My house, like all wood-framed houses, makes noises from time to time—all the usual stuff. The floor occasionally creaks or groans under weight. The wind may elicit a whistle or cry at the windows. When confronted with bitterly cold weather, the exterior walls and roof framing might even crack their knuckles.
Late last night, though, my house
issued a new, bigger thing. It flung a body against a wall—or dropped it to the
floor in another room. The sound had no precise location. It was big but not
exactly loud.
After hearing the noise, I lay in bed
blinking at the dark, wondering what might account for it. Neither wind nor
cold weather could be held to blame. After several slightly uneasy minutes of
listening for a repeat, I twisted into my blanket and drifted back to sleep.
Years ago, a similar odd sound in the
night later proved to be a tripod I had leaned against a closet wall that had
fallen over of its own accord. Early this morning, I swept through the entire
house looking for “a body.”
Nothing turned up, leaving the
mystery to rattle around with the pipes and beams.
—Mitchell Hegman
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