It’s noon as I make this entry, and the sky is the dark purple of a deep bruise. It trails off into bilious greens and yellows... Come to think of it, I think perhaps the sky really is bruised. How do I, as a doctor, administer treatment to an entire atmosphere? 

These are the recordings of Doctor Cornelius Plink.

The police have been going around town, handing out a paper that is a general warning of some sort. I do believe this might be a reaction to the Knees Up Dance Hall massacre. It warns Arkham citizens to be on the look-out for, and I quote, “men acting with a questionable purpose.” I’m afraid I don’t find this particularly comforting, since the Arkham P.D.’s officers are usually the individuals who seem to be acting in the most questionable manner around town. 

I’ve become more concerned about the gangster with the strange round marks across his torso. I lost track of him during the shooting at the Dance Hall. But while I was able to observe him, before the bullets thickened the atmosphere, not only was he not looking like he was healing, he was looking like he was considerably worse than when I first saw him in my office. I may not approve of his lifestyle and occupation, but I have a duty to aid him if at all possible. However, I hardly think going around town and asking for a gangster would be conducive to my own continued good health. So, if any of you listeners know the bootlegger that I mean, do let him know I am looking for him. In a good way.

I found some camping gear in the cellar. A canvas tent and the like. It’s purpose is lost on me. While I used to enjoy sleeping out under the stars as a boy, the war cured me of the desire to sleep on anything but a quality bed ever again. The strange part of all this is that the gear isn’t mine. But then again, the cellar isn’t really mine either, both having appeared after my house disappeared and then reappeared on its own... So I guess I’ve come out ahead?

A young man working in the Arkham Advertiser advertising department called and offered me a free ad looking for a nursing assistant. Apparently I’ve paid for so many of them now that they’re giving me one out of pity.

I went ice-skating on the frozen Miskatonic again today. Last time I tried this I ended up seeing a dead body. I was therefore a bit reluctant to look down. However, the siren call of the cold waters below the thick layer of ice finally pulled my eyes down. Thankfully, there were no dead bodies this time. Just ice. Of course, when I looked back up, everyone else who had been skating in my vicinity had disappeared without a trace. But still... no dead bodies, so I’ll count that as a win.

I am an absolute machine these days when it comes to researching and writing medical papers. My latest, “Arsenic – For Clean Skin and Keeps You Thin” is burning in my hot little hands as we speak. Prepare your eyes for greatness, medical world!

I was invited by my good friend, Miles Showpony, D.D.S., to join him for a round of ice fishing on Wenham Lake. We sat in a freezing little outhouse-sized shack with our lines in a hole in the ice, and drank copious amounts of what I believe was some kind of bathtub moonshine. Miles has learned about my looking into the health of the ladies of the night that ply their wares near the river. He plied me with questions – were they all really as beautiful as he’s heard? Was I friends with them? Did they slaughter men that came to them and use their pelvic bones to build their supposed invisible temple? I must admit that I became quite drunk. At one point I thought I pulled up a tentacle the thickness of my body out of the hole in the ice. It was a sickly yellow and sticky and somehow still alive, wrapping itself around my fishing pole. I asked Miles, my good friend, where he had acquired the moonshine. He gave me a glassy-eyed look and said it was just tap-water out of the Arkham mains. Anyway, I have a giant yellow tentacle now.

I am strongly thinking of switching from my shared phone line to a private one. It’s quite awkward for my patients to try and confide personal medical information when we can hear other parties breathing on the line. It’s also quite awkward that a multitude of whispered voices on the line keep trying to tell all of us to kill our grandmothers. Luckily, the voices have been ineffective so far, but I’m sure it’s only a matter of time. Even I want to murder my grandmothers, and both of them have been dead for years.

The nice young couple next door came to me with a couple of concerns about their newborn. Health-wise, the baby couldn’t be healthier. Their concern stems from the fact that the child extrudes sulphuric flames. The child is completely unharmed, but the spurts of fire (which, I assure you, are not belches), threaten to set their pleasant little house on fire, and are costing them a fortune in diapers.

Valentine’s Day is an unusual affair here in Arkham. For one thing, cards are only exchanged between adults that have no liking for each other. I suppose I’m grateful to have never received one, but I am curious what’s written on those cards. Also, children exchange not cards but hearts. Don’t be too alarmed, they are hearts taken from creatures like pigs and chickens, presumably bought at the butcher shops... Presumably.

A fish and chips shop opened up in town. I remember them being a growing trend in London when I passed through on my way back from the war, but I had never tried one. I ordered a one-piece halibut and chips with mushy peas as a side. The bundle of food, wrapped in brown paper which in turn was wrapped in old newspaper, smelled delicious. However, when I took a seat at one of the tables and opened the bundle, the fish was clearly not halibut. In fact, it was clearly not fish. You don’t need to be a doctor to know that fish don’t come with tiny furry paws. I took my complaint to the man behind the counter. We got into quite the altercation, but I backed off once the proprietor started spitting acidic venom. I guess I’ll keep my dining out confined to Levi’s Delicatessen and Baek Hyeon’s hot-dog stand for the near future.

