YOUR NARRATOR: 

There you are! 

I've been looking for you.

How I've missed you! 

Have you missed me? 

For a little while, you see, everything around me was black. I panicked, of course, because I was afraid that I was in that terrible celestial or infernal prison once again. Only it was worse, you see, even worse than that time, because I couldn't find you. I couldn't speak to you. I couldn't hear my own voice. 

But, it was better, in a way, because I could feel ground under my feet. And ahead of me, only wind. I couldn't see anything, but I knew that I could walk in a direction. And walk, I did. I walked forward and forward, being sure never to turn or to veer off course for fear of  returning to my starting point. I walked, and as I walked, I remembered. 

I remembered walking your crowded streets, two years ago, when I first began this podcast with the intention of reaching human listeners. 

I remembered watching people in the middle of your great city, and envying that I could not engage with them - not in the ways that they would engage with each other. So I enjoyed watching them engage with each other. 

I remembered voicing to you how perplexed I was by the way you all ride the bus, or the subway, and exist in a no-man's land between destinations where you are still engaging with each other. Engaging with each other in a half-land of strangeness and familiarity. I envied the familiarity you all have, even with strangers. 

I remembered when I, slowly but surely, became a familiar stranger to you, and you to me. 

And I became overwhelmed with gratitude and remembrance. 

As this warmth, this gratitude, crept into each one of my steps, so too did a strange, unusual image all around me. As if someone were very slowly increasing the light in the world, a city began to form. Under my feet, the cement of a sidewalk. To either side of me, buildings - shops, restaurants, theatres. Above my head, flashing lights and lit up signs. I was walking in the centre of my city, right at its usually rapid-beating heart. I was walking the city streets at nighttime. How do I describe my joy, my utter ecstasy in the sight?

Well, that is until I realized they were empty. 

I won't speak long about it, since I think perhaps you're having difficulty sleeping or perhaps you're looking for a friendly voice to help you forget about what's troubling you. I just wanted to say that I'm sorry. When I learned why the streets were empty, I was so sorry...sorry for you and what you're going through, yes, and also sorry that this of all times was the one in which I had to leave you. But I am back. I am with you. 

Perhaps that is why I am here a little early. Perhaps this is just a visit. 

If I am here, then where is she? 

In her tower, of course.

In fact, I suppose many of you are in your own towers right now, locked away, looking out the window. 

In my musings to you before, I went on and on and on about loneliness. Isolation. Solitude. These are the things that this...show, this concept, this idea in your ear, were invented to alleviate. Not just in service to you, of course there was a wholly selfish element of it; it was created by one person so that she could muse about her own ideas of these things. But that was its motivation. Its core.

I don't think I will muse on these things tonight. 

Tonight, I think instead I will consider the nature of togetherness. 

What an absolute joy that, in this age, I can still talk to you. What an absolute joy that you can hear me. 

Does it bring you joy to know that one person - if person one might call me - still walks the streets? Does it make you afraid to imagine it? One lone figure, lost and yet not lost at all, wandering around, reminding you that she's out there? 

I tried something before, and I'd like to try it again: Here is a little music. During this music, I'd like us to leave some space for togetherness. Because I am speaking to you, and you are listening to me, and the only thing between us really is time. And I'm not so sure that time really means anything, anyway. So here's to togetherness. Listen with me: 

[A few minutes of music plays on piano. An even, melancholy vamp that expands into a more major-keyed, uplifting version of the theme song]

She won't be coming at the end to do her usual housekeeping and self-promotion and all those things that might gently rock you into reality. It's just me tonight, and only briefly. 

This was a short little gift. A humble one, albeit, but a little gift nonetheless. 

I have one more. 

In a way that I want to assure you is not meant to be macabre or threatening, but rather comforting and metaphorical, I wanted to let you know that

I'm outside your window. 

If you could see me, which I'm sure that you can't, you would notice that 

I've changed. 

Drastically. 

I cannot describe how, not just yet, because I haven't managed to get a good look at myself with all this walking. 

But I have changed entirely. 

However, you can tell from my voice

That I'm still Me. 

Your Narrator. 

And I can't wait to tell you stories again.

Goodnight, my friends. 

[Eerie theme music is hummed once more]