Cecil Palmer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
staytunednext) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
snowblindrpg2016-07-02 10:01 pm
staytunednext) wrote in snowblindrpg2016-07-02 10:01 pm
network @nvcr; day 134; evening; open
Well now, Listeners. Well.
[Cecil is not the radio host of this community. But he is a radio host, and this is a community, and they have been thrown together through inescapable circumstances for the time being. He cannot resist the urge to report. His voice is low and smooth, almost crooning.]
Wasn't that a fun few days? Such a lot has happened since I last reported to you; in fact, everything has happened since I last reported to you because I have never reported to you before. Not properly. Where to start, Listeners? I suppose with the team building exercises that we recently took part in. I have never been on one of the teams randomly selected to undergo a series of tests in darkness and terror, all panted breaths and the looming certainty of death a constant presence, in order to save the lives of others held hostage. Not by men with guns, not this time, but by their own bodies. And I have to say that it was a singularly wonderful experience.
No, not wonderful. Petrifying.
I am happy to relate to you, Listeners, that I was one of those lucky enough to survive. I was able to burst forth from the darkness of those underground mazes into the darkness of my own existentially insignificant life, safe in the knowledge that I was alive. A certainty cemented each passing second by the painful thudding of my working, wet, real heart.
What did we learn from this experience? What purpose was given for our loss of blood, our loss of limb, our loss of innocence? I know what I learned, Listeners, but what did you learn? Think on it carefully over the coming days, ponder it until you have managed to trick yourself into believing there was a reason or rhyme behind your suffering. And when you have found that reason, whisper it to the Admin. She seems lonely and could probably use a few friends. But, I mean, when you take on a busy corporate role such as administration, isn't that what always happens? I'm sure we've all seen it time and time again. Slow down, Helen, we say to our collective friend as she pursues her new career. Leave work at home for once, spend some time with your family. But she does not listen. And slowly everybody that cared about her begin to drift away. Her sense of individuality begins to drift away. Her very body begins to drift away. Until she is nothing but loneliness and tentacles and a minimum wage salary. Until even that fades away.
Until she is nothing.
[He pauses, a few beats of silence. His voice, which had darkened ominously on that final sentence, lightens again. Bright and cheery as if a switch has been flipped.]
And now for a Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.
Kids, can anomalies hurt you? [A slight pause. A chuckle.] Yes. Yes, they can.
This has been the Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.
[He pauses. He pauses a second time. Two distinct pauses that simply run on from one another.]
Ah-- aha. This is a little bit embarrassing, Listeners, but I don't have a weather report for you today. I don't have any traffic announcements for you today. I don't have any officially mandated government orders for you today. I hope you will all forgive me for this. It's not very professional, but then... here, I am not professional, am I? Nobody is paying me to sit at my tablet, which is a poor excuse for a sound booth and microphone, and speak to you all. Nobody has. But, if anyone out there listening works for this particular vague yet menacing government agency, then please give me a call!
Because what is a community without a radio host to hold it together? That is not a question that I, for one, would like to know the answer to.
Let me leave you with a Public Service Announcement about safety in this snowy little corner of reality that we all currently call our own. Clothes. Clothes are supposed to keep you warm, their comforting layers swathing your bodies in a protective cocoon against the elements. But our clothes here are not keeping us warm. We are all so very cold. So, dear Listeners, why don't you burn an item of your clothing? Burn it in front of the other ones so that they understand that you're not messing around any longer and that they should really think about doing their jobs a bit better. And if that doesn't work, then burn the rest of them. What good were they doing you anyway? You'll at least get a nice fire out of it, right?
So, Listeners, as we all go into the darkening night. Some of us missing our friends, some of us missing our limbs, some of us missing our very lives; let me wish you all, from the bottom of my heart, a good night.
[Cecil is not the radio host of this community. But he is a radio host, and this is a community, and they have been thrown together through inescapable circumstances for the time being. He cannot resist the urge to report. His voice is low and smooth, almost crooning.]
Wasn't that a fun few days? Such a lot has happened since I last reported to you; in fact, everything has happened since I last reported to you because I have never reported to you before. Not properly. Where to start, Listeners? I suppose with the team building exercises that we recently took part in. I have never been on one of the teams randomly selected to undergo a series of tests in darkness and terror, all panted breaths and the looming certainty of death a constant presence, in order to save the lives of others held hostage. Not by men with guns, not this time, but by their own bodies. And I have to say that it was a singularly wonderful experience.
No, not wonderful. Petrifying.
I am happy to relate to you, Listeners, that I was one of those lucky enough to survive. I was able to burst forth from the darkness of those underground mazes into the darkness of my own existentially insignificant life, safe in the knowledge that I was alive. A certainty cemented each passing second by the painful thudding of my working, wet, real heart.
