"Here's something odd: there is a cat hovering in the men's bathroom at the radio station here. He seems perfectly happy and healthy, but it's floating about four feet off the ground next to the sink."
Khoshekh is a floating cat who lives in the men's room of the Night Vale Community Radio Station. He appeared in the men's room during the Glow Cloud episode and was adopted soon after as the station pet. He purrs and rubs on your hand like a normal cat, but is floating about four feet off the ground and cannot travel. Cecil admits that while he is normally not a cat person, he has grown to love the cat, which has been named Khoshekh. The men of the station care for Khoshekh by leaving the sink running so that he has drinking water. They also take turns buying Science Diet Low Calorie Cat Food for the immobile feline, which they leave on the counter where he can easily reach it.
In the two-year anniversary live show, it is revealed that Cecil, being one of the few who actually cares about Khoshekh, has taken to carving sculptures of the beloved "Feline", and posting said sculptures on his Tumblr blog.
The Tumblr URL is currently unknown, and no pictures of said sculptures have been found.
Mentions
- Episode 2, Glow Cloud: First mention of Khoskekh, who is not yet named.
- Episode 9, "PYRAMID": Intern Brad, one of the few station interns who was never described as dying or meeting a horrible fate, fixed up a litter box for Khoshekh using a combination of carpentry and dark magic.
- Episode 23, Eternal Scouts: Cecil proudly announces that Khoshekh has given birth to an adorable litter of kittens. For any listeners wondering how a male cat could give birth, Cecil waves aside the question, noting that "some things just aren't meant to be questioned."
- Episode 26, Faceless Old Woman: Cecil explains that Khoshekh cannot be photographed. He does not show up in photographs, and anyone who tries to photograph him dies a pretty agonizing death within a week. Khoshekh also has a meow like a terrifying monster.
- Episode 39, The Woman from Italy: Cecil proudly reports how Khoshekh's kittens have grown bigger, molted twice, and grown "their grownup kitty spine ridges". He then warns the owners of the kittens that while visiting them, they should avoid the poisonous spine ridges and their venom sacs as two cat adopters have already been lost.
- Episode 43, Visitor: Khoshekh is badly injured by a StrexPet.
- Episode 44, Cookies: it was revealed that Khoshekh survived the attack by the Strexpet, however, he has lost an eye and a portion of one of his paws. Cecil was able to hold him, and Khoshekh is currently being kept in Cecil's home, despite Carlos's allergy (Cecil got him some allergy medicine).
- Episode 48, Renovations: Lauren sends Daniel to take photos of the kittens, and Cecil finds him lying dead (or, perhaps, inoperative, he isn't sure if he Daniel identified as organic or not) as he returns to the station, carrying Khoshekh.
- Episode 55, The University of What It Is: Cecil reports that Khoshekh is doing well, and that "his fur cusp is as radiant and sticky as any cat’s has ever been".
- Episode 75, Through the Narrow Place: Khoshekh is reaching that time in a cat's life when its skull is completely visible. Some of his kittens are nearly fully grown. The anterior spines of Cecil's favourite kitten, Mixtape, are coming in fast.
Khoshekh's Kittens
Despite being a tomcat, Khoshekh gave birth to a litter of kittens in Episode 23, Eternal Scouts. They were all adopted by Episode 26, Faceless Old Woman, but, since they cannot be removed from the station men's room, their owners must visit them there. Like Khoshekh, they are floating in the station men's room, but at different heights. It is not clear how many kittens there are.
Some known named kittens (and their owners) are:
- Larry Leroy (owned by Larry Leroy)
- Mixtape (owner unknown)
Trivia
- Khoshekh means "darkness" in Hebrew and was one of the ten plagues of Egypt in the story of Exodus.
- Кошак [Koʃʌk] is a recent colloquial expression for "male cat" in Russian. Its pronunciation is slightly different from how Cecil pronounces "Khoshekh" (the emphasis in the Russian word is on the last syllable: ko-SHUCK). "Khoshekh" (as Cecil pronounces it) in Russian would mean "кошек", gen.pl. or acc.pl. from "кошка" 'cat' (so, it would mean "of the cats" or "them cats").