Carlos closed the door as he exited.
“There’s no need for us to try to open this door, or look into these windows anymore,” he said. “The otherworld will stay where it is. I’ll keep my eyes on this world, where all the people I love are.”
Cecil, who had waited anxiously outside as Carlos did his rescue missions, swept him into a kiss.
“I would trade all of Night Vale for you,” Cecil said. He kissed Carlos again, a lengthy kiss that smashed their lips and hurt a little. A kiss that expressed not just love but anxiety and relief, all the worry of the past couple weeks pushed into a kiss. Breaking off, he added, “But I would really prefer not to. You stay away from desert otherworlds.”
All of this was broadcast on the radio. Cecil broadcast almost everything he did on the radio, to the gentle exasperation of an understanding town.
Luisa and Mark had dismantled Carlos’s machine. Mark used one of the scrap mechanical parts to improve his own machine. It now made a bright flash, followed by a loud bang, followed by a puff of smoke. Mark knew he could now apply for some quite prestigious scientific research grants.
Luisa used the giant metal frame of Carlos’s machine to build a potato garden. “These are going to be the most disappointing potatoes I’ve ever grown,” she said. Mark agreed with her, and she thanked him for supporting her efforts.
“Maybe we could get a drink sometime,” Mark said. “Like, I mean not a date, but a date.”
“I’m sorry,” said Luisa. “I’m only interested in potatoes.”
“That’s okay,” said Mark. “Grab drinks as friends?”
Luisa smiled.
“No,” she said. And then she went back to being disappointed in her potatoes. She was genuinely only interested in potatoes.
Nilanjana had gone with Darryl, Stephanie, and Jamillah to check in on people who had lost their homes or businesses. Stephanie—appointed a Church Elder through an emergency vote by the Congregation—had set up a Joyous Congregation Fund for Rebuilding Night Vale (or JoCoFuFoReNiVa for short). They sent out several church and community volunteers to help rebuild Big Rico’s, the high school gymnasium, the coffee shops, and Larry Leroy’s home, among many, many others.
Several local businesses gave contributions—including a nice donation from the Last Bank of Night Vale, with a little urging from bank employee Steve Carlsberg. Larry would have to start over on his creative legacy, but now that there was an awareness of his artwork, he converted part of his house to the Larry Leroy Public Museum of Art, Out on the Edge of Town.
After a long day painting the exterior walls on Larry’s new house, Darryl and Nilanjana collapsed, exhausted, at her apartment, which was still only her apartment, but had a growing number of Darryl’s books and clothes and toiletries in it.
She leaned back into Darryl’s outstretched arms and sighed. He sighed too. They were happy, tired sighs.
“Thank you,” Darryl said.
“For what?” Nilanjana murmured.
“I haven’t really said this, since, uh, since the centipede thing, but it’s been tough trying to understand what I’m doing with my life, what my church has brought me to.”
He paused, trying to find the right words through the haze of sleepiness and alcohol.
“When we killed that thing, I was happy because we were safe, but I also knew we killed a god. We killed the god of our religion, and, I don’t know. I couldn’t see it as a metaphor anymore. I couldn’t go back to that thinking. And then there was the fact that my pastor, who I trusted, who I followed, was trying to destroy Night Vale.
“I’ve been in a bad way over this, wanting to leave the church, because it just didn’t mean anything anymore.
“But this rebuilding stuff. It’s given me meaning. Or not me. It’s given the church meaning for me. Our god is dead, but lots of gods are dead. It doesn’t make them . . . you know, less. What matters is the people who are alive and there with me, working toward a common cause, following a common set of values. Stephanie and Jamillah. They still believe. I don’t think I believe anymore. But I also don’t think I have to. Religion can be something you do, not something you believe. And that can have just as much meaning.”
He took a sip of wine, more out of self-consciousness in conversation than actual enjoyment of what was a mediocre cabernet. He had meant everything he said, and it had come out as earnest and sincere. In coming to new terms with his religion, in dropping the necessity of absolute belief in divine joy, he had connected to something in himself, and he no longer came off as sarcastic or false.
