He was blond and his teeth shone. They briefly made eye contact—or she assumed they made eye contact through his mirrored shades—and then he was gone, walking quickly back to his cruiser.

She tried to breathe in and missed.

It was Troy.

THE VOICE OF NIGHT VALE

CECIL: “. . . ALL HAIL, ALL PLANT YOUR FACE INTO THE FALLOW EARTH AND WEEP IT INTO PROSPERITY,” it concluded, before cutting the ribbon to officially open the new downtown roller rink. A big thanks to the Glow Cloud for its speech, and, of course, all hail the mighty Glow Cloud.

A warning to our listeners: There have been reports of counterfeit police officers on the roads, who, instead of looking after our interests, work under arbitrary authority to unfairly target and extort those who are least able, societally, to fight back. If you see one of these FalsePolice, act right away by shrugging and thinking What am I gonna do? and then seeing if anything funny is on Twitter.

And now some sobering news. Station intern Jodi was asked to alphabetize everything in the station as part of the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s daily census of every single item in Night Vale. Unfortunately, Jodi was so assiduous in her work that she alphabetized herself as well, and what was once a helpful and hardworking intern is now a pile of limbs and organs, arranged part by gory part from A to Z.

To the family and friends of Intern Jodi: She will be missed. Especially since she alphabetized herself early in the process, and so most of the station still needs doing. If you need college credit or a place to hide from the dangerous world outside, come on down to the station today, and start a long and healthy life in radio.

In other news, a woman wearing a bulky trench coat and aviator goggles, speaking on behalf of Lenny’s Bargain House of Gardenwares and Machine Parts, announced that there may have been some slight problems with a few of the things they sold.

“Some of the garden fountains we sold are actually motion-activated turrets,” she said. “Also it’s possible that we put stickers on armed explosives that said SNAIL POISON. And while we stand by the fact that they will, in fact, kill snails, it should be noted that they will also kill any living organism within several hundred feet of the snails. We probably should have put that on the label. So sue us.

“On second thought,” she said, “don’t sue us. You don’t even know what part of the government we work for. Who are you going to sue? And don’t you think we’ve already paid off all the judges? You don’t have a chance.”

She cackled, waving an absurdly long cigarette holder terminating in an unlit cigarette. This went on for several uncomfortable moments. Her laughter subsided into a labored snorting and then a few long, intentional sighs.