In 1838, Edgar Allan Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym was published. It's a horrifying tale about four shipwrecked sailors in an open boat who drew lots to determine which should die so that the others can eat him to survive. The cabin boy, Richard Parker, draws the first straw and is stabbed to death. You probably know by now what happens next. Fast forward to 1884 in the real world. Three English sailors stood trial for the killing of a cabin boy. The four survived a shipwreck in an open boat. The sailors were starving and so they drew lots to determine who will be killed then eaten. The unfortunate sailor who drew the short straw was named Richard Parker.
In 1938, A.J. Talbot wrote Chez Boguskovsky, a comedy about a man named Boguskovsky who stole a painting from the Louvre museum in Paris. On August 15 1939 in real life, a man named Boguskovsky committed that very same crime in the Louvre museum.
In the 1973 movie Don't Look Now, British actress Julie Christie played the mother of a child who drowns in a pond and is found floating face down. In 1979, Jonathan and Leslie Heale, who were renting Christie's farmhouse, found their baby son drowned and floating face down.
These anomalies show that real life tend to imitate art. It is an eerie phenomenon documented by collectors of anomalies. The American paranormal expert Charles Fort attributed such strange coincidences to manipulation by a Cosmic Joker.
No, not that kind of Joker. Close enough though.
Charles Fort postulated the existence of an intelligence that takes delight in toying with humanity by causing various anomalies such as the phenomenon of life imitating art. I'm not so sure about it but if it were true, I'd be amused myself. Heck I would be even more amused if it's the Eris the Goddess of Chaos pulling such huge pranks. Maybe she likes certain works of fiction so much she duplicates them in real life just for the lulz.
O hai u can has dis golden apple. LOL.
Source: Reader's Digest Almanac of The Uncanny
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