Ahead

This is truly unacceptable, but consistent warnings or threats of power outages encourages me to write this on Monday and post it for Tuesday. Accept this as science fiction on a small scale or a projection into the future. However, I'll not predict the snowfall or lament the possibility of my car disappearing under an huge mound of snow.

Instead I'll reflect on my time at the library. While trolling about in the library's non- fiction section, I spotted a relatively recent book, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood by Irving Finkle, an Assyriologist and " assistant keeper" of ancient documents at the British Museum.

Four years ago the British Museum decoded the "ark tablet" consisting of 600 cuneiform characters on a " cellphone-sized" tablet. And there was a flood story where the animals went in two-by-two.

While it looked fascinating, I chose not to take it out. The weather folks predict floods in low lying areas and I thought that reading about floods before Noah's flood might unleash consequences.

Wandering through the stacks, my list of possible books in hand, hoping to discover the perfect book for snow storms, I spotted a woman holding a list. We smiled, but never said a word. She was in row C and I quickly moved to D. Perhaps our lists contained the same books.

Foolish to take chances.