Completing Us - Cecilos WTNV Fanfiction

1 - Distraction

"...For we all know, dear listeners, that couches aren't real. The couch you are perched upon currently, lying comfortably in the Municipally-approved pose of a Roman senator, taking in your daily dose of my soothing, convincing voice, is in fact, not a couch at all." 

Carlos checked, actually. They sort of weren't. A microscopic analysis yielded much but very little considering that the cells were definitely not that of a normal couch and at the same time, like nothing Carlos had ever seen before. He still hadn't completely figured it out.

"Couches are all projections of this vast and careless universe that she begrudgingly gifted onto our government so that we may all enjoy what cannot be." Cecil's voice transcended through the radio, calm and clear and somewhat cheery as always. 

There was so much here. Practically every little detail about this tiny town, cut off from the rest of the world, defied  the rest of the world. Carlos had yet to find something that was completely and perfectly normal, without cell mutations and strange new compounds he still couldn't wrap his mind around. If he wasn't sure he was in the middle of the United States he would've sworn this place was from another planet. He went through research notebooks like lightning, completing multiple journals per month.

The radio turned to the weather.

Well, he used  to produce multiple journals per month. 

His hand unconsciously dug through his mane of hair, hair that now has been forced to grow out. 

The journals and the hair were both due to the same thing. 

A little distraction...

Oh, who am I kidding?

Cecil's voice was back in the speakers. 

He was no small distraction. He was a big distraction. 

On the other hand, Night Vale had become... almost normal. So much had happened. Anything beyond the desert had begun to fade and time ate away at it continuously. It almost seemed boring. Out there, they've discovered it all, explored everything and are sitting on their asses watching TV, while Carlos is out on an adventure of a lifetime any other scientist couldn't even dream of.

"Dear listeners, I know that as a radio professional I should refrain from sharing my personal life on air, but while I'm waiting on intern Dana, who seems to be typing something from the vast void of the Dog Park, which is prohibited to all and especially dogs, I wanna say that today, oh, this blessed day, I saw our town's pride and joy, Carlos, with that perfect hair at the Ralph's, holding a cabbage."

Carlos sat up a little. He really had been there this morning, trying, as always, to find any food that he can consume without growing horns or falling into a trance or turning his skin purple. He'd found a formula for determining which food was safe for his consumption, although it still affected his body differently from the food back in... The rest of the world. 

Cells changed - he checked that too. 

At the end of his research, he was left with a rather peculiar explanation of how exactly the citizens of Night Vale could munch on glass shards like chips, as well as other generally inedible produce.

Today he had found himself a peculiar blue cabbage that changed colors when he changed perspectives that he'd never seen before. In the normal world, there was a simple and quick answer - structural color, but Carlos knew this was Night Vale. Even if it was just structural color, there could be a hundred other things abnormal about it. 

He ended up taking in the cabbage with him to study - of course, there was no way he'd pass an opportunity like that. It now lay on his table, hastily dissected to reveal another heap of colors inside the layers. So far he'd nicknamed it the Rainbow Cabbage and it already had a whole ten pages dedicated to it in his journal.

"He looked so intently at that cabbage and his head was definitely filled with such sciency thoughts, oh Night Vale, my heart stopped. " Carlos could hear the radio host swooning and felt his face light up. The radio host had a habit of lionizing Carlos with all of his communication abilities. "And then he left, dear listeners, he left so quickly, not even stopping by the exceptionally magnificent bloodstone circle right outside the supermarket that every other citizen happily joined. And Night Vale, I then had this thought, and it's still pestering me. I thought-"

He suddenly stopped, there was some shuffling through the radio.

"So sorry, this just in; I just got the message from intern Dana. She claims that all the sandwiches in the Dog Park all taste like various greens. You know, she said, or rather typed, from that vast and forbidden void, greens like cabbage and kale and lettuce. It looks like a regular sandwich, like it's all just there when you look at it - but it only tastes like greens. Huh."

Carlos stared intently at his own cabbage against the purple swirl of a usual Night Vale sunset, hoping that it would interest him enough right now to tear away from his distraction, now plummeting through the ceiling. But no matter how much he looked...

After the radio host wished Night Vale goodnight, Carlos reached for his phone.