Falling Books
I have been readingstories here for a few weeks now and even questioned if I couldpost here. As the answer was "yes" here I go! And thisis not fiction! What ever you think!
When I was a teenager My Aunt M. died. Mom was the one that foundher. Peacefully "asleep" with a book in bed. Mom andAunt M. had made a "pact" that who ever went firstwould find a way to let the other know if there was more to deaththan being dead.
Well, the night after she died my aunt let us know! Mom and Iwere upstairs with the cat and dog. We were comforting each otherand planning the wake when we heard a huge crash down stairs.This was 11pm and we were alone in the house so we fairly leaptout of our skin. We got down to the library and found that oneshelf, out of 20-some-odd had fallen off the wall. Now, this wasin California, a mere mile from the San Andreas fault so weshrugged, placed the shelf back on the brackets and the booksback on the shelf. Mom did comment that some of the books wereactually Aunt M.'s. But we didn't give it much more thought.
In the morning I got a hammer and double checked the brackets.All was secure. It was now the second day after Aunt M.'s death.Mom and I are still alone as my Dad was back east on business. Itwas about eleven o'clock (we were to later to learn this was theapprox. time of Aunt M.'s death). And, you guessed it...crash! Itwas the same shelf. The wall brackets were still firmly in place.This time however, the books had fallen in an odd way. Most hadscattered within a few feet of the wall, as one would expect. Thebooks that Mom had borrowed from Aunt M. (all of them and ONLYthem) were 20 feet away, at the end of a long passage. My Mom wasvery casual and merely said "Aunt M. always liked to makesure her point was well taken." My Dad has always maintainedit was a earth tremor. But Mom and I are quite sure it wasn't.