I received a town census form. One of the categories for residents offers three options: “Alive,” “Dead,” or “In Between.”

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

I saw one of those milk trucks as I was returning from an early-morning run to Innsmouth. You know the ones, with the snakes painted on the sides instead of cows. Out of sheer nagging curiosity, I decided to follow it as it rumbled its way east out of town. I know what you’re thinking, because I thought it too... the truck was either on its way to some kind of milk-bottling factory, or was on its way to a farm. It was neither. About fifteen minutes out into the country it took a sudden right where there was no road. I stopped on the road and watched it disappear between maples and pines, slamming and bouncing its way over the uneven terrain, plowing through drifts of snow. I got out, and followed on foot, tracking the marks made by the truck’s wheels. After about ten minutes the tracks disappeared into a cave. I did not go inside, so I can’t confirm if anything is being milked inside those dark recesses. But for any current Arkham citizens listening to this recording, you might consider taking your coffee black for the foreseeable future.

I imagine you’re all quite curious about how the shootout at the Knees Up Dance Hall has turned out. I haven’t updated you until now because I too remain curious. The whole event has been completely hushed up. It did not reach the local papers, never mind the papers I had delivered in special from Boston, Chicago, and New York. Even though half a dozen people were killed, and at least twenty more were injured. The locals who wouldn’t consider going to such an establishment have apparently heard not a peep. They didn’t know a shoot-out had occurred at all. A hush-up of profound efficiency has taken place.

I suspect Town Hall is involved in keeping things quiet. I visited Bishop Tantrum, a personage who obviously wouldn’t attend a soiree at a dance hall, and told him about the incident. Within a span of five minutes, he had forgotten I had told him, and he was shocked anew when I brought up the shoot-out again.

It happened again and again. It seems that he is unable to keep a memory of the shoot-out in his head. If that doesn’t reek of the long arm of Town Hall, what does? 

That leaves me with two follow-up questions. One – are all of the respectable people of Arkham having their memories wiped in a similar manner? And two – since I can remember the whole incident, in wretchedly vivid colour, does that mean I am not considered to be respectable?

Had another visit with Bishop Tantrum. He offered me some tea. Big tea drinker, is the bishop. It soothes his throat, when he can get it down between screams. While I was there to check up on him, it seemed that I was to play the part of the patient as he discerned that something was vexing me. I related to him the recent troubles I had been having with Miss Weetamoo, my housekeeper. He told me, between blood-curdling screams, that he could be of little help, since he had joined the church at a young age and had no experience with women. He suggested I be patient with Miss Weetamoo, since she was, in his words, an “unconverted heathen”. And also, that I was highly unlikely to find a housekeeper as dedicated as she. To be honest, I very much felt like screaming myself.

They’re taking another swing at bringing down the Farthingale House, over in the Angledog neighbourhood. Get this – they’ve imported dozens of barrels of termites that they are going to unleash upon the house. Where they got all those termites in the middle of winter I do not know. Uncountable crawling wood-devouring insects versus one old house. Considering the house’s history, I don’t like the insects’ odds.

There’s something odd I’ve never noticed about Town Hall before. The real Town Hall, not the fake one that goes on the post cards. When the sidewalks and roads get slippery with ice, a strong wind seems to push you towards Town Hall, no matter what direction you are from the building. It’s almost like one is falling into a pit... Is that how Town Hall recruits new clerks?

More fooferaw erupted around those “Encyclopedia Terrorificus” books. The Zych girl read a couple of them and now vomits up a milky substance almost daily, even though she hasn’t had any milk to drink. I’m sure the book-banning zealots are going to have a field-day with this. They can’t prove the books were the cause of the girl’s troubles. And even if the books were responsible, this incident has only drawn attention to the fact that the girl hasn’t had enough milk in her diet. I say “Well done, Encyclopedia, and thank you.”

People sometimes wonder at my dislike of the so-called upper classes. I do not inherently dislike the well-to-do. But it was not the working man that got us all mired in those trenches during the war. No, that was a game of greed, played by those that already had so much. And we were the pawns, easily placed, even more easily dismissed.

As always, I’m curious about you, dear listeners. What kind of music do you like? Are you always eager to adopt new lingo, or do you find it tiring to try to keep up with the latest linguistic fads? Have you ever found yourself caught in a gangland crossfire? Do let me know.

Alas, the search for a nursing assistant continues to continue. I had an interview set up with a well-experienced woman who had worked in the recuperation hospitals in England during the war. She halfway had the job already just from that, before our interview ever happened; I know what those women went through, and their tasks were Sisyphean.

We were set to meet a week ago. But alas, about two hours before the appointment, I received a call at my office from the potential nurse, one Miss Jackopin, from a petrol station phone along the highway. Nurse Jackopin declared that not only was she not going to be making the appointment or taking the job, but she wondered if I was in my right mind to be working and living in Arkham. She was clearly frightened nearly out of her mind, her womb-based female hormones making her hysterical and barely coherent. I endeavoured to ask what had spooked her to such a degree, but before I could complete my questions I heard a familiar sound of a person being sucked into an unknowable void beyond the known world. Enjoy the state of Delaware, Nurse Jackopin. I hope you find it more to your liking.

