Are you certain that you exist? I’m not certain that you exist. Oh yeah? Well then, prove it.

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

The smartypants in the Delaware state government continue to mock me. They recently sent me a postcard featuring the word “Delaware” in big block letters. Inside each of these letters is a hand-painted image of what passes for “the sights” in that state. Oh look, here’s a building made out of red bricks. Three men are standing in front of the red brick building. Oh my goodness, is one of the men wearing suspenders. Well heavens, I do believe he is!

On the back, some Delawarian wit has written, “Come see what you’ve been missing! Yours truly, Delaware.” First of all, sir or madam, your handwriting resembles the cracks in a dried-out riverbed, minus the charm. It’s called “cursive,” look it up. Second, I’ve already seen the best part of your state, and that was the sign telling me that I was passing into Pennsylvania. So there.

Whomever you are, I suggest you figure out why mysterious portals chose your backwater state as the final destination of people unfortunate enough to be caught in its malicious grip. I think that says more about you than any postcard ever will. Put the “aware” back in “Delaware,” that’s what I say.


I caught Miss Weetamoo doing pull-ups and chin-ups, using the wooden beams of the cellar ceiling as a substitute for an exercise bar. This is peculiar because A) she is still recovering from a severe gunshot wound, B) she can do more pull-ups than I can despite her injured state and the fact that, as a female of the species, she’s not meant to be doing such things, and C) my cellar didn’t have exposed wooden beams on its ceiling last week. Then again, my house didn’t have a cellar at all not so long ago, so I suppose the appearance of the beams is a minor quibble in the grand scheme of things.

There was also the issue of her manner of dress. Or, to be more specific, the lack thereof. She had quite clearly rummaged through my clothing while I was at work and had liberated a pair of athletic pants and a sporting jersey. Aside from the fact that she had taken the clothes without permission, I think we can all agree that they are not the proper attire for a young lady. It didn’t help any that the clothing had adhered to her form thanks to the sweat raised by her exertions.

And yet, I was the one who was chided. She scolded me, saying that I had seen her entire body while I tended to her wound and recovery. As if there wasn’t a world of difference between a man of medicine carrying out his duty and a bachelor being confronted with the lithe and sweaty form of a woman that he has not at any time married. Context, you know. 

Well, if that scourge wants to mark the cellar as her territory, so be it. She’ll just have to come upstairs from now on when it’s time for a check-up. She may have won the cellar, but I have won the house!



I’m afraid Town Council hasn’t been able to keep up with the wear and tear of automobiles on the city’s streets. Potholes have appeared all over the place, and the major intersections resemble a landscape after an artillery barrage.

A Town Council spokesman, dressed up as Abraham Lincoln for some reason, took to a podium outside of Town Hall yesterday morning to address questions from concerned citizens. I fear he wasn’t very helpful though, as all he had to say on the matter was, “Potholes schmotholes,” “You’re a pothole,” “They’re not damage, they’re landscaping,” and “Hey, how about this weather, huh? Is it cold or is it just me?” He then plucked something from his pocket, threw it on the ground in front of him, and disappeared in a flash and burst of smoke.

So if you’re driving into town anytime soon, I’d advise detouring around the intersection of Peabody and Curwen Street. It’s a real bottom-scraper.


Sometimes I wonder if I’m hurting more than helping as a medical professional. It is my sworn duty to help anyone in need of medical aid. But if the people I help go on to hurt others, have I contributed to the damage?

I am, of course, speaking of the assistance I have rendered to the criminal element, the bootleggers,  of the city over the past couple of years. These are not the charming hoodlums found in the motion pictures. They are gruff, hurtful, dangerous men who would toss their own mothers off of a bridge to make a quick “c-note.”

The men I have patched up have certainly gone on to commit violence to others. Mostly to rival bootleggers, but sometimes innocents do get caught in the middle of their ongoing battle for control of the city’s illicit liquor trade.

I expressed these concerns to Miss Commonprance at the office and she said, and I quote verbatim here, “Bo, what a bunch of baloney. The only one with a beef with you is you. You’re putting your own self behind the eight ball, ain’t no bluenoses doin’ it for you. You keep it up with this bunk, you’re gonna strap yourself with invisible bracelets, and you won’t get hardly no work done at all. So clam up and get back on the clock, doc.”

Honestly, I didn’t understand half of that, but she was sitting on my lap and running her fingers through my hair as she said it, so I feel better either way.


There has been fallout from the incident at the warehouse I snuck into some days back. By pure coincidence, I’m sure, it just happened to catch on fire during the night. I haven’t been out to see it, but judging from the amount of smoke in the sky this morning, it must have been quite the conflagration.

Undoubtedly, the fire was set to hide the evidence of the bootlegger gun-battle coupled with the attack of building-eating slug-monsters. 
I think the town has become completely cynical when it comes to coincidental fires. Instead of covering up the evidence, the fire has just attracted attention to the warehouse. People are automatically asking, “What really happened there?”

Speaking of, and I’m putting this word in quotation marks, “coincidence”, the current Town Council spokesman has suddenly announced that they will be patching up the potholes. All of them. And that everybody is invited to watch the pothole patching. “It’ll be fun! Pothole Day, hooray!” he said, while quivering and wringing his pasty skeletal hands.

