Welcome to Night Vale - 70B - Review | Текст песни

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• Welcome to Night Vale
• 70B - Review

If you love something, set it free. If it doesn’t come back, it probably died of sadness because it thought you loved it.

Welcome to Night Vale.

It’s difficult to say goodbye to your hometown. Difficult indeed. We’ll get to all of that soon, but first we bring you the item of, I’m sure, most interest to all of you: a review of last night’s opera. The inaugural performance of the New Old Night Vale Opera House, a tribute to the building which once stood proudly in this town for decades before succumbing, 20 years ago, to an unchecked puppy infestation.

The New Old Opera House is luxurious and stylish. I had no idea what opera was until last night, so my expectations for the building were pretty low. I mean, I don’t know what you think opera is; I was expecting something like fenced-in yards occupied full of filthy straw, occupied by hundreds of heavily drugged wolves.

But it turns out that opera houses look nothing like petting zoos. This place had a chandelier, and velvet seats, and lush red curtains, and a snack bar, and people wearing just the fanciest clothes you could imagine. Tuxedos, and ball gowns, and balaclavas, and shin guards.

Old Woman Josie and all of her tall winged friends who go by the name Erika and who claim to be angels, were there. They were the driving force behind the building of the New Old Opera House. It was only fitting, then, that before the performance, Josie gave a toast from the stage. She toasted opera, and Night Vale, and all of the donors who made the Opera House possible.

Finally, she toasted old friends. And when she did, she looked at me and grinned.

I blushed, and looked down at my shoes – which were tasteful sponge clogs that matched my tights perfectly.

OK, so, I’m sure you’re asking the same question I’ve been asking for years: what even is opera? I don’t have any training in opera, but I’ll do my best to describe it. Basically, opera is kind of like theater, but they don’t raise the curtain all the way up. So you only can see feet shuffling about while you hear high pitched wailing and combustion engines.

This particular opera was called “Amara.” It was composed and conducted and mostly performed by acting legend Lee Marvin. It was about a young girl who goes on some kind of…adventure? It wasn’t clear, because opera is super-interactive and entirely nonlinear. Sometimes people from the audience throw old fruit at the stage, and then the actors jump into the audience to wrestle these people. Audience members are encouraged to yell out things they think the performers should do, and performers often vocalize their distaste for the audience.

At one point in the first act I shouted, “Sing a song about old love and new horizons, about wanderlust and uncertainty!” and then a member of the chorus spat at me. And moments later I found someone handcuffed me to my armrest. It was super fun!

They did raise the curtain all the way once, revealing a detailed set of a storm-tossed ocean, upon which a great ship lurched skyward atop a curling monstrous wave. The details of the painting and the carpentry were flawless. I’ve never been in such awe of a stage set as I was then. But I think the stage manager recognized the error in allowing the audience to see this, and quickly lowered the curtain to just a couple of feet off the floor.

I didn’t recognize most of the performers because they kept the curtain so low, and the stage lights so dim, but I did note that Frank Chen was in the cast, looking every inch the normal human with – I can only assume – a normal number of heads.

At the start of the second act, I sensed a blurry motion in my periphery. I felt a cold touch on my chained hand.

“Nice handcuffs,” a whisper said. “Looks like you won’t be able to save your friend Dana tonight.”

I was terrified, yes, but like everyone I’m usually terrified. I also felt rage. Rage at the Faceless Old Woman whispering behind me. Had she handcuffed me so that I could not save my former intern, my former friend, my current mayor, Dana Cardinal from whatever evil deeds were coming her way?

I looked up at Mayor Cardinal in her loge box. She was staring straight at the stage, focused and stony. And despite all my anger at my old friend – that she had presumably bought me at a Sheriff’s Secret Police auction last year, and had been using me for the last several months against my will to protect herself against the five-headed dragon Hiram McDaniels and the Faceless Old Woman – despite all that, I looked at Dana’s face, hoping she would see me pleading for her safety.

I want to trust and love my friend, and for that moment, I did. And I was sorry that the Faceless Old Woman had restrained me so that I could not help her…even if, this time, I had wanted to.

I followed the mayor’s gaze toward the stage. The house lights dimmed, and the curtain split open. I saw normal human Frank Chen center stage, each of his heads huffing and snarling, preparing for his aria.

As an aside, I am told this was to be opera’s first-ever quintet aria, but honestly, I don’t know what either of those words even mean.

Actually, only four of Frank’s heads were snarling: the gold, green, gray, and blue ones. But his purple head was looking right at me. And I felt something familiar, but…at the same time, something that I didn’t understand. My hand strained against its chain, but there was nothing I could do.

As the orchestra – led by and comprised entirely of Lee Marvin and a slide whistle – swelled, and Frank Chen continued to belch fire and hiss, we all knew something was wrong. I mean, it’s possible that an aria is just a bunch of roars and flames – I’m no expert – but it didn’t seem likely. Frank Chen then tore off his bow tie, and in doing so revealed he was not five foot, eight inch middle-aged human Frank Chen at all, but Hiram McDaniels, an 18 foot tall five-headed dragon!

Hiram leapt into the air above the orchestra seats. I heard a muffled scream from above. I looked to the mezzanine and saw Trish Hidge, deputy assistant to Mayor Cardinal, trying to quickly escort the mayor away…but it was too late. I caught a brief glimpse of someone I had never seen before. Or, had never seen in my waking life. She was standing just behind Trish and Mayor Cardinal. It was a woman I had once seen in a dream. In my dream she had been underwater, among coral, young and whispering and faceless. And now, in this world, that is very likely not just a dream, I saw this same woman. She was old, and shouting, and faceless.

Hiram flew up, past the chandelier, toward Dana in the mezzanine, all of his heads focused on their target, teeth bared and angry…except the purple head, which was twisted away, as though trying – with just its neck – to deflect the course of its body.

At that moment, I felt myself rising against my will. There I was, lot number 37, being pulled into use once more. I looked up at Dana, but she was not looking back at me at all. She was preparing to defend herself, alone.

And then everything went black.

I saw nothing. Felt nothing. I was nowhere.

I heard a voice. It was…whiny, and panicked. It told me it was sorry to keep using me, that it had bought me at an auction two years back just in case.

“You never know what could happen. Nothing can be trusted.”

The voice told me it especially didn’t trust the other heads it shares a body with, who are always scheming, always making new plans. Plus, it was tired of having to commit violent crimes, and consistently living life on the run.

The voice just wanted to settle down. Maybe start a family.

“Night Vale’s such a nice town, don’t you think?” the voice asked me.

And I asked, “Hiram? Is that you?”

And the voice said, “Not all of Hiram. Most people call me Purple Head, but I prefer Violet.”

“Why me?” I asked.

Violet said, “One head couldn’t work against four. I’ve known that a long time. I needed another body. Lot 37 was put up for sale, and the other heads were distracted by Lot 38 (a normal human disguise), so I bought you.”

Now, I was furious, of course. I told Violet that I thought Dana had been doing this the whole time. I blamed her over and over! “I have lost a friend because of you, Violet,” I said, “and do you have any idea what it’s like, to have you control me in this way?”

“Yes,” Violet said. “I only have one-fifth control over my own body. This is my life all of the time, carried along against my will by the foolish plans of those closest to me, betrayed by my own limbs, by the beating of my own heart. But…I am sorry. I really am.”

“You need to fight your own fights,” I said.

“I will, Cecil,” Violet said. “I am giving you back Lot 37. I transfer ownership back to you. You are yours once again. And whatever else happens tonight, I’m sorry.”

“Well, you should be,” I said.

“But,?6?

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