<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="background-color:#2e2e32; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="background-color:#9966cb; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><span style="font-family: Century Gothic;"><img alt="" src="http://i.imgur.com/WWtSggu.png" style="float:left; padding:6px;"/><span style="color: #000000">Listeners. Joshua - or, previously Joshua - has returned from the barista district. He is holding a small tray with four cardboard cups, like I asked him to. He is - oh, God, listeners - he is wearing a green apron and is staring directly at me through the window with hollow eyes that do not understand, his hands shaking so hard that coffee grains are spilling onto him. I can smell it from here, listeners, the old morning smell of ground beans and dread for the coming day. I fear that my idea of calming the rampant baristas with business did not work as intended. This is a message, listeners, one that I do not want to comprehend.<br/><br/>To the family of intern Joshua: He was - mediocre at his job, at best. But he did it as well as he could, and that's saying something. Even here, in his transformed, doomed state, he is looking uncertain as he sloppily bangs his palm against the glass to the recording booth, perhaps resisting the call of the baristas even now. Brave, stupid Joshua. He will be missed, sort of.<br/><br/>An update on our water situation. The NVWD has reported that there is still no water, which is unfortunate, they admit. But, since we are in a desert, we have an abundance of sand. So, to be able to say that the taps are at least working, they will now be running our very foundation of existence from the Waterfront Recreation Area and through the pipes running all under our little town. I can't say I altogether approve of this solution, but you can't blame them for being able to say that they're doing something without lying, right?</span></span></div><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;">The waiting personnel really were far politer than Martin had expected them to be, but he heard none of what they said, because his ears had picked up on something else and deemed it far more interesting: Namely, the man a few booths behind him who mentioned the library. He half turned to look, open mouthed, at this rampant show of defiance, before remembering that he was supposed to ignore it. "Yeah, yeah," he said in response to the list of pies, even though he had been so absent that he didn't even know they were talking about pies, "I'll have that one."<br/><br/>The Moondlite All Night Diner was truly filled this morning. In the parking lot, a dangerous game of hide and seek was going on between the patrons who had come too late to get to park near the door and the baristas on the prowl. The howls of "To go, or to stay? To go, or to stay?!" and the horrified screams in response echoed through the glass. The barista right outside the window, who seemed to have taken a liking to him, had drawn an anatomically correct heart in the condensation from its own rancid breath.<br/><br/>Just as Martin was thinking that anyone who went out there were a completely different brand of crazy, a tall woman stood and left the diner, a smaller gang of spiders following neatly behind her. This time, he turned all the way, as did everyone else in the diner, one man even whispering something about doom as she passed.<br/><br/>"You know, you're gonna die when you go out there," said Martin loud enough for her to hear, but she evidently did not care as she opened the door and left for the outside. The baristas saw their chance. One pounced from right behind her, leaving the easy target in favor of the much bigger prize inside. It slipped in the door, nails raking across the glass and the unfeeling snarl turning into a hysterical approximation of joy as the patrons began to scream.<br/><br/>Martin wanted to throw up. Outside meant death, but inside meant being trapped, presumably for the rest of his maybe very short life, and neither were appealing options to a man with a caffeine deficiency headache, or - anyone, for that matter. In the mayhem, he quietly slid from the plastic seat to beneath the table where he crouched, pulse quickening. Whatever was going to happen, he wasn't going to meet it head on.</div><br/><div style="background-color:#4c3366; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;"><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-style: italic"><span style="color: #d2d2d2">Meanwhile, somewhere other than Night Vale, an assistant with balance issues spills a cup of regular, water based coffee on some expensive and very sensitive experimental machinery.<br/>She is alone.<br/>She elects to pretend it never happened and quickly hurries off without saying anything to anyone.<br/>It will go unnoticed for several days, at which point, it will be too late to stop it.</span></span></div></div></div></div>