“It was meaningful that you joined me, Nilanjana. Thank you.”
“That’s sweet. You’re welcome.” She nuzzled his armpit with her back with a happy wiggle.
“I know you aren’t religious and especially not into the Joyous Congregation, but you’ve been so supportive of me these past weeks. And whether you know it or not, you’ve made me better. A better person, I mean.”
She turned and looked at his face. She had a hypothesis. Or no. Something solid and backed by all available evidence. A theory.
“Darryl Ramirez. I really like you.”
“I really like you too.” His face flushed with warm blood and mediocre wine.
“Stephanie, and Jamillah too. I like them so much. You have great friends, and I feel like I do too now. I’m not joining the church. I hope that’s cool with you. It’s the same way I wouldn’t expect you to learn science and join our lab. We have different things. But we could do those different things side by side, in parallel, you know?”
“I think if there’s one thing we learned these last couple weeks, it’s that both of our things are pretty interesting,” he said.
“Right? Maybe it’s just the stress of all the danger recently. And having survived that danger together,” Nilanjana said. “But having a person in this town who could be with me when I’m not working, who could be with me after the pesticides and disappointing potatoes and otherworld dimensional rifts. Who could make me laugh and let me cry and . . .”
Darryl grinned.
“I know. I know. It’s hokey. Fine. I’m hokey.”
“Are we doing this, then?” Darryl asked.
“Sure. I’m not that tired.” She began to unbutton his shirt.
He laughed. “No. I mean are we doing this? You and me. Are we together? Differences and all. Are we going to make this work?”
She leaned in and kissed him. His lips were soft, warm, and sticky sweet. They kissed for a long time. She was too tired to think of centipedes or churches. Inside her mind was the deep black of the night sky. No stars, no moons or planets, just an infinite darkness from well before Creation, from long after Entropy.
In that darkness there was only Darryl’s smell, and the feel of him. His breath, his skin, his hair. The soft, warm lips, purple with a $9.99 cabernet from Ralphs. Nilanjana ran her tongue lightly along them as she pulled away. The wine tasted better that way.
“Of course,” she said.
They looked into each other’s eyes, smiling, giggling, palms on each other’s cheeks. They were kissing again. Time passed and neither of them knew how much. She reached across him and turned off the television, the last light left that night. And in the dark, just against his ear, she whispered: “I’m glad this all worked out.”
39
It didn’t work out.
That’s a simplification. Just because something eventually doesn’t work out doesn’t mean it never worked out. It was working out fine until, not much later, it wasn’t working out at all.
Happiness is not canceled out by unhappiness. A relationship is not canceled out by its end.
But try telling that to either of them, who, while still friends in a shaky, tentative sort of way, regarded the connection they had as an anomaly, a closeness brought on by shared danger mistaken for a true and lasting romance.
There were a few weeks when it had seemed like it would really work. The sex was good, the conversations we
re interesting and involved a lot of fascinating disagreements on the nature of science and religion and existence. They went on dates and, even more intimately, didn’t go on dates, sitting on her couch or his couch and watching trashy but addictive reality television, like Orbs! or So You Think You Can Slowly Freeze to Death? She would put her head on his shoulder, or he would put his head on her shoulder and one of them would sleep on the other, and they were both warm, temperature-wise, which feels quite a bit like love.
Then there were a few weeks when it seemed like it would maybe work. The sex was still good, but the fascinating disagreements were just arguments now, ones that circled around the same subjects and fractaled out in all directions, encompassing topics that had not been related to the conversation until they were suddenly being disagreed upon, and neither of them knew why. And they had watched every season of Orbs!, and he wanted to go on to SphereZone, but she thought it looked like an uninspired spin-off. Still, though, there was warmth and shoulders and it seemed wrong to drop something so promising, which had recently felt so intense, just because the intensity was harder to find.
