Having a tough time, friend? Well, hang in there, champ! Otherwise, the fall will kill you.


These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.


Marcus Aurelius once said that you have power over your mind but not outside events. Once you realize this, you will find strength. With all due respect, Mr. Aurelius has never had to deal with the Arkham Town Council. I’d like to see his face when he has to pay a penalty fee every time he thinks about moving to another town.


I’ve had a recent spate of people coming into my office with closed eyes, which cannot be opened. The eyes are not glued shut, or sewn, there is no discernible outside influence at all. It seems that their eyes have just had enough of seeing what goes on in Arkham. I’ve prescribed getting out of town for a few days. Unfortunately, some people, in their desperation, took to driving themselves out, mainly be hearing and feel. I should never have underestimated the stress that some Arkham residents are under. On the plus side, business is booming as people are coming in to treat injuries related to car accidents. There’s always a silver lining.


What do you suppose it means, that the snow seems to bend around the real Town Hall, like a coquettish maiden lifting her skirts to keep them out of mud? I asked my utmost compadre, Miles Showpony, D.D.S., this very question, and do you know what he said to me? He said, and I quote, “How should I know? I’m not a meteorologist, I’m a dentist.” Ah Miles, he always manages to put things in such a clear perspective.


Violence erupted down by the Miskatonic yesterday. More bootlegger warfare, I’m sure. It seems the one gang didn’t care for having its warehouse, its booze, and its people eaten by giant baby-faced slug-beasts. Understandable, I suppose.

There was a great deal of gunfire, and once again I was called in to the hospital to help out with the sudden influx of wounded. Normally, gangsters try to keep their injured out of the hospital, but the numbers were just too great this time so off they went.

Usually, I put aside my dislike of the character of a patient in favour of my medical oath to help any in need. And, after all, I have partaken in alcohol undoubtedly smuggled into Arkham by these same gangs. So yes, I am well aware of my hypocrisy.

But this time, I struggled to contain my anger because quite a few of the bullets from the fracas smashed into the houses up the hill from the dock warehouses. Houses filled with innocent families. Thoughts of children being cut down by those errant projectiles stayed in the forefront of my mind as I performed triage on the incoming bootleggers. How easy it would have been to cut a vein, to part an aorta, to puncture a lung, and blame it on the gunfight. Nobody would know, and I would have rid the world of an unrepentant evil. Oh how good it would have felt. I was almost shaking from the delight these thoughts of vengeance caused to surge forth in my breast.

But as it turned out I was really just grumpy and shaking because I had missed lunch. I took fifteen minutes for a snack break and I was perfectly fine after that. 


Have you ever entered a room and then forgotten why you went there? I did that just now, except instead of forgetting my purpose, I forgot the room. I was upstairs, looking for an old medical text from my student days, when I entered a room I don’t ever remember owning before. It was painted an aggressive pink, with bed covers and pillowcases to match. The bed was of a canopy style, with sheer pink curtains draped all about it.

There was a figure there, silhouetted through the curtains. A hand reached up and gripped the edge of the curtain. The fingers were corpulent, bloated, green with rot and dripping loose flesh, covered in gold and silver rings with ostentatious precious stones. 

The figure pulled back the curtain to reveal a woman who, when alive, was already of a considerable size, but now, in death, was bloated with gases. Patches of her hair were falling out. When she smiled at me, she did so with teeth that were green with fuzzy mold.

She reached down into a box of chocolates and pulled one out. The chocolate in question had the legs of an insect which wiggled as she popped it into her mouth, sucking the tips of her fingers clean.

I apologized for entering without knocking, then backed out, closing the door as she rose from her bed to shamble in my direction. I held the door knob, feeling it turn in my hand, then the door began banging and there was a godawful squealing noise that did not sound like a human being at all but a creature uprooted from a swamp after a thousand years of slumber.

Finally, it subsided. The door knob stopped turning, the door ceased its banging in its frame.

I opened the door again and peaked inside. The room had been restored to the water closet that was usually in that space. Honestly, it’s a shame. I should have been a more courteous host to a visitor. Plus I never asked the lady if she had seen my medical text. Ah well, next time.


I believe I mentioned my extremely close confidant, Miles Showpony, D.D.S., earlier in this phonographic roll. He is nearly out of his mind with fear that the professional ladies down by the docks will come and collect his pelvic bone. He is unable to work, as nobody wants a man waving a dental drill around in their mouths when he’s jumping at every little creak or moan of the wood in his office’s floor.

Enough is enough. The people of Arkham can’t go about with the teeth rotting out of their tender mouths because my good friend succumbed to a base urge. So I invited one of the professional ladies to my office for a chat. I told her that if she and her colleagues would promise to not remove any bodily parts from Miles, I would treat their medical needs for a year without charge.
I thought this would be a tempting offer, and the stunning lady did agree, the gills in her long swan-like neck opening and closing slowly as she contemplated the deal.

However, even though we shook hands on the deal, I did notice that the entire time her eyes kept roaming over to the example skeleton in the corner of my office. Specifically, to the pelvic bone. 

I hope she is a woman of her word. If not, I will have given Miles a false hope. And saddled myself with so much work I’m not even going to be paid for!


