I think the reason Carlos calls Cecil in One Year Later, the reason he wants to hear his voice, more than anything, and the reason he develops feelings for Cecil, is that Cecil dares to do what Carlos is attempting to do - deliberately go out of his way to engage with things that do not want to be named. Cecil talks about Station Management. Cecil thinks harder than he should about the dog park. Cecil mentions The Shape in Grove Park. Cecil makes reference to the woman with no face, the one we’re not supposed to mention, or don’t really think to mention because she is obvious but also a little taboo. He may have some odd, in-town beliefs, but he observes and he speculates and he reports, he engages with things that seem too dangerous to engage with. And while Cecil fears much of the Night Vale world, that doesn’t stop him from wholeheartedly embracing life after every single encounter. I mean, look at that gorgeous monologue at the end of Street Cleaning Day.

And Carlos, this scientist who has come to a place where the residents accept the abnormal as normal, is here to learn and observe, to name and know the dangers, perhaps to help, and he sees Cecil as not the voice of reason (because there is no reason in this place, at least not of the kind he expects) but the voice of direct engagement - he speaks of things that others fear to speak of, and he does it for the good of the people, like Carlos does. And Cecil engages with and names the terrors and, broadcast after broadcast, he survives the knowledge and the naming, and sees beauty in the vast dizzy unpredictability of continued existence, and finds it life-affirming. Carlos is terrified by the strangeness of Night Vale. Cecil is terrified too, but he looks at Night Vale’s horrors with the same wonder and intrigue as he looks at the sun or the night sky or snow, and it opens Carlos’ eyes to the wonders of science that first drew him to study the universe. To Cecil everything is strange, and terrible, and beautiful, and full of meaning. He forgets nothing, and thinks many things of it, and encourages others to do the same.

And when Carlos is nearly killed, and a person who, until now, he had only perceived as yet another of the town’s strange cast of characters, the Apache Tracker, becomes unbelievably human and real to him by saving his life, Carlos is not listening to the radio. So many of Carlos’ assumptions are shattered that day - I think he believed that surely scientific observation must be capable of making sense of this damn town, but I think he was also holding himself at a distance from it, because the place is absurd, the people are absurd, how can you engage with this place on a human level rather than a scientific one? How can Cecil be flirting with me when the world is in danger, how can you do anything but panic and doubt and analyse in this horrorshow of a place? He probably thinks that Cecil’s flirting is evidence of an unbalanced mind, because a balanced mind cannot possibly be more interested in emotions than in the fact that the world is falling apart around your ears. And then yet another Night Vale conspiracy theory turns out to be true, and a “kooky character” DIES for him, and everything is real, not just the phenomena, but the people, and he can’t stay scientifically objective about this place. He has been arrogant, he has assumed, but he can’t hold Night Vale’s people at arms’ length anymore. He’s tied to the place now, and it may never stop surprising him, and people live here, in the midst of this horror, they carve out full lives here, even though the strangeness never stops. And that is terrifying.

And the person, maybe the only person in the world, who really understands how Night Vale can be terrifying and beautiful and still real, the only person who can name every terror and name every joy so lovingly, is Cecil. This place makes Cecil dizzy with wonder and despair but he’s learned to live with it, he revels in it, he stays here, he has devoted himself to being the conduit for the place. He doesn’t have to close his eyes to live here. He can’t close his eyes, because he sees for the city, because someone has to, as a radio professional. And Carlos needs to be with someone who forgets nothing and thinks many things of it. Cecil knows how to keep his eyes wide open and feel completely dizzy and out of control in the world, a feeling Carlos has never totally understood until science began failing him, and Cecil survives that awareness daily and is still tender and compassionate and full of wonder.

So he calls Cecil, because now he understands - the world is always falling apart around your ears. You can name the falling, you can help, but you cannot stop it. What you see as it falls, and what you cling to, and what you care for, is what matters.