Okay, so here's the deal: you're walking along one day and then all of a sudden a bus comes along and then it's you and the bus occupying the same space.  Well, it goes without saying which one is going to come out on top, I mean really, it's you and a bus, you didn't have a snowball's chance in hell.  So what do you do?  You just lie there and accept your fate.  Oh sure, you hear all sorts of voices hovering around you, calling for help. exclaiming things loudly, whispering things quietly.  It's really kind of morbid, actually, I mean, these people are total strangers and you want to believe that they are truly concerned about you but in reality they're all just happy to have something exciting to talk about at the office or over drinks with their friends.  They want to be able to point at the news tonight and say 'I was right there when that happened.' maybe if they hang around long enough they might even get interviewed for an eyewitness account by some desperate reporter, who by now, is speeding their way across town to film the scene live as it unfolds. 

As for me, I just lie here taking it all in.  I hear the sirens, I know that someone is on the way to try and put me back together, but I know better.  When its your time you know and I can tell that it's my time, so I just lie here and listen, and wait, and wonder how long it's going to take. 

I can hear a police officer ordering the crowd to back away and give me air.  I can hear the distraught bus driver explaining that he didn't see me, that I was just suddenly there and how he tried to stop but couldn't  I can hear the multitude of voices yammering away on their cell phones giving a play by play account to whomever is on the other end.  Maybe some of them will even try to use this as an excuse not to go into work, claiming they are too distraught. 

They're distraught? I laughed to myself. Imagine how I feel.  Afterall, I'm the one under the bus.

I keep waiting for that proverbial white light that you always hear tell about, but so far, there is no light, nothing but blackness.  I wonder if there is any truth to that whole white light thing anyway.

I don't feel much, something important must be severed somewhere.  I do feel the warm blood pooling underneath me, and I can smell the bus' undercarriage mixed with hot tar and rubber, maybe something else.  It doesn't smell very good but I'm not exactly worried about losing my appetite.  What had I had for breakfast anyway?  Funny the things that run through your mind at moments like these.  I mean, you would think there would be something more important, more pressing, more substantial for me to be thinking about than what I had for breakfast.

I can hear more commotion now.  The paramedics have obviously arrived and the crowd is making way.  Somewhere nearby I can hear a reporter doing a mike check and, my guess, probably doing some last minute primping before she goes on the air for millions of people to see.  Afterall, the story may be about me, but she's the one they will all be looking at..gotta look good. I wonder if the camera really does add ten pounds.  There I go again.  Why can't I be more serious?  You would think someone trapped under a bus with probably every bone in his body shattered would be taking this situation with a little less levity. But hey, let the reporter do that, it is afterall her job.  As for me, as long as I'm stuck here, I may as well make the best of it.  How's that saying go..life's too short?  I guess that sounds sort of funny coming from me right now.

There I go again.  Okay, okay, serious.  Think serious.  Mother, father, girlfriend, legacy...no, nothing's coming to me.  This is my time, my moment, the last thing I want to do is spend it rehashing the ups and downs of my not so extraordinary life.  Nope, all that will just have to wait for a later time, if there is a later time.  I mean, no white light yet, so maybe this really is it.  Maybe there is no afterlife, no eternity, no angels, no pearly gates, no...or wait a minute, maybe I am being a little presumptious here.  I mean, it's true that I've never murdered anybody or embezzled any large sums of money, or abused anybody, but I wasn't exactly a saint either.  I mean I cheated a few times. fudged my taxes a little, ignored the bell ringers at the mall at Christmas, but who didn't do those things?  Surely, that wouldn't be enough to sentence me to that other place.  I mean, if everybody went there just for being human they would have a serious overcrowding situation.

So what is the deal then? Why am I just stuck here?  I can't help thinking that something more should be happening right now besides me wondering what I had for breakfast.  I mean, isn't my life supposed to be flashing before my eyes or music playing somewhere in the distant recesses of my mind?  Isn't there supposed to be a hand reaching out to take me on a journey away from this place and whisk me off to the next?

I have heard about these situations, though.  That place of indecision where you wait while both sides are sort of debating the finer and not so finer points of your life, deciding what your fate should be.  Sort of like the holding cell of eternity.  Now that would be a sight..my life played out like a televison court show while a jury of my peers decided my eternal destiny.  Who would my peers be anyway? I wonder. 

Something is happening now, I'm not exactly sure what, but there is movement all around me.  I'm being touched ever so gently.  Like it really matters at this point.

What was it that bus driver had said?  He didn't even see me, all of a sudden I was just there.  What did he mean by that?  Did I trip?  Did somebody accidentally push me?  I mean one minute I'm standing there waiting for the bus just like everyone else caught up in this rat race we call life and the next thing you know I'm off the curb and under the bus.  I mean, I've never exactly been what you would call a clutz or have two left feet or anything like that so falling into traffic hardly sounds like something I would do.  So how---? 

Wait a minute.  Wait just a hot minute.  What if I didn't fall in front of this bus by accident?  I mean, accidents happen sure, but what if--no, no that's ridiculous.  I mean, you hear about that thing happening all the time, sure, but me?  What reason would I have for doing something stupid like that?  That's the type of thing people do when they're unhappy with life, when they've reached the end of their rope.

 I wasn't unhappy, was I? I mean, I had a good life.  Good parents, great girlfriend, good career......

...and yet all I can think about is what I had for breakfast this morning.