Speaking of those voids by the blackened road signs along Route 1A... It turns out that Delaware has been inundated with multiple travellers who were on their way to Arkham, only to find themselves suddenly plunked down in a place that none of them wanted to be. It seems to me that Delaware officials should have taken my complaints in a more serious manner. I must admit, I’m not entirely sure they are so down on the amount of new, if unexpected, visitors. Multiple roadside inns have popped up at the very places where travellers reappear when they re-emerge out of the hellish in-between world. Delaware may not like their visitors, but they have no qualms about taking their money.

I just finished tending to a young lad who ran into a patch of what he swears is “Poison Maple”. I have of course dealt with numerous cases of Poison Oak and Poison Ivy over the years, and this looked like a case of the latter. Fallen red maple leaves, once dried, have been known to cause illness in horses if the leaves are eaten. There aren’t any causes of this toxicity causing a reaction just be being amongst bare maples in the midst of winter. But the lad insists that it’s “Poison Maple”, and he’s sure of it because the trees told him so.

Here is an interesting turn of events. Miss Commonprance came by my office just as I was closing up for the evening. She came with two topics on her mind. The first was that she was finding that some of her quote unquote “square amigos” hadn’t heard about the shoot-out at the Knees Up Dance Hall, and when she told them about it, they seemed to forget all about it within minutes. I was relieved to find that I was not the only one that was happening to. Unfortunately, I was not able to relieve her, or for that matter, my mind on that score. I have, as of yet, been unable to find medical records that indicate mass-forgetfulness.

The second reason for Miss Commonprance’s visit took me a bit by surprise. She has asked to become my nursing aide. She had heard that I was having trouble finding one. How she heard this, I do not know. She hadn’t had any sort of nursing training, but, as she put it, seeing me “in action” after those “blue-noses” “plugged up the joint”, which I assume means the shoot-out, made her want to dive in headfirst into the medical world. She said she would study as she worked in my office, and still dance at night. She also said that the sight of blood did not bother her. This much I already knew. If anything, I would have said quite the opposite. She ended her pitch by saying that she sure wouldn’t mind working side by side with me, as she nudged me in the ribs with her elbow and wagged her eyebrows.

I must admit, I would not mind having help. I’ve been struggling for months now to find an assistant. And Miss Commonprance is certainly eager. But would I be bringing her on because I truly believed she could be an asset, or would I in fact just be succumbing to her many and varied charms, as well as the outrageous and obvious doses of flattery that she continuously flings my way? If any of you hear this in time to render me some advice on the matter, I’d welcome it with open ears.

You’re probably wondering what became of my seeing my housekeeper, Miss Weetamoo, around the vicinity of Knees Up Dance Hall the night of the shootings. I wasn’t quite sure how to approach Miss Weetamoo to broach the subject. Relations have been quite strained between us as of late, and I worried that this might be the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back.

Finally, the Monday after the shooting, I asked her to join me in my parlour, and to take a seat. When in situations like this, I find it’s best to just come at it head on. So I bluntly asked Miss Weetamoo, straight out, what she had been doing at the dance hall that Saturday night.

She gave me a blank stare. I insisted on an answer – had she been following me? Checking up on my socializing with Miss Commonprance?

Her brow grew lower and lower with my every sentence. Miss Weetamoo is much different than Miss Commonprance. Miss Commonprance is quick and open with her emotions. Miss Weetamoo, on the other hand, is a deep pot that is slow to boil.

But boil she did, as I continued with my insistence that she explain what she had been doing around the Knees Up the same night I attended one of its parties. Finally she exploded, wanting to know that on Earth I was talking about. She insisted that not only had she not been around some liquor-slinging house of ill-repute (her words, not mine), but she had never even heard of the place.

Looking into her great dark eyes, I have to say that I believed her. She truly did not seem to know anything about the shootings. And then I realized – she was one of the respectables, the good people of Arkham that were having their minds wiped clean of the incident. 

This all made for a comical episode after that. She was intensely interested in hearing about the violence from me, but in the midst of my explanation she forgot what we were talking about, and only knew that she was angry and frustrated at me for some reason.

When I told her to forget the matter, she stormed off and began to clean the breakfast dishes with enough vigour to wear off the patterns.

A follow-up note to my conversation with Miss Weetamoo. While she is unable to remember anything I tell her about the Knees Up massacre, she is having absolutely no trouble at all remember that I mentioned that I was considering bringing on Miss Commonprance as an assistant at my office. Miss Weetamoo said it was a fine idea and I should do it, since it’s what I so clearly want, but I now have some broken dishes to replace.

I decided to follow up on that matter of the Poison Maple trees. Where my medical journals have failed me, I thought perhaps arboreal tomes might pick up the slack. So I took myself off to the library. Mrs Kovalenko, wearing long sleeves and a high turtleneck sweater, brought me a number of books on tree species. Irony was apparently as thick as those books that day, because I caught some kind of painful rash from turning the pages.

I suppose I’m finishing off this phonograph with more questions than answers. I feel we could all use some clarity. I’ll leave you with this saying my grandfather always used to use – “Where cobwebs are plenty, kisses are scarce.” ...No, I don’t know what that means either.

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