Someday, the promise of filled potholes will not be enough to distract the people of this city from the truth. But apparently, today is not that day. Everybody is out, watching the potholes be filled. They’re even waving little Pothole Day flags.

Oh! The little flags are free! What fun!


Enough about my goings-on for the moment, Dear Listeners. How are things in your little part of the world? Have you read any good books lately? How are you dealing with the cold and the snow? Are you completely ignoring a smoking crime scene in favour of seeing holes being filled? Do let me know.


I was asked to pay a visit to Mrs. Grady’s fourth grade class yesterday. She has had various professionals from around the city come into to try to inspire the little tykes into putting more efforts into their education.

My immensely well-thought-of amigo, Miles Showpony, D.D.S., did one of these talks the week before. However, I am told that it did not go well because of his ongoing terror of the gilled prostitutes that he believes are after his pelvic bone. The class was not treated to a talk about the joys of the dental profession so much as they were confronted with a sweaty man asking if any of them were related to anybody on the police force who might be willing to protect him, and his pelvic bone, from future harm. It’s too bad, there’s good money to be made in dentistry.

At any rate, my turn came around yesterday. I planned to talk about the satisfactions that come from being in the medical profession. How good it feels to see a baby from a troubled birth grow into a fine young woman. The joy you feel when you’re able to relieve the elderly from a nagging pain. The relief when you’re able to figure out a teenager’s allergy vector and medicate them so that they can breathe freely for the first time in years.

Unfortunately, the children in Mrs. Grady’s class had other ideas. Instead of questions about being a doctor, I was peppered with such gems as, “How come the dock workers hibernate for four months of the year? Why can’t I do that?” “Why can’t the police officers use words like normal people?” “Should my hand be able to speak to me at night? And if so, does it have to be in French?”

Not only did I fail to convince any of the younglings to pursue medicine as a career, I’m now starting to think of finding a new profession myself.


I saw a man throw a dog at another man today. This was no small Terrier either, this was a full-grown Labrador Retriever. Retrievers are quite heavy, and yet the first man picked the good boy up and just hurled him at the second man like it was something we’re all doing now.

Don’t be concerned for the dog. He seemed quite delighted by the whole affair, and after cannon-balling into the second man’s face, he immediately scrambled back to his owner and bounced up and down as if to say, “Again! Again! Do it again! I did not know that the world could contain such utter joy as my being propelled bodily into the face of a human being! Hooray!”

What compelled this altercation, you ask? What drove a man to turn his furry friend into a missile? The second man sneezed in the vicinity of the first man without covering his nose and mouth. Rude, of course, but sometimes sneezes and coughs do erupt without any prior warning, giving us scant time to throw up protections for our fellow human beings. He certainly didn’t deliberately sneeze on the dog-owner, and I really do think that such accidents, while unpleasant, should be forgiven if society is to keep functioning.

My biggest fear? That lovable Golden Retriever is forever going to associate sneezing with the delight of whistling through the air to crash into the faces of human beings. I expect a rash of broken noses at my office in the near future.


An announcement came in over the radio this morning as I was getting ready for work. Town Council has passed a new by-law that all citizens must show up and cheer on the newly formed baseball team, the Arkham Skin-peelers. Failure to support the team will result in flaming bags of possibly human fecal matter being left on one’s doorstep, and some time being spent in an iron maiden.

Great, as if my schedule wasn’t full enough. Are exceptions to be made if one is really tired after a long day at work? What if a citizen doesn’t understand baseball and cheers at the wrong time? More importantly, who makes people attend baseball games in a New England January? That’s just cruel.


It’s evening as I make this particular entry. I am sitting in my study at home. Thunder is in the air, but it is distant, and therefore bittersweet, like the call of a pleasant memory we can never quite return to. It is warm enough that rain, rather than snow, is coming down in gentle patterns on the rooftop. The sound is soothing, somewhat like a massage for one’s temples, but inside my whole being.

I sit in a comfortable but sturdy leather chair, my slippered feet resting on a rug that is patterned with a British hunting scene. I’m sipping brandy that is warm liquid silk. There’s a small fire crackling away in the brick fireplace, the song of the Roman goddess Vesta, the virginal patron of hearths and homes.

It is, in short, a cozy night. I am thankful that I have such a position in the world that I am able to enjoy such a situation. I know there are many who do not have life as good as I do.

For example, there is a young woman in my cellar. It is not cold, nor is it damp, in that cellar. Still, it is a cellar all the same. A literal hole in the ground. Instinct tells me I should invite her up into this coziness that is currently all my own. But intellect warns me that to do so might mean that I am opening up the possibility of our past friendly relationship being rekindled. 
She is, after all, the one who betrayed me by breaking into and listening to my store of these very phonographic rolls, recordings which might very well get me in trouble with Arkham’s mysterious powers that be. On the other hand, she did it with the intention of clamping down on bootlegger violence, which is a courageous pursuit.

On the other other hand, she’s very bossy. On the other... uh... on someone’s else’s hand, she’s very passionate about taking care of people she values. I have been on the receiving end of that passion myself.

It’s possible that I have had more brandy than I really need. I think I shall just toddle off to bed, before I do anything more to embarrass myself. Good-night rain, good-night thunder. Good-night fireplace and good solid rooftop. Goodnight listeners.  Yes house, goodnight to you too.


Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the author of the western horror novel “Hag’s Trail.”