And then there was the week when it would not work. They tried to make it work, and it didn’t. The disagreements were everywhere, no matter which way they steered the conversation, and they annoyed her so much that she didn’t want to watch TV with him, and it was still warm on that couch together but maybe the warmth no longer felt like love but just like human closeness when sometimes she wanted to be alone. The sex was still good but it wasn’t enough. And she said exactly that to him. It was right after they had had sex, so the timing was awkward, but it was also true, and he knew it was true. He said he knew it was true, and they were both agreeing that it was true, and then they realized that meant they weren’t dating anymore. They were naked in bed together and no longer a couple, and it was weird. And he got dressed and left.
“How’s, um, science stuff going?” he asked.
They were having coffee at the Spikey Hammer. It had been a few months, and they both wanted to be friends and were doing their best to make it happen. Because it was no longer a date, they no longer had to go to fancy places with disappointing drinks. Instead they could go to their favorite coffee shop and order their usuals. Darryl even got the barista to smile at him, after complimenting the coffee in a genuine, warm tone.
“The science stuff’s been good,” she said. And then she realized it actually had been good, even though she had only said that on reflex, and so she said it again. “It’s been really good actually. I was promoted to be Carlos’s main assistant. He says that he can’t let himself lose the context of the science he’s doing anymore. Science is only a tool, and, without knowing why you’re using that tool, you can accidentally do terrible things. He wants me to help him not do terrible things. Which is a pretty great job. Plus I get to do my own little hobby projects still. Like the pharmaceutical work and the pesticides. I don’t want to end up, you know, being disappointed in potatoes, trying to win awards, and feeling like that’s all there is to a scientific life.”
“That’s fantastic, Nilanjana,” Darryl said. He waved his fist in the air, part celebration, and part a knowing parody of his usual move. She laughed, which made him laugh. The conversation felt easier.
“What about you?” she said. “Still thinking of taking over Gordon’s job?”
“Yeah,” he said, thoughtfully swirling around the pebbles and moss in his Americano. “There’s a lot of administrative stuff to deal with. I mean, the pastor was misguided, but she was good at making that whole machine move. A church is a business that can’t feel like a business to anyone but the people running it. That’s a tricky thing. Stephanie’s been great at holding services though. She and I have been”—he paused, gauging Nilanjana’s reaction—“seeing each other, actually.”
“That’s great,” Nilanjana said and meant it. “You and her are perfect for each other. Is it . . .” It could be a terrible question. “Is it weird to pray to a Smiling God when you know we killed the Smiling God?” It was a terrible question. “I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” he said, and it was. His faith was solid, and so there was no question that could bother him. “I know I said that my God was dead, but that was right after. I was still so confused. I realize now that we didn’t kill the Smiling God. We killed a giant bug. Maybe some of our prophets, like Kevin, mistook that bug for the Smiling God. But I know in my heart that our God is not a hungry centipede.”
Nilanjana nodded. Now that she had no stake in Darryl’s beliefs, and his life did not intersect with her life, she was able to say, sincerely, “Okay. Cool.”
“I mean, look at the pastor. She believed in the literality of the Smiling God and it got her eaten. We’re not going to repeat her mistakes.”
“Carlos and I actually had an argument about the Smiling God. Because I was there when we summoned it. I saw the Summoning ritual work. He says that it was a coincidence, that his machine opened a hole into the otherworld, which the centipede came through, and that just by chance it happened as we were doing a meaningless ritual.”
“He could be right,” Darryl said, shrugging. “It’s not my thing, but your science hits on correct answers more than not, even if it doesn’t know what to do with those answers.”
“There’s a lot of data that supports his view. But, I don’t know.” She poked at the metal shavings and cinnamon on her coffee with her spoon. “Some part of me believes that the ritual worked. I don’t have any numbers, but I was there. I just know in my gut that we did it.”
