A wise man once said, “Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.” Anyway, he’s dead now.


These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.


As part of my fitness regimen, I’ve decided to take up the sport of hockey. It’s been many a mile since I’ve picked up a hockey stick, but I have done some skating in the past couple of years, so I wasn’t coming at it from a dead start.

There is a league of sorts for men of my age in town, and I signed up to give it a whirl. They assured me that the league is purely for fun, not competitive at all, and that many who play are on skates for the first time in their lives. Perfect!

Except, they handed me a rule book that I had to swear to read before I played my first game. Perhaps you can hear me leafing through the pages as I speak, I’m not sure how sensitive this recording device is. I have to say, some of these rules are real head-scratchers. Here are just a small selection of the rules I must abide by in order to play:

Each team shall only have six players on the ice at one time. 

If the puck screams, players are to ignore it at all costs.

Fighting is strictly prohibited, unless you hear a gong, in which case weapons will be issued to all players in the sense of fairness.

Never ask if the nets are made from human skin.

Referees are to be obeyed at all times, unless they order you to kiss them, in which case you are to skate as fast as possible in the opposite direction. If, in your flight, you feel something like tentacles plucking at the back of your jersey, you are to ignore this sensation and say out loud, “It’s just the wind.”

My goodness but that’s a lot to remember. But it does sound like I’ll be getting quite the physical workout. Good-bye, winter fat!


There is a new peculiarity at the market – quickly-frozen foods! Apparently freezing food at increased speeds will help keep them fresh for longer periods of time. As a medical professional, it makes me wonder what else can be kept fresh if we freeze it fast enough.

Could we somehow flash freeze a person mangled by a car accident, preserving them so that we could surgically repair the various affected areas in the proper order?

Could we preserve someone dying from a disease we cannot currently cure?

Perhaps we could freeze criminals until we have enough knowledge for us to sculpt their brains into those of more positive contributing members of society.

Oh! Strawberries! I want to try it with strawberries!


Speaking of new inventions, I received an Audiometer at the office last week. While I am suspicious of applying electronic devices to patients, Miss Commonprance was eager to set it up and give it a whirl. So whirl we did.

The Audiometer is a panel and a set of headphones contained within a practical green box. The headphones are placed upon the ears of the patient, and then they are asked to respond when I send them tones at frequencies varying from 500 to 4000 Hz, and at ranges between 25 to 60 decibels. If someone can hear the tones at 25 decibels, they have splendid hearing and all is well. If they require 60 decibels to hear the same tones, then things are not looking, or sounding, haha, too good, and they are likely suffering from hearing loss.

We tried the device out on Mr. Huckle, a fellow who has worked around construction sites all his life, and has complained of having some hearing problems as a result.
He seemed to enjoy the process of having Miss Commonprance affix the phones to his ears. After that, I tested his hearing at the various Hz and decibel positions. It’s certainly much more efficient than the old fashioned tests, which basically involved me leaning forward and shouting, “Hey bud! Can you hear me? How about now?”

Halfway through the procedure, Mr. Huckle started to ask who was speaking. Puzzled, I told him it was Miss Commonprance and myself. He frowned and said, “No, the other voices.”

After the procedure was over, Mr. Huckle became quite agitated, slapping at his ears and saying things like, “Make them stop!” “They command me!” and “No! I won’t! I won’t do it! That’s terrible! I’m a good man! You can’t make me!”

Puzzling, of course. And a bit worrisome. But I can say that, according to the new contraption, Mr. Huckle’s hearing is aces. So I consider that a win!


These past couple of weeks have been stuffed full of new technologies. I was coming back into the city after a professional visit out to one of the surrounding farms when I saw the most peculiar... well, I’m not quite sure what to call it.

It was much like a tractor, but instead of wheels there were long tank treads and at the front of the body of the vehicle was a long bit of metal that reminded me of a plow. 