You may recall that some months ago, I sent a sample of dirt to Miskatonic University to have it analyzed. The sample was taken from the growing dead patch of earth at the park found at Armitage and Federal. You’ve probably been past it dozens of times. At the time, representatives of the university became quite cross with me because the dirt refused to be analyzed, and even assaulted a student. However, there has been a renewed surge of interest in the patch since there was a bootlegger-related shooting over it. The university sent out a multi-disciplinary team of scientists and students. Apparently they didn’t find a cause of the depletion of bacterial life, but they did find that the “dead zone” was weaker at the edges of the patch of earth, while the center was completely devoid of life, right down to the bacterial level. This suggest to me that there was something at the centre of the patch that was drawing the life inwards, and perhaps consuming it. That of course leads one to wonder – what was at the centre of the patch? Was it aware of what it was doing? And was this a one-time event, or is this life-sucking unknown somewhere else in town, right at this very moment, draining the life out of a different part of Arkham?

Let’s get this spotlight off of me and onto you for the moment, dear listeners. Have you tried a new kind of food lately? What is your least-favourite kind of food? Have you ever consumed so much that you caused a patch of earth to sprout where literally no living thing dares to venture? And if so, how did you work it off after?

I’m thinking about taking up some kind of fitness regimen. While I do try to remain active with ice skating and cycling, I spend most of my days seated at my office. Things are getting a bit softer around my middle than I would prefer. I went to the library to see if we had any books on calisthenic or weight-lifting programs. It turns out that the only books the Arkham library has in its exercise section are about tracking and chasing human victims through various environments – deserts, forests, cities, and so forth. I don’t think they’re really for me, but to be fair, the regimens do seem quite robust.

There have been a rash of unexplained break-ins through multiple neighbourhoods of the town. The police are baffled... well, to be fair, the rank and file officers of the Arkham P.D. are puzzled by bright lights and basic English, so it shouldn’t be a complete surprise. However, any police force in the world would certainly be strained by trying to figure out why dozens of homes and businesses are being hit every month, with the culprits getting away clean every time. The truly strange item noted in the Arkham Advertiser is that the thief or thieves is taking only small items – small earrings, cuff-links, at most a ring with a fairly large stone. This despite the fact that cash is often found left untouched right beside where the items have been stolen. The police might have no suspects... but I do. I believe that our guinea-pig friend from the library, the one with the expanded brain, has started dealing opiates to the town’s rodent population again. That would explain why only tiny items are being stolen – it’s all that mice and rats can carry. The real questions is – where is the guinea pig getting its supply? I haven’t lost any more morphine. Is he taking it from the hospital? The university? Or is he perhaps brewing some recipe all his own somewhere out in the backwoods?

I’ve mentioned in these records before that the quote unquote “respectable” people of Arkham have no knowledge of the massacre at the Knees Up Dance Hall. And that when you try to tell them about it, they forget it within minutes, like their minds are being forcefully washed clean. As I’ve also noted, I have no problem remembering the incident. The violence of it is vividly etched in my mind. I must admit that my ultimate conclusion is that I am no longer considered one of the respectable residents of the town, and this bothers me quite a bit. I feel a deep desire to improve my standing in the eyes of whatever force is being used as the mind-wipe, or to be more specific, in the eyes of the people utilizing the force.

To that end, I tried once again to attend a Town Council meeting. You know, in an effort to show that I care. If you’ll recall, they’re held at the real Town Hall, the one where the gargoyle heads not only turn to follow you, but occasionally shout down rude things about your mother. I showed up fifteen minutes early for the meeting, but when I tried to head inside, the door I was reaching for turned into a charcoal drawing. I banged my knuckles against what was now a wall with a convincing door drawn on it. I tried a side door, and the same thing happened. My knuckles were now sore and raw. I was unable to demonstrate my commitment to be a solid citizen. Plus I got charcoal on my suit.

One of the gilled ladies of the night from down by the river came to my office today. She had a bad cut along the palm of one hand. I suppose it is a weakness of the male species that we can be driven to distraction by a woman of superlative beauty... that’s certainly what happened during her visit. I deliberately had to look away from her face as I tended to her wound. Even so, I was always conscious of her pearlescent gills which I could see shimmering out of the corner of my eye. While I was cleaning the wound, I found a fragment of a white-ish material. Before I could gather my thoughts, I blurted out a question, asking if this was a bit of bone lodged in the cut. She admitted that it was, and went further by saying that it would probably be best if I didn’t make any further inquiries. It’s always pleasant being able to completely agree with a beautiful woman.

Three nights ago I had to walk back home at the end of the day through an intense fog. I don’t mean that the fog was particularly thick, I mean that it was intense. It kept pulsing in and out along the streets, back and forth from the direction of the river. Like something was breathing. Something immense, and aggravated. Not only was it unnerving, the sucking and blowing made it especially difficult to keep my hat in place.

There’s a new subway entrance at College and Garrison. There’s just one little hiccup that I can see – Arkham doesn’t have a subway. Also, what little that can be seen of that stairway from the street looks quite a bit like a throat. I think I will stick with walking for the foreseeable future.

I have run out of room on this phonographic roll. I leave you with the heart-felt advice that you avoid going into strange subway stations, or fogs, or Town Council meetings, or... You know what? Best not to go out at all.

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