I should be Dead

Figure 1 Another view, the truck was coming toward the picture taker down that street and turned to the right on this street as I was crossing the street. The truck’s path is the yellow line and my path is the dotted blue.



Right now, this very second I should not be here in my office on this cloudy July 5th morning I should be dead. If there are parallel universes-or life-lines then I saw where mine most likely met and split off into an alternate reality.

I was cruising for the train and the South bound Trax had just entered station and the crossing arms were down and the bells and lights on the crossing arms were lashing and ringing. Traffic as expected was stopped. I was headed East bound. There were a couple of trucks at the stop sign. I decided to cut between the two vehicles at the stop sign. I figured I was totally safe since all traffic motion was stopped by the crossing guards being down. What I did not factor in to this equation as traffic coming East Bound on 6400 South and turning North just BEFORE the crossing guards. Any way, I digress, so I figure that it’s safe and I cut across the first lane where the trucks are waiting and I entered the North bound lane of 300 West street. I could not and did not even try--in all honesty- to see if there was traffic coming. I figured everyone was stopped. Bare in mind that I am just one vehicle down from the stop sign… I am probably less then twenty feet from the intersection when I see I truck come off of 6400 south out of the West making a Left hand turn onto 300 West right in to the lane I am crossing. I actually had one of those slow-motion moments. I could see clearly, and I could sense clearly what was happening. I was not frightened, for some reason, I just new my number was up and thought to my self: How stupid are you?!!!! I have pontificated more than once when reading the obituaries “That’s how stupid die!” or “There is another example of people dying stupidly.” And I was thinking ‘and now you, YOU are one.’. I saw everything. The plaid work shirt the guy was wearing. The driver's non-expression as he saw me in the roadway. I thought it odd that he did not do the “crazy face” panic thing, slamming on his brakes and swerving or trying to swerve out of the way. At least I do no remember any such thing. What I do remember he just expressionlessly stopped his truck—no jerking of the truck or screeching tires. The truck just magically came to a stop and I scurried out of the way to the side of the road. I remember looking the driver right in the eye and uttering an appropriate expletive more at myself than at the driver—the driver did not even acknowledge this, he just sort of kept staring ahead. He dropped the truck in gear and drove on—it felt like a moment the two hit men had in Pulp Fiction when their victim unloads a magazine full of ammo into them and they are not touched by a single round.

Now, I am not saying this was a miracle and I have been round miracles, heck, I AM a miracle but this did not feel like a miracle. Miracles definitely have their own feeling. But it was something. What I did feel was like I was at some sort of crossroad a point of divergence. Two realities merged here maybe more for a split second and in one of those timelines I was killed or maimed beyond comprehension. In an other the truck driver stopped and yet in another I never crossed the road but some how I believe one changed with another with the favorable result that I am here writing this post this afternoon. Whatever happened should not have happened –should have or shouldn’t have I am glad that it did.