Eyeglass Frames

My Mom's got a close friend. So close that I was taught to call her "Auntie". Auntie Myr is an optometrist and she had an optical clinic around 28 years ago in Digos, Philippines. But that clinic was weird. There were strange things happening in there. At night nobody wants to be left there alone.

There was a party in Auntie Myr's clinic one afternoon. I remember it so well because I was eating one of my favorite sweets - a striking red, heart-shaped gulaman. Before all the eating and all the fun started, the adults around me and Auntie Myr's kids were doing something serious. There was a minister. He read a chapter and several other verses from the Bible. They sang a hymn. Then the minister prayed a long prayer I really got tired of kneeling on the floor.

The rest of that afternoon is like a blur to me now. But the memory of those adults saying something like " really?" "oh, no!" was still vivd. They were looking questioningly wide-eyed at the rows of eyeglass frames on display in Auntie Myr's clinic.

With people listening to a minister and praying like doomsday was approaching, what kind of party was that? Mom explained that the food and light mood of the guests after the serious part of that event was some sort of thanksgiving.

For several mornings when Auntie Myrs arrived in her clinic she was in for a strange surprise. All the eyeglass frames on the shelves were crowding with each other in the middle of the floor. Other mornings they were scattered all over the floor, and some mornings they were placed on top of each other they looked like a little mountain of eyeglass frames.

There was never a sign that a burglar had broken in. Everything else in the clinic was in place. The point that really scared them was that the glass that covered the shelves was locked and it remained locked even when all the frames are on the floor. Nobody, except Auntie Myr had the key. They thought it had to be something out of the ordinary.

Arranging frames back to the shelves every morning was really becoming a scare, and it was tiresome too. Auntie Myr decided to call in the minister. Fortunately from that time on the frames were never found on the floor again.

Well, someone could have had the duplicate and played such a boring kind of joke, right? I don't know. This story may not be scary at all to the reader. But I don't mean to scare. Now that I'm grown and no longer that interested in a striking red, heart- shaped gulaman. I wonder about those eyeglass frames myself, and I'm not sure why and how did they end up on the floor that way.