Apparently there is a new punishment in town for those of us who park our automobiles in the wrong spots. Previously, we were asked to move our cars, or face a small fine that could be paid at Town Hall. The real Town Hall, the one that made all those nuns go mad.

But now, if you park in the wrong place, a Town Hall clerk will follow you for weeks, studying your personality, hopes, and desires, and then make you fall in love with him or her. After a month of bliss that you will never achieve again in your lifetime, they break off the relationship with you, citing “she or he chews with their mouth open” as being the cause.

So, a word of warning for those of you thinking of driving into town. Make sure you park in a designated zone, or suffer the consequences. Unless of course you’re in the market for a fling, in which case, park on somebody’s front lawn for all I care.


After work today, Miss Commonprance told me that we should go on a date. She said that I was being quite a “palooka”, not asking her out, when she’s spending all day at the mill, making come-hither eyes at me. She didn’t want to brag, but she thought she was a decent enough looker, plus she was a kitten looking for a lap to purr on, and that as far as she was concerned, I was a real keen jobbie. I suppose I have been spending quite a lot of time in her company, because I understood almost all of that without having to ask her to translate it after.

We have been out in each other’s company before, but I believe those previous occasions was more of Miss Commonprance taking pity on me, worried that I might be lonely. But now, she seems genuinely interested in perhaps igniting a relationship with yours truly. 

I don’t know why I’m hesitating. She’s certainly attractive. And her cheerful demeanour is coupled with an enviable work ethic. Yes, I do believe I will take her up on her offer. I don’t know why I hesitated in the first place.


I’ve been perusing the latest medical journals and came across on article stating that in parts of Central and South America they’ve been using ants to close small wounds. That’s right, ants! They’ve been doing this for centuries.

Atta and Acromyrmex ants, or leaf-cutters if you prefer a more common name. Their heads are applied perpendicular to the wound’s length, the head is gently squeezed so the mandibles open, then released so they snap back into place, acting much like a stitch to keep the wound closed while it heals. Remarkable!

Of course, that might be a bit trickier with the local Arkhanam species of ants. They certainly have big enough mandibles, but they would be deucedly difficult to work with, what with the tiny human all begging to be turned back into human beings, they’re sorry that they were late with their municipal taxes, it won’t happen again, and so on. 

I always feel guilty squashing them when they get inside my house. But then again, if you let one stay, they’ll soon bring in their friends by the hundreds. Next thing you know, you’re infested by tax-dodgers defiling your sugar pot.


I returned earlier from my date with Miss Commonprance. I must admit, I had a wonderful time. Miss Commonprance has the ability to make me feel more adventurous than I usually am. She is a woman that is not afraid to live life in a constant outpouring of expression. It’s quite the contrast to my reserved nature.

It would have been a perfect night except that when I got home I found Miss Weetamoo sitting in my favourite chair in my study sipping my brandy. She was even wearing my robe and slippers! She seemed quite smug and proud of herself. She told me that while I was out making a fool of myself with my “office tart”, her words, not mine, she had gone out on her own and obtained information on the mystery man I had seen in the bootlegger warehouse.

I was quite cross with her. She is recovering nicely from her gunshot wound, but she is still vulnerable to reopening it. Plus, by going out, she opened herself to being trailed back here by those gangsters, who have already demonstrated that they are not above bringing violence into my home.

She rolled her eyes at me so hard it’s a wonder her head didn’t fall off. She also didn’t tell me what she had learned until I broke down and asked. It grates my cheese that she knows that curiosity would compel me to ask, despite my anger over her reckless actions. When I finally did break down and ask, she took a moment to enjoy a long sip of brandy before imparting her new knowledge.

It turns out that the mysterious little brown man was indeed brought over from the Middle East. He was a professional excavator, a man who assisted archaeologists in their digs of historical sites. An odd fellow to interest illegal alcohol merchants. They had to learn of him, find him, kidnap him, then ship him overseas without his being noticed by customs or other regulatory agencies, not to mention Johnny Law. 

Obviously, he is a man of import. But important, how? Miss Weetamoo and I put our heads together, but could not figure out how such a man could benefit a bunch of thugs interested in circumventing Prohibition laws. The only thing we could think of was that he might know something about those bizarre slug-like creatures that attacked the warehouse. But if that’s the case, wouldn’t the rum-runners have wanted the services of some kind of biologist?


Enough of all my this-ing and that-ing for the moment. Let me know about you, Dear Listeners. Do you have plans for Valentine’s Day? Have you planned a surprise for that special someone in your life? Chocolates, perhaps? Or maybe a romantic dinner? Or you could really make the day special and close off their wounds with the heads of exotic ants. It will be a day they’ll never forget!


It’s later. Miss Weetamoo has retired for the night. I have my study back, as well as my robe, slippers, and brandy. I realized that I forgot my anger towards her encroachments as we mulled over the meaning of the mysterious Middle Eastern man. I’ll say this for that woman, she knows how to get my gears spinning.

At any rate, if we learn more about the man, I’ll certainly record it here on my phonographic device. Something strange, even stranger than normal, is afoot here in Arkham. And, it being Arkham, it’s not a question of if the mystery is dangerous, but surely a question of how dangerous. Until next time, Dear Listeners, I bid you adieu. 


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