Late one Sunday afternoon in February, I drove into Manhattan. Taking all the shortcut sidestreets along the Brooklyn waterfront, I arrived at the side entrance to the Williamsburg Bridge. There, several streets merge into 1 that feeds the outside lanes of the bridge to cross the East River.

During weekdays, the entrance to the bridge had been guarded by both military & Police. Single occupant drivers were turned away and trucks were randomly stopped & searched. But on the weekend, all that remained of this process were the rows of orange cones that direct you onto the bridge & past the checkpoints in an orderly fashion.

As I approached the merge I saw a large schoolbus, empty except for the driver, also approaching from one of the other streets. I sped up to get in front of him as buses & large trucks are notorious for getting on the bridge & moving into the middle of the 2 narrow lanes, blocking all the traffic behind them. With only a little bit of rude driving, I was able to get in front of him and onto the moderately crowded bridge, to start crossing the East River.

I recall briefly wondering what an empty schoolbus was doing on the bridge at 5 PM on a Sunday. Minutes later, as I was midway across, I glanced into my rear view mirror & noticed that the bus was gradually falling behind. I checked my speedometer to see if I was accidentally speeding up & I wasn't. The bus was slowing down. He had moved between the lanes and was blocking the traffic behind him, so there was a widening empty gap between my car & the bus. He was driving slower & slower.

Then, as he got right to the middle of the bridge, he completely stopped. When I saw that, my heart stopped too. My mind immediately began racing with paranoid possibilities. As I watched the bus sitting there motionless, all I could visualize was a tremendous explosion and the collapse of the bridge I was on.

I sped up & got quickly to the other side, all the while my eyes darting to the mirror & the scene behind me. As I left the bridge, the bus disappeared from view and I stopped looking, No explosion & no explanation. One more mystery in this new reality. I put the matter behind me and went on ahead, with no idea why it had happened.