I'm there in every mirror, if you could just look for me in the background behind you.

Also what's your Wi-Fi password?

CECIL:
So that's the old woman's special announcement. I have no idea how we received that recording, who recorded it, or how an old woman with no face (and by extension, no mouth) could speak so clearly. But it was very informative.