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This episode is brought to you by Fantastic Bows of Microscopic Forests. Tonight, as we are

beginning the month that ends with Halloween, we'll read the first half of the Diamond Lens, a short story

by Fitz James O'Brien, first published in 1858.

Every October, snooze cast features our spooky story series, tales with a spectral or uncanny quality meant to set

a certain mood without keeping you awake. This marks our seventh year of our Halloween special,

and we're beginning with something more curious than chilling. O'Brien's tale is steeped in

the oddity of early scientific obsession,

centering on microscopy, the study of the unseen through magnification.

In the author's hands, the microscope becomes not just a tool of science,

but a gateway to another world,

blurring the line between discovery and delirium.

Let's get cozy.

Close your eyes.

Relax your body into the softness of your bed.

Now, take a few deep breaths. From a very early period of my life, the entire bent of my inclinations had been toward microscopic investigations.

When I was not more than ten years old, a distant relative of our family,

hoping to astonish my inexperience, constructed a simple microscope for me by drilling in a disc of copper,

a small hole in which a drop of pure water was sustained

by capillary attraction. This very primitive apparatus, magnifying some 50 diameters,

presented, it is true, only indistinct and imperfect forms, but still sufficiently wonderful to work up my imagination

...