Curious, I stopped and asked the fellow, a worker from the city, what the machine was called. He called it a “bulldozer,” which to me sounds like an instrument for making male cows descend into a peaceful slumber. It was quite effective. As I watched, he was able to push aside a significant amount of earth from the side of a small hill.

I asked him what the purpose of the large hole was, and he chuckled and replied, “Well, it’s certainly not a mass grave, if that’s what you’re thinking. It’s anything but a mass grave, you understand?” he said, staring intently into my eyes.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. That name. Bull-dozer. It just doesn’t make any sense.
- I escorted Miss Weetamoo to the library today. We raised quite a few eyebrows, on account that few have seen a white man with a native woman on his arm. So be it. We doctors are allowed our eccentricities, as long as we keep healing the locals.

As usual, the stone lion-things outside the library’s entrance snarled at me. I don’t know what their problem is, I’ve been nothing but a gentleman on my forays to the library. Some inanimate objects were just not raised to observe the social graces. Miss Weetamoo said she didn’t hear a thing and gave me a look that said she suspected that I might be more than just a little eccentric. I might have to try out the hearing test machine on her.

We went in search of information about the mystery man from the Middle East. I had ordered British newspapers that cover that area of the world, but they won’t arrive for some weeks yet, so this was the next best thing. Arkham is a small city, but the main library is surprisingly well-stocked when it comes to foreign newspapers and periodicals and books covered in what is likely human skin.

That being said, I’m afraid we didn’t find any useful information. There were five different newspapers in English, and two in French, with sections about the Middle East, but upon perusing them, we found that they had been heavily redacted. Whole columns had been blotted out with heavy black ink. There were also two newspapers in Arabic, and these too featured entire inked-out sections.

We were just about to give up when Miss Weetamoo spotted a picture in one of the Arabic papers. Within that picture there was what we believed was an archaeological dig site. While the caption had been blotted out, within the picture a well-dressed archaeologist was holding up a small chalkboard with something written on it. Something which Miss Weetamoo could decipher. 

I expressed my surprise, I had no idea that my ex-housekeeper could read Arabic. She replied that she couldn’t, but there are certain words she had learned to recognize in dozens of languages. To be specific, there were certain names she had been trained to learn. This was one of those names. She traced her slim finger under the curls of the Arabic writing, from right to left, and translated it as something that sounded like “B’gnu-Thun.”

I had no idea what that meant, but Miss Weetamoo certainly felt the name had some weight. Was he some ancient martial leader from that part of the world? Or perhaps a prophet from before the advent of our modern religions? I didn’t know.

That picture contained another surprise. I happened to look at the other people at that dig, and although it was hard to tell, I thought I spotted the mystery man from the warehouse in the background, behind the distinguished fellow holding the chalkboard. I told Miss Weetamoo I couldn’t be sure it was him, because the picture was not that clear, and according to the handwritten notation in the bottom right, it was taken some ten years earlier, so the man did not yet sport grey hair. But still... it did look quite a bit like him. 

Miss Weetamoo wondered why the paper, which was about a month old, was displaying a photograph that was a decade old. Had something happened recently at that dig site? Or perhaps to the archaeologist?  We both agreed that this required more digging, so to speak. What we did not agree to was Miss Weetamoo looking about, then tearing the page out of the paper and stuffing it up her sleeve.

I understand that what was happening around town could portend the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands, of people. But still, there was no need to destroy library property. That’s just wrong!


For the first time ever, Miss Commonprance was not her usual cheerful self about the office. Whenever I’d ask her about something, she’d give me a curt reply, stick her nose in the air, and head off into a different room.

I asked her what was wrong on multiple occasions, and received the same reply each time. “Nothing.” Then, when I stopped asking, she charged into the office where I was filling out paperwork and demanded to know why I wasn’t asking her what was wrong. The female mind is a mystery to me.

