I was taking a walk through the woods, just me and my thoughts and the quiet of the great outdoors. Except, of course, that the great outdoors are rarely truly silent. There are breezes that ruffle the leaves. Birds burst forth with song, in search of a mate. Bushes that try to entice you with their sexy, almost woman-like swaying to come and partake of their bright red berries. Bushes that insist that all you have to do to have their sweetest fruits is to bring them a small token of your affection like a bit of jewellery, or perhaps your neighbour’s small dog that likely won’t be missed.

Oh, and babbling brooks are always so charming, aren’t they?

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.


I’m attempting another artistic pursuit in an effort to broaden my personal horizons. I thought I’d take up charcoal drawing. By this, I mean using charcoal to draw human figures, not drawings of pieces of charcoal.

I went to the library to see if they had any books for beginners on the matter. The stone lion-things outside the front doors snarled at me. I’m not sure what I ever did to offend them, but they don’t seem very fond of me.

I went to the card catalogue and looked up “drawing,” but the card said nothing but “You don’t need to know that.” Ditto for the subjects “art,” “sketching,” “rendering,” and “illustration.”

In fact, almost all the cards said the same thing. Except for the cards on “slavery,” “subservience,” “civic duty,” and “mindless and fanatic devotion to one’s superiors.” 

My artistic ambitions have been thwarted yet again.

Bishop Tantrum called me up on the telephone and screamed at me. It wasn’t personal, he is just unable stop screaming while he’s within the city limits.

I was able to make out two points between the screams. First, that the locals secretly entered the Bishop in an inter-state yodelling competition. Considering that the Bishop must have the lung-strength of any other three men combined, I believe he stands a good chance at taking first place.

His other point was not so cheery. He claimed that numerous birds, whippoorwills, to be exact, have been singing as one, hitting the same notes, all in a minor chord, all in the same moment, like an ominous choir. When I asked him what this could possibly mean, the Bishop screamed that it could be a portent of evil days to come, a wake-up call to an imminent apocalypse that will wipe all of humanity from the face of the planet, leaving only those dark creatures that worship at altars much older than those found in any Christian church.

I asked him if such a chorus was an awful thing to hear, to which the Bishop replied that actually, it was quite pretty, in a melancholy sort of way. So... silver lining, I guess?

I made the mistake of telling Miss Hooty Commonprance, my office manager and nursing aide, about my desire to learn how to draw human figures. She offered to pose in, ah... well, sans clothing, if you will.

Seeing that such talk made me blush, she gleefully chased me around the office, insisting that such a practice will certainly teach me, quote, “how to draw curves in all the right places.” 

It’s purely a coincidence that I purchased a sketchbook and sticks of drawing charcoal later that afternoon. And I won’t have you thinking otherwise.

You may be wondering about how Miss Weetamoo is doing in her recovery. As you’ll recall, I have her on a cot in my cellar, since she refuses to stay in the bed in one of my upstairs guest rooms.

The recovery from her bullet wound is progressing at a normal pace, or it would be at least, if not for the visits from her grandmother. On multiple occasions, I’ve helped the old woman down to the cellar, only to be chased out as the lady started placing odd tokens in a circle around the cot. 

I don’t know what goes on during their time together. I only know that I can smell sage, and that there is singing and chanting and then strange hostile yelling both from the two women as well as a third voice that sounds like it’s coming from a deep well or cave.

Miss Weetamoo’s grandmother insisted that I do not come down to the cellar no matter what I hear during those sessions, and I have kept my promise, even though I fear for the women-folk. All I can say is that at the end of their time together, the elder lady staggers up the stairs and I have to help her make it to a kitchen chair so that she may rest her bones. Each time, her hair has been in disarray, she has been sweaty, panting, and once she had what appeared to be claw marks across her left cheek. I usually fix her some tea and she steers the conversation to any topic except what happened in the cellar. At the end of her visit, some of Miss Weetamoo’s brothers come and fetch the old lady to take her home.

As for Miss Weetamoo, she has been in a deep sleep when I finally managed to get down to her. She too refuses to tell me anything of the proceedings.

If they trust me so little with their secrets, why is Miss Weetamoo even staying in my home? Why don’t they take her back to their reservation? It’s not far away, and she is stable enough now to make the trip. 

Wait... is Miss Weetamoo staying here not for my protection and assistance, but in fact to protect me? From whom? And what can she possibly do for me in her state? 

Honestly, Dear Listeners, your guess is as good as mine.


Speaking of guesses, Dear Listeners, let me guess how you’ve all been doing lately. I guess that you all have been working on improving yourselves in some small way. Well done, you. I guess that you’d like to be a bit more social than you have been as of late. To that I say, join a club, or perhaps do some charity work. That’s a fine way to make new acquaintances. What else... ah yes, I am going to guess that none of you have a woman that refuses to move out of your basement and is the likely source of incredibly disturbing noises whenever her grandmother pays a visit. How did I do, Listeners? Two out of three?


There’s been word on the radio. That word was “Amphisbaena.”


There was a five-automobile wreck in the downtown area yesterday. I was called out to attend to some, thankfully, minor injuries. Strangest thing though. One black automobile kept ramming into the other four automobiles, as if it bore them some sort of grudge. The police officers on the scene beat the aggressive automobile with their clubs until it gave one final honk of its horn and went still with submission.

