Diane enjoyed arguing with Josh about driving, because it was time spent talking, having a relationship. It was not easy, being a mother to a teenager. Josh enjoyed this time too, but not consciously. On the surface, he was miserable. He just wanted to drive a car, not do all of the things it takes to be able to drive a car, like having a car and learning to drive it.

And sometimes he would say, “Why can’t my dad come teach me?” because he knew that question hurt her. Then he would feel bad about hurting her. Diane would feel bad too. They would sit in the car, feeling bad.

“You’re doing a good job,” Diane once said to Josh, in relation to nothing, only trying to fill a silence.

So every other time, I’m not doing a good job, Josh thought, because he didn’t understand the context of her statement.

“Thanks,” Josh said out loud, trying to fill the silence with graciousness.

“You still need to work on a lot of things,” Diane did not say. “I’m sorry your father isn’t here,” she also did not say. “But I am trying so, so hard. I am, Josh. I am, I am, I am,” she did not say. As far as things go, her self-control was pretty good.

I’m really good at driving, Josh often thought, even as he veered too close to highway barriers, rolled wheels up on curbs, and failed to yield to hooded figures, resulting in mandatory citywide ennui for hours. Night Vale’s traffic laws are byzantine and kept on a need-to-know basis with civilian drivers.

Their driving lessons often ended in a “Good job” and a “Thanks” and a brief pause and a divergence into separate silent rooms. Later Diane would knock and say, “Josh,” and Josh would or would not reply.

Diane hurt. She was not consciously aware that she hurt, but she hurt. “Josh,” she said, so many times a day, for so many different reasons.

Josh loved his mother but he did not know why.

Diane loved her son and she did not care why.

Another way the house is unlike other houses is it has a faceless old woman secretly living in it, although that is not important to this story.

3

“KING CITY,” said the paper.

Jackie had never felt fear in her entire life. She had felt caution, and unease, and sadness, and joy, which are all similar to fear. But she had never felt fear itself.

She did not feel it then.

She got to the work of closing: wiping down the bathroom sink, sweeping the floor, and adjusting the thick burlap covering up items that were forbidden or secret, like the time machine that Larry Leroy had stolen from the Museum of Forbidden Technologies, and the pens and pencils (writing utensils having long been outlawed in Night Vale for reasons of public well-being, although everyone still surreptitiously used them).