The Story I Haven’t Written

In the story I haven’t written a man is killed. He reads a newspaper as he walks. The Daily News. A story of a boy shot dead outside a school in White Plains. The man reads and walks and is shot dead by a bus. A local travelling from Manhattan out to Queens. Moving fast. Through a construction zone. The man appears from behind a concrete barrier. The bus strikes him in profile. His body explodes against the bus. Slams into a concrete barrier. It is far behind by the time I understand that it was his glasses I saw. They picked up the light of the evening sun. Flashed as they tumbled and flew. The bus slows. My body tells me that we have hit a man. I feel it in my spine. There is no blood on the windshield. No crack in the glass. The driver says, no, no, no. My notebook is open on my lap. Today’s date. The words, I am riding on the local. That is all. No story. It just happened. There is no story. Just a man and a paper. Walking. Reading. Then a physical shock to my spine. Transmitted through metal, fiberglass, and plastic. A bus causes the sudden flight of a body. A pair of glasses. The evening light. Perhaps there is a soul floating away. A spirit telling the story of life and afterlife. But that’s a different kind of story. Not the kind I can tell. Not the kind I even know how to hear.