Just minutes ago, that is to reference a time, a time that now only exist in memory, I (me, my person) was at a referenced space and time minutes ago almost as great certainty, not to infer any ambiguous meaning, certainty with sound, logic (to not be in speculation) convinced truth, was almost smashed, flattened, destroyed, brought to a gory death by a red light running, speeding (going faster than the speed limit) , careless, meaning without concern for negative consequences of another, MTA bus number 30. This event took place in the following sequence….

Moments before this event, I was at a lifeguard station, on the beach, on sand, yards from the road called Pacific, praying with and for a homeless man who had set up his camp under the lifeguard’s station. He was drunk and I felt his suffering with such a certainty, to mean an exactness that supersedes all experiences of certainty, to say an exact point of the middle of misery and reminiscent of hopeless desperation, a black hole without boundaries, dark, eerie, and with complete lossness (if the word like this does exist) .

I had just gave him a few quarters and dimes, may be some nickels, as I only had silver coins in my pocket at the time. I did not count the sum, just hefted some from my pocket a moderate handful and asked him with respect and with honor if I might give this change to him. He paused then smiled and said “thank you“.

Just before parting from him and wishing him “via con Dios“, he asked me my name. I told him and he said “I recognize you! You did this before!
I was surprised, yet doubted that to be true, but he insisted sometime back I had done the same thing for him, (prayed and then share change with him) . I smiled and as I walked away going toward quite possibly to my death, I asked him his name, to which he said “Joshua”.

I stood waiting for the red light at the crosswalk on Pacific, which, where I was, crosses the road named Ocean, about to walk east, when the bus number 30, sped by me, in front of me, as I stepped on to the pavement, very quickly, running the red light, as I commenced walking when my light turned green, and was so close to hit me, I felt the air wafting by, off the side of the bus to my nose. Stunned, frozen in disbelief, stopped and saved myself from great harm.

The bus quickly disappeared into the distance, within seconds to the vanishing point down Ocean. And I shattered from my soles of my feet, to my soul of my heart, knowing that I had just glanced, sheared, so close with death.

The next block was a liquor store of which I walked in and bought a bag of M&Ms and a Diet Coke. I was still shaking from the ferocity of death’s silent silhouette.