The Floating Flame

This is a story told to me by my mother who insists that it is true. Her story has never changed and I have heard her tell it many times going back to my childhood. She grew up in a small rural farm town in southern Idaho called Grace. In the summer time all the kids around her age (11-12) would get together on the weekends at one of there homes for a sleepover.

The time had come for the sleepover at her house and she was very excited about it as were the other children. Her parents were the only ones in the area at the time to have a television and the kids were allowed to watch for 2 hours before they went to bed! There were eight of them and they made sure they were good all day, helping her mother around the house and father on the farm.

Dinner time came and they all lined up to wash there hands and faces at the sink. They waited at the table for her parents to sit before they seated themselves. As the kids ate they all excitedly talked about "looking at television" and what they expected to see.

When dinner was over my mother and her sister washed the dishes while the other children got cleaned up and put their pajamas on. TV time was quickly approaching and one by one the children assembled themselves on the floor in front of the television where my grandmother had put down some blankets and pillows.

All were in place snug and ready except for my mom and her sister who were just finishing the dishes. Knowing that all were waiting for them they quickly ran up stairs to wash and change. They came down in five minutes flat, (half) washed and with their nightgowns on. As they wiggled into place among the other children my grandfather got up to turn the television on.

As they were waited for it to "warm-up" they could hear static and a voice coming from the speakers. The picture got brighter and brighter as they all tried to guess who's voice it was. Just as the screen was becoming bright enough to see, click it went dark. Not only did the TV go dark but the rest of the house went dark as well! Her father got up and went to the kitchen for a flashlight while her mother looked for some candles.

Needless to say the children were extremely disappointed and some were even crying, possibly because it was so dark. My mom and her sister helped their mother with the candles while their father was out looking at the fuse box. When he came back inside he said that it wasn't a fuse, the neighbors lights were out too. After that they told stories and played in the candle lit dark waiting for the power to come back on.

After an hour or so her father said "we'll have better luck tomorrow, for now we should get some sleep" and with that everyone got up and went to a bedroom. My mom had four kids in her room with her and her sister had another four in her room. Two of the children in my mom's bedroom wanted a candle because they were frightened by the dark. So, her father put a big fat candle on the shelf that was about six feet off the floor in the wall across from her bed. He said that it would burn all night and warned them not to touch it.

He also put a candle in her sister's room just to make sure no one would get frightened there during the night. When everyone was in bed and the last bit of talking had stopped my mom rolled over to go to sleep. She was dreaming about watching TV with her friends when something woke her. As she turned over in bed to see what it was, she noticed shadows moving on the wall next to her. Expecting to see someone up she looked across the room and was frozen by fear at what she saw. No one was up or moving in the room, what was moving was the candle flame!

As she laid back in bed unable to move or make a sound she watched as the flame moved across the shelf, down to the foot of her bed and back and forth across the room. It than moved over to the window where it paused for a second before gliding to within two feet of her face. All she could do was close her eyes tight and wish for it to go away. When she bravely opened her eyes again the flame was gone. It hadn't gone back onto the candle, it just disappeared.

After she had calmed down and collected her wits she got up and quietly crept into her sister's room which was still lit by the candle their father had put there. She got into bed with her sister and after an hour of staring at the candle flame was able to go back to sleep. The next day her father asked if she had gotten the candle down for some reason and that he couldn't understand how it had gone out. Oh, and everyone finally got to watch TV!

Loren G.

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