“Looks like a little of my faith rubbed off. Anyway, hard to say either way if the ritual happened simultaneously with Carlos’s experiment.” He winked. “Time is weird, right?”
She didn’t know whether to grin and acknowledge his flirtation or roll her eyes and acknowledge his hokey joke, so she hedged her bet and did both. There was a long pause in their conversation. Because they were navigating a brand-new dynamic, this particular silence felt dense.
Pamela Winchell sat at the table next to them listening to their conversation. She still followed them, but only as a friendly gesture. Friendly gestures are thoroughly subjective things. She raised her mug.
“Here’s to the moon,” she said through her amplifier. It was never quite clear what she meant by anything.
They raised their mugs back, and then looked at each other and laughed again. And it was right then that they both realized that, though they had failed to have a relationship, they were, just then, starting to succeed at having a friendship.
“Interloper!” shouted a man in a yellow trucker hat who had been quietly having a latte by the window. He wasn’t pointing at Nilanjana. He was smiling a natural-looking smile.
“Nice to see you again, Kareem,” she said.
“Nice to see you, too, Nilanjana,” he said, returning his attention to his coffee. He was cute. She would go talk to him after Darryl left.
She imagined myriad possible outcomes, from a friendly shout of “Interloper” and a welcoming smile to a partner like Cecil who would sleep next to you, worry about your safety, hold your hand, make dinner, do chores, take vacations with you, raise dogs or children, and accept all facets of your being. Looking at Kareem, she had no expectations, only knew now that people were worth meeting. Everyone in that coffee shop was a member of the same town as she was, a town she was not remotely close to understanding, but whose weird messiness she was starting to accept.
Not everyone believes in mountains, yet there they are, in plain sight. They ring this desert like the rim of an empty dinner plate. Scattered sparsely along the flat middle are small towns with names like Red Mesa, Pine Cliff, and, right in the center, Night Vale, believing none of it.
As they say, seeing isn’t believing. Smelling and touching aren’t believing either. Strangely, hearing is often believing.
Much of this story is hard to believe, even for the people who experienced it. After all, to believe in the black hel
icopters that circle overhead, monitoring everything we do, that is easy. To believe in the distant, flitting UFOs that use our world as their laboratory or, a more horrifying possibility, their playground, that is simple. But to believe in a giant centipede, worshiped as a god, arriving here from some other desert world? Well, that is a lot to ask.
Of course, for some involved, this story was easy to believe. They had grown up believing it, and so it was only a manifestation of what they already expected of the world.
What is experienced and what is believed are not often related. As a qualified scientist like Nilanjana could tell you, correlation is not causation. She could also tell you that feeling close to someone is not the same as love. And that what is felt completely in one moment becomes a flat memory of that feeling in the next moment, easy to recall but difficult to re-create. Her qualification as a scientist would not be why she could tell you this.
Darryl could tell you that experience is irrelevant to belief. Because experience is only life, while belief is happiness. After all, what is the harm in a fanciful belief if it carries a person happily from the start to the finish? If they die thinking incorrectly that the world has been good to them, would it have been better for them to die knowing that it has been indifferent and random? What is, he would ask, the sound argument for seeing the world as it is if it is possible to see the world as it isn’t? Then he would do that circling fist thing in the air.
And here is where Nilanjana would sigh, finish her drink, and leave.
Take any person from Night Vale, and try to convince them of mountains. Tell them about altitude. Try to explain to them the feeling of cold air, of breath turning to steam, of red cheeks and noses. Tell them stories about people who have gone to high places, for good reasons and for silly reasons. Tell them stories of people who have lived their entire lives among the highest places, and of others who came great distances to die on top of some mountain they had never seen before. Tell them about mountain passes, about armies crossing them, about invasions and the turning of civilizations. Trace for them the history of the world, and how often it has been shaped by literal peaks and valleys. Show them a mountain. Point to a mountain and say, This was here before you, it will be here after you, it doesn’t need you in order to exist, and when you die the contour of its rocks will not be changed at all.