I can’t help but wonder, what did those four other automobiles do to incur such a grudge? And who was the real villain here?


The Mayor made a radio broadcast concerning the recent bouts of bootlegger violence. Through the grunts and squeals and the buzzing of the multitudes of flies, I heard, “yellow,” “preponderance of facts,” “a need to be bulletproof,” “police may or may not be concerned,” “alcohol,” “mystery woman,” “don’t worry, blood is easy to get out of curtains,” “so-called ‘gin-joints’,” and “maybe things will be better next year, I don’t know.”

It was no “Four score and seven years ago,” but I’ve been to many medical seminars, so I’ve heard worse.

I appreciate the dedication that the Town Council has displayed when it comes to keeping litter off of our streets. They have played garbage receptacles at every second street corner. They have men and men-like creatures with brooms at work every hour of every work-day, and twice as many on Sundays. However, I do think it’s going a little too far that they pick up litterers in a police van, drive them to a remote field, let them go, and give them a five-minute head start before the street cleaners are allowed to hunt them down with sharpened broom handles and falcons. At least give us a ten-second period of grace to bend down and pick something up that we might have accidentally dropped from our hands.


The big inquisitive brains over at Miskatonic U have started a whole new slate of experiments. As a man of science myself, I am all for controlled experiments.

However, I can’t help but become a tad concerned when I pass by the university to find staff and students alike standing outside the buildings, putting their heads together to craft letters of apology physically big enough for all of them to add their signatures. 

What have they done now? And how soon until we start hearing the screams that are caused by their latest investigations?


I saw a marriage proposal today. I was taking a stroll near the woods to the north of town and saw a young man bend the knee and proclaim his love. He told the object of his affections, in a loud and confident alto voice, that he would do anything to be worthy of the other’s love, that he would kill for just a touch of affection, that he would burn down churches in order to have her light shine on him, that he would eat babies if she would give him any sign that she might love him as he loved her, that he would shout mean words at aged dogs if she would just say his name.

It went on like this for quite a while, and it was all one-sided as the young man was bellowing his proposals at a large oak tree. Honestly, I think she could set her sights a little higher.


I have enjoyed my visits to the post office ever since I moved here. It’s the one place in Arkham where the city’s weirdness has stayed outside. One comes in, buys parcel paper, has one’s packages weighed, pays for postage, and has a nice little chat with the postmaster as well, Mister Shufflebottom.

But alas, even the mighty post office’s red brick walls could only hold back the tide for so long. Today, I went to send a birthday card to a cousin, and bought the appropriate postage. Normal enough. However, when I went to lick the stamp, the stamp licked me. 

I said, “See here, Mister Shufflebottom, I won’t be licked by anything without the authority to do so.”

But there was nothing he can do. He is forced to use the stamps that are sent to him by the federal government.

I looked at the stamp, expecting to see some Arkham weirdness depicted in tiny but exquisite detail. A hairy monster in a graduation cap. A building with waving arms. Perhaps a depiction of a common duck with a lisp.

But no, the image portrayed on the stamp was a profile of George Washington. Now, what am I supposed to do? One simply doesn’t write to the federal government complaining that you were licked by the first, and arguably still greatest, President of the United States of America.

The world is upside-down. The lickers have become the licked. If we can’t even count on stamps to maintain proper social decorum, what hope have we for society as a whole?


I’m happy to report that that strange flash of purple light that occurred downtown last Tuesday does not seem to have caused any damage to anybody’s eyes.

However, people that were closest to the flash have started hugging each other. A lot. Long hugs, hugs that are very close, hugs where the hugger seems to be attempting to press the huggee into their body, to make the two of them become one. 

Town Council has issued a public warning to avoid people offering hugs in public, for the time being. Which is fine as far as I’m concerned, as I’ve rarely met a hug that didn’t come with some kind of price attached.

At any rate, those of you listening, heed my words, avoid people who seem desperate to wrap you up in their arms. Even if it’s Grandma. Especially if it’s Grandma. Who wants to be absorbed by their grandmother?


There was quite a hiatus from these recordings, wasn’t there? I’m afraid I was quite overwhelmed with work and keeping Miss Weetamoo alive. And, if I’m being completely honest, I was just afraid.

Miss Weetmaoo is clearly involved in interfering with the goings-on of the three major bootlegging gangs in the vicinity. Well, two now, after the extreme violence visited upon one of them.

When she came to me with her bullet wound, she dragged me into the middle of her mess. And she refuses to tell me anything about what she was doing, or how she was doing it. All I know is, that if the gangs found out I was giving safe harbour to the woman who has been interfering with their operations, my goose would be well and truly cooked.

I should have gone into a gentler, less violence-prone line of work like accounting. Although if rumours are true the accounting office over on Main Street accepts goats and contracts written in blood as payment, so perhaps that wouldn’t have been for me either.

And now, of course, I’m back to recording these phonographic rolls. Which is another way for me, for us, to be found out. I am a foolish man.

On the plus side, Miss Weetamoo finally agreed to give me the recipe for her butternut-squash soup in exchange for my medical services and living in my cellar, so at least, if I’m found out, I’ll die a happy man.

Until the next recording, Dear Listeners, I leave you with this advice – don’t listen to me, because I clearly don’t know what the heck I’m doing.


Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the author of the child-friendly line of scary books, the “Encyclopedia Terrorificus” series.