Bonus Episode - February 2021 (Patreon)

Hi, Patreon! It's time once again for Cecil, Kevin, and the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home to answer your questions. (transcript below)

Music: Disparition http://disparition.bandcamp.com

Logo: Rob Wilson http://robwilsonwork.com

Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. http://welcometonightvale.com

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Produced by Night Vale Presents. http://nightvalepresents.com

TRANSCRIPT:

CECIL: The first shall be first and the last shall be last. Let’s keep this line orderly. Welcome to listener questions.

Wow, there are a lot of questions for me and I’m excited to get to them all. I’m really going to take a deep dive this time. Try to get to every single thing you wanted to know, and I’ll hold back nothing. Every secret shall be revealed, even the boring ones, and they’re mostly boring ones. I’m just not that interesting of a person, really, or not so interesting as to have exciting answers to hundreds of questions, but hey, you asked, and now you’re gonna get what you asked for.

Ok, to start off, Steve asks, “Hey, wanna grab lunch this week? Miss you buddy.” Oh wait, this isn’t a listener question. Sorry, I’m looking at my texts. Hold on.

(muttering while typing)

Sure….I’d….love….that….Miss….you….too….taco emoji……sandwhich emoji….fistbump emoji.

Ok, where was I? Oh that’s right, the first question is…

(sound of radio interference)

KEVIN: Hi gang,

Kevin from Desert Bluffs Too here.

Sorry to butt in, but I heard we’re answering questions, and well, there’s nothing I love more than providing information in a friendly and professional manner. So let’s get to it, shall we? We shall.

Heather Wolfee asks “What do you remember from before Strex, if anything?”

What do I remember from before Strex? An interesting question. I remember the earth, wet and soft under my feet. I remember the smell of green plants. I remember a candlestick that belonged either to my mother or my neighbor. I remember the smell of dish soap on a Sunday night. I remember the way my hands looked against the backseat window of my father’s car. I remember a thousand stars although some of them might be the same star remembered twice. I remember a phone number that was either my home number or the vet. I remember my cat Rocky. I remember every single second of my own birth and it was wonderful.

I remember this one story, and it was about a very old man who had never seen the world, and he decided he would see the world, and so he bought a one way ticket on a boat, this was when there were boats, you see, and he could only afford the cheapest ticket, and he sat each day on the deck, so happy that each new horizon of water was a part of the world he had not yet seen, and then the boat struck an iceberg, and it sank, and as it did he smiled and thought “now this, in my hometown, I would not in a hundred years have seen.” Anyway, he survived the wreck. Became an accountant in a new country. Ended up in Los Angeles maybe. Or Honolulu. Or France. Not sure. Don’t know what the point of the story is, but I do remember it. I hope that answers your question.

Next, Kay would like to know if I ever miss working for Strex.

Well sure. It was one of the better jobs I ever had. The benefits were great, the offices were up to date and absolutely covered in gore, and the work culture was just…you know more visceral than anything I’ve ever experienced before or since.

But I’ve had some other great jobs. When I was a teenager, before the….before the Smiling God…before…I was an usher at a movie theater. Not glamorous work, but I love the smell of popcorn, the way the hot butter stings the gums and the teeth, the shards of kernels that get stuck in the throat. And you know, movies are fine too.

I also was a temp once, at a company that’s business I did not understand. I didn’t understand my job either. I would enter this great glass cube of a building, baked hot in the middle of a vast, mostly empty parking lot. And it was full of desk after desk, each with a person in business casual clothes, hunched over a computer displaying numbers and letters, rows of data that I don’t think any of us understood. And I would hurry in and sit at my designated desk, and stare for 8 hours at my screen, doing nothing, understanding nothing. Then I would go home. I wouldn’t talk to anyone and no one would talk to me. After two weeks, they told me the project was complete, and I would not be able to find them again. Which was weird phrasing, so I drove over just out of curiosity and sure enough, the entire office was gone. The building itself, vanished. All that was left was the parking lot, endless, empty, searing hot in the sun. I got out of my car, and took off my shoes, and pressed my feet into the ground until I couldn’t take it anymore, and then a little longer still. And, for the first time, I really and truly smiled.

But yeah, Strex was a great job. Thanks Kay.

Mickey asks: “A while back you said Lauren can "by no means" call you "Kev". Was that specifically toward her or do you just not like nicknames for yourself? Is there anyone that does call you Kev? Or any other nicknames?”

