Gone and Back

Everyone that had been there agreed. She did not know what hit her. That much was certain. She had been crossing the street at Grand and Maitland when it happened. People saw her. It had been a city bus, a number 105 going south on Grand. The driver, a 45 year old man named Ferroni, had suffered a cardiac event just after he taken on two passengers at Grand and Valois. He never lost consciousness. He fell forward when the attack hit, the pain across his chest too sharp and too frightening for him to remain sitting erect. His foot depressed the gas. He had tried but he could not control himself. The bus lurched forward, through the red light at Maitland, across the cross walk and straight through her, as if she had not been there. The bus hit her, knocked her backwards and then down, and then continued for another fifty yards or so, until Mr. Ferroni was able to remove his foot from the gas pedal. The bus had run her over. She lay in the street like a small animal on the highway. She was gone. Everyone agreed. She had been looking the other way. Nobody knew why she was there. She had not known, could not have known what hit her. But it had hit her. She was gone. It had been a fine spring day.