So, yesterday I saw a girl get run over and killed by a bus. Or, rather, I didn't see it, even though I was looking right at the bus when it happened. Maybe that's why I'm so upset--it seems like if an 18-year-old girl is going to be killed in front of me, the least I could so is see it. Did I glance away at just the right moment? I can't remember, and what I do remember doesn't seem to match up with what must have happened.

I'm pretty sure I saw the bus come to a stop. I must have, it was turning into the street in front of me. And I think I must have thought, "Oh, it is stopped because a student is crossing even though the bus is trying to turn," or something like that, because I think that a dozen times every time I drive near campus. But I don't really know. I know the bus stopped and eventually I realized it wasn't moving again, but even then, I didn't see. I had a conversation with myself about how it was really a good thing that traffic was stalled because I didn't have much money to put in the meter, so if could spend a few minutes stopped in traffic, that would put me in the parking lot that much closer to five o'clock after which time parking would be free.

I don't know when I really looked at what was in front of me--never, really. It just dawned on me that people weren't moving properly, the people on the sidewalk, I mean. And I remember thinking, "Oh, god, I hope the bus didn't stop because someone jumped off that building and committed suicide." Why would I think that? It doesn't even make sense. Yes, there's a tall building right on that block, but why did I think that (other than the fact that twice people have jumped off buildings right outside my office in the past ten years)? So, I talked to myself about how I hoped no one jumped off the building, and how something bad is obviously going on right here, and if I turned off could I figure out how to get to where I was going? Because I haven't lived here long enough to know how to get anywhere, really.

And by then, of course, I knew it was really bad. I have been trying to figure out exactly how things happened, but it just seems like there were people there, and then there were sirens, and then I was turning off and heading in a different direction. I drove around for a bit, then felt sort of drawn back, so I parked in the library parking lot. I knew it was really bad then, because the police had put up yellow tape to keep traffic out and there was a (second?) ambulance (for the bus driver?). I spent two hours in the library trying not to think about it, but the bus was still there when I came out, waiting for me.

Since I didn't see...it didn't happen. It didn't happen for me until I was walking to school this morning and I saw the flowers on the sidewalk--why didn't I take a different route to school? Why did I stop for coffee before class this morning? I usually don't, and when I don't, I walk up Wright, and then I wouldn't have seen anything this morning.

If I did see anything. I know what I think I saw last night, but I also know it couldn't have happened that way. I know for part of today I remembered the bus facing one way, then for the rest of the day, I remembered it facing the other way, which I think is the right way? It was facing me to the south, right? Well, I know what I didn't see, but I can't figure out how it's possible that someone can be killed right in front of me yet I can't see it. But I didn't see what was right in front of me, and that seems really, really wrong.