Oh, it was specifically to her. As for the rest of you, you also cannot call me Kev. That is specifically to each and every one of you. You are all specifically forbidden. I hope that is specific enough for you.

No one calls me Kev except my father, and that was only once he had moved into his scuttle-state, once he had entered the walls and nested. I would hear my father then, late at night, the frantic whisper of hundreds of legs and the slow, drowning croak: “keeeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvv” “Yes papa? Is that you?” And he would shudder and so the whole house would shudder and he would wail “KEEEEEEEVVVV” with what was left of his lungs. Ah, childhood memories really make you nostalgic, you know?

As for other nicknames you can call me, well, there are none. But I’m not opposed to it, in theory. Some nicknames I might not mind…let’s see:

The Bronco

Silverhands

Big Tony Two Shoes

Moon Hater

The Kevin So Nice They Named Him Twice

Xerxes

and

Nate

So feel free to try one of those. I can’t predict how I’ll react if you do though. I never can. Your safety is, as always, not guaranteed.

(sound of radio interference)

CECIL: I’m sorry about that, listeners. That was terrible for all of us, but I have control of the broadcast back, and I’m ready to answer every single one of your questions. I won’t skip one! Ok, let’s get right to it. The first question is from-

(A sound of a cable being pulled and then a dead air hum.)

FOW: Hello. The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home here. Cecil is blabbing away about something, as usual. Not sure what. So while he’s busy with that, I’ll take over this frequency and answer some of your questions.

Our first question comes from Ace. Ace asks: “Where in my house do you like to stay the most?”

Oh, I like to be near you, Ace. I like you to feel my breath on the back of your neck, or wisping by the hairs on your upper arms, a tingle on your spine. I like to curl myself very small and hide under the chair you’re sitting in, or stretch myself thin and strange, and plaster myself on the ceiling directly above your head. No. Don’t look up. You wouldn’t like it.

Sometimes I enjoy taking the form of furniture or objects you have. So you turn back and think, wait a second, was my desk lamp just now an impossibly entwined old lady, a loose knot of flesh and bent bone? It couldn’t have been right? Could it? Could it??

I hope that answers your question Ace. If not, please feel free to whisper your follow up. I can hear you clearly from where I am, even if you talk so, so quietly.

Our next question is from Noah Alexander. Noah would like to know: “Living in the desert, do you ever find yourself missing the sea?”

Yes. I miss the salt air and the living water. I miss the cries of people who are playing or drowning, each cry distinct and beautiful in its own way. I miss the fish, each of whom I knew by name. I miss the coral, although you all will miss the coral soon.

But my place is here, in this dry and desolate town. My path led here, and it has not led me anywhere else since, and so I remain, in your home, secretly.

H.G. Warrender (WAR-rehn-dur) has this to say: “I keep finding stains and creases on my clothes, even when I have not worn them. Do you know anything about this?”

No. How dare you. How dare you. How dare you. And would it kill you to buy clothes in a few different sizes? It’d be nice to try something that fits me for once.

Finally Alicia Atkins queries: “How do you think the world will end?

That’s a great question.

I think it ends with a pop, and then a fizz. After that there is a low snuffling. Then a series of sharp snaps, like a child’s hand clapping, only not. Then a sound like a nail running along a plaster wall. A sound like a heartbeat, only bigger. A sound like teeth. You know, the sound that teeth make? That sound. Then a sound like a car engine, only smaller. A sound like ocean waves, only they aren’t waves, are they? What are they? What could be making that sound? Then the sound of electricity, a razzle and a spark. Then finally one wet gulp and we’re done.

So I think it’ll go a little like that.

Oh, Cecil is finishing up. I should slip out before he notices that no one can hear him.

(the clunk of a cable being plugged back in and the rev up of the broadcast back into life)

CECIL: ….what a great question to end on. I’d say pink when I’m feeling flirty, a deep green when I’m feeling sporty. That’s why I like to have several denture options, so I can follow my mood, you know?

Ok, and that’s every single question that has been asked so far. This is great! You know just about everything there is to know about me. All right, we’ll need to wrap up, my producer is waving frantically from the other side of the glass. It seems he has something to tell me. Well, whatever it is, it can’t ruin the mood of finally giving every answer you could possibly want.

Yes, yes, ok, I’ll be right out.

Stay tuned next for the sound of an egg cracking slowed down enough that it lasts a full two hours.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.