Magical Murder Spree

[ID: Eight Page comic between Cecil, a radio host, and Jon, an archivist. Cecil is a white man with undercut, white hair, a slight build, wearing purple and white clothes. Jon is a brown man with shoulderlength, greying black hair, slight build,wearing green and black clothes. They hold their conversation in the recording studio of the Night Vale radio station.

CECIL: You look like you have questions. Listeners, my guest is standing over me right now. He mostly looks confused, and tired, and like has spent a long time with too little sleep and too much worry. And he looks angry. But not a hot anger, more like an anger like banked coals, or the anger of simmering water, formless and directed only by the vessel it is in.

JON: It’s—no. I don’t have a question. Well, I have a lot of questions, but, nevermind. Go on.

CECIL: No, go ahead! Ask.

JON: Alright, fine! I just don’t understand how you, well, how you have a boyfriend!

[Silence, but this time with a different energy]

CECIL: Well, there comes a time in every man’s life, when he sees a handsome scientist—

JON: Not like that! I mean like… I don’t understand how you are what you are and still...still have love? Still be capable of love? You’re the same as whatever I am, you’re more powerful than what I am, I’m pretty sure you’re also of the Eye, and you seem happy with it, which, great! Great for you! Great that you're having a great time! But how on earth does that square with having a boyfriend?

[Silence, with a third, entirely distinct energy]

CECIL: In the immortal words of one of the quintessential dance tunes from the 1990s performed by Haddaway, “What is love? Baby don’t hurt me.”

CECIL: What is love, listeners? What is it about the nature of love that makes the threat of harm so integral to its existence? If we were to pry open the human heart from its delicate cage and carefully carve into it with a scalpel, we would find no evidence of love. If I were to open my skull and scoop out the throbbing electric fat-and-protein jello that we call a brain, there would be no evidence of the feeling I have when Carlos smiles at me.

CECIL: And it was because of that love that when Carlos lay in Lane Five of the Desert Flower Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex,  when Carlos dove into the featureless black cubes that made up the condos, when Carlos was stranded in the desert otherworld, only reachable by call, text, or tumblr message, that I was afraid. That Carlos, perfectly imperfect Carlos, would be gone, only to exist in my memory, and that no amount of watching could save him. Love is not the antithesis of fear, listeners. It is the preamble to it.

CECIL: I broadcast these words to you at their pre-appointed times because I love Night Vale, just as many of you, sweet citizens, love Night Vale. And I broadcast because I fear for Night Vale. I fear, in the non-immortal words of my past self, for anyone caught between what they know and what they don’t yet know that they don’t know.

CECIL: The tragedy of our lives is that we are alive, and that our lives are so fleeting , the soap bubble of existence on top of a cruel and uncaring dimension full of untold horrors that invade our dreams and waking nightmares. But like a soap bubble, our lives are iridescent , and it is because of that fragility that they are.