What did we learn from this experience? What purpose was given for our loss of blood, our loss of limb, our loss of innocence? I know what I learned, Listeners, but what did you learn? Think on it carefully over the coming days, ponder it until you have managed to trick yourself into believing there was a reason or rhyme behind your suffering. And when you have found that reason, whisper it to the Admin. She seems lonely and could probably use a few friends. But, I mean, when you take on a busy corporate role such as administration, isn't that what always happens? I'm sure we've all seen it time and time again. Slow down, Helen, we say to our collective friend as she pursues her new career. Leave work at home for once, spend some time with your family. But she does not listen. And slowly everybody that cared about her begin to drift away. Her sense of individuality begins to drift away. Her very body begins to drift away. Until she is nothing but loneliness and tentacles and a minimum wage salary. Until even that fades away.
Until she is nothing.
[He pauses, a few beats of silence. His voice, which had darkened ominously on that final sentence, lightens again. Bright and cheery as if a switch has been flipped.]
And now for a Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.
Kids, can anomalies hurt you? [A slight pause. A chuckle.] Yes. Yes, they can.
This has been the Children's Fun Fact Science Corner.
[He pauses. He pauses a second time. Two distinct pauses that simply run on from one another.]
Ah-- aha. This is a little bit embarrassing, Listeners, but I don't have a weather report for you today. I don't have any traffic announcements for you today. I don't have any officially mandated government orders for you today. I hope you will all forgive me for this. It's not very professional, but then... here, I am not professional, am I? Nobody is paying me to sit at my tablet, which is a poor excuse for a sound booth and microphone, and speak to you all. Nobody has. But, if anyone out there listening works for this particular vague yet menacing government agency, then please give me a call!
Because what is a community without a radio host to hold it together? That is not a question that I, for one, would like to know the answer to.
Let me leave you with a Public Service Announcement about safety in this snowy little corner of reality that we all currently call our own. Clothes. Clothes are supposed to keep you warm, their comforting layers swathing your bodies in a protective cocoon against the elements. But our clothes here are not keeping us warm. We are all so very cold. So, dear Listeners, why don't you burn an item of your clothing? Burn it in front of the other ones so that they understand that you're not messing around any longer and that they should really think about doing their jobs a bit better. And if that doesn't work, then burn the rest of them. What good were they doing you anyway? You'll at least get a nice fire out of it, right?
So, Listeners, as we all go into the darkening night. Some of us missing our friends, some of us missing our limbs, some of us missing our very lives; let me wish you all, from the bottom of my heart, a good night.
no subject
no subject
[Don't be so stupid, Stein.]
You really don't sound like you have any idea how community radio works.
no subject
no subject
[Sorry, all other threads of conversation are being summarily ignored as Cecil sounds as excited as a kid at an amusement park.]
I thought there weren't any here to help guide us and keep us safe through the dangers and mysteries that we face. But of course you're here; like Carlos says, a scientist is always here. Even if it's just in a figurative sense, an emotional sense, when we wish it could be a very literal sense.
no subject
Everyone has the capability to be a scientist. Even you.
no subject
[He's practically giddy now.]
I definitely have a keen interest in science, I've always been super into science.
no subject
no subject
It's just so-- neat!
[There's the definite impression he's been bursting to talk about this for ages. Because he has. He's always bursting for any excuse to talk about Carlos.]
In Night Vale there are a lot of scientists. There were more, a whole team, but many of them were unfortunately taken away by Strex Corp and only some of them have returned from their forced incarceration in the abandoned Home Depot store. There were more, but the one who is the guiding light of our science is not there now. He is in a desert otherworld which is also apparently scientifically interesting, which is fine. I mean, I'm glad he's having fun and making all these new discoveries, and I know that a scientist is always dedicated to patterns and chants and desperate thoughts that the rest of us can't comprehend, but--
But I miss him, you know?
And now I'm here, and I don't even have any cell phone reception to call him and let him know where I am. Not in the literal sense, because none of us know where we literally are in this strange landscape that pretends to be Alaska, but in the way that he can hear my voice and he knows that I still exist and I know that he still exists and that's good. That's all that matters for the moment, that we both exist in a time and a space where we can talk to one another, and when that's compared to all the people who have existed in times and spaces where that's not possible then it makes us close.
It makes us together, even if we are not together in our physical bodies.
no subject
[Stein was not prepared. Normally, people know better than to gush at him about their relationships. Maybe if he just... acknowledges that he heard it, he won't have to do anything like give advice.]
That sounds... upsetting.
no subject
[He's warming to the subject now that he has a clearly sympathetic ear.]
I know that being in a relationship does not mean you have to be bound to the other person in a constant state of togetherness. I know that he is his own person, and I am my own person, and we both have activities that we enjoy and must do that are separate from one another.
But does it have to be so separate?
no subject
You have every right to be upset.
no subject
You really think so?
no subject
no subject
With Brad.
no subject
He's decided to break up with you and run off with Brad, but didn't know how to tell you the news.
no subject
He looks down at himself to check that is not the case, but the bloodied remains of his organs are not on display, there is only the searing pain in his chest. He doesn't want this to be so, but a scientist has told him that it is. A scientist would know how to decipher the often incomprehensible codes and signals of another scientist.
The only reply is the soft sound of sobbing, genuine and heartbroken, and a single solitary word with whole paragraphs of sorrow packed into its tiny one-syllable sound.]
Oh.
no subject
You sound surprised.
no subject
He can't think any more.
He can't any more.
The line goes dead.]