It turns out that Miss Commonprance learned that I had been seen, arm in arm, with Miss Weetamoo. I explained that Miss Weetamoo had been injured, but had required a trip to the library to expand her knowledge on a certain subject. I, being her medical practitioner, plus a supporter of anybody looking to expand their horizons, much as I had supported Miss Commonprance in her efforts to become a nurse, had lent Miss Weetamoo my strength so that she could make the trip.

Miss Commonprance softened after that, and had the good grace to seem abashed. She said was sorry for being such a “Dumb Dora,” but I couldn’t really blame her because it was well-known that Miss Weetamoo was the “deepest dish” in town, and since Miss Commonprance and I were now seeing each other socially, she had to make sure no “lookers” were turning my head. 

I assured her that I found Miss Weetamoo’s personality and bossiness to be grating at the best of time and that she had nothing to worry about. For sure, Miss Weetamoo is a beautiful woman, and I admire her willingness to fight back against the violent elements in the city, but...

Did I say that last part out loud to Miss Weetamoo? I certainly didn’t. What do you think I am, nuts?


I’ve updated you on my goings-on, but how about you, Dear Listeners? Any woman troubles in your life? Have you been an accomplice in defiling library property? Have you managed to piece together a mystery with its possible origins in an archaeological site from half a world away and over ten years ago? If your answer is yes to any of these questions, how did you manage? I could use all the help I can get.


The snowfall has been especially thick this year in Arkham. It has always snowed heavily here, but this year is something else. Its quite beautiful in its own way, but of course makes it difficult to make house calls, especially if they’re out in the countryside.

The children are loving it though. Everywhere I go, there are snowmen and snow-forts and children hurtling down hills on toboggans.

What isn’t quite so charming is that children are building tunnels through the deep snow banks. A common pursuit amongst youngsters in snowy locations around the world. However, when I was growing up in Canada, none of our tunnels emitted growling voices proclaiming the coming of a lord of blizzards. 

I wish the kids would just stick to snowball fights.


Valentine’s Day occurred this month, and as per usual, Miss Commonprance was the one to take the reins in planning for the occasion. I’ve never met a woman like her, who knows what she wants and puts her nose to the grindstone to make sure she gets it.

We ended going to yet another speakeasy (Arkham seems absolutely infested with them) and we had a gay old time dancing and quenching our thirst with champagne. Everything was swimming right along with the current. But then we hit the gambling tables.

This speakeasy was an upscale affair. I recognized more than one of Arkham’s upper-crusters at the card and roulette tables. Apparently more than one of them recognized Miss Commonprance too, and it turned out she was a known entity amongst the heavy gamblers of the town.

I’m not much for games of chance. However, I did pick up some basic knowledge of poker back during the war, when we’d play with tired old cards in order to stay awake during our long hours at sentry duty. So I stuck to the low-bid poker table, and I broke just about even.

Miss Commonprance had left me, saying she was going to try her luck at some of the other tables. I found her in the middle of a commotion, a commotion she had created herself. She was, in short, cleaning up at roulette, a game where I have never understood the appeal. It seemed to be based on total luck. But Miss Commonprance, who had started out with only a small stack of low-cost chips (she is, after all, only an office assistant, and is paying for nursing school), but now she had a great pile of the things on the table before her. An entire crowd had gathered, and they cheered wildly as the little ball bounced into a profitable slot, and yet even more chips were pushed forward to join her pile.

She looked at me with an expression on her face that I had never seen before. She is almost always cheerful, and takes great delight in teasing me, but this was something beyond the happiness I usually saw in her lovely face. Her eyes were dancing back and forth. Glittering. Her smile was almost a snarl. She looked... feral. Happy, but dangerous in some way. I don’t know how to explain it. All I can say is that it wasn’t the Hooty Commonprance I had come to know and admire.

Of course, this was a special occasion. Valentine’s Day. That was probably it. She was just overjoyed because it was a special night, and not because of the gambling. 

Right?



Overnight For Observation was created by Daniel Fox. Daniel is the author of the horror novella “Fertilizer.”