What Might Or Might Not Have Happened At What Might Have Been The Midpoint Of The Corner Of The Road

These are the facts:

1. It seemed to have happened for me after it had transpired.
2. The thought of what might have just happened occurred to me after it was all over.
3. What might have happened might not have happened.
4. What might have happened might have happened only to me.
5. This is all in retrospect.

This is what might or might not have happened:

Three seconds.

(Five seconds, tops.)

It was late in the afternoon - or perhaps early in the evening. The sun was still bright and warm, though not as scorching as it had been at noon. As I alighted from the bus, I thought peripherally about how the sun was always behind me - every morning as I walk to the bus stop; every evening as I walk home from the bus stop - its rays lasering microscopic flakes of epidermis off me; how the sun was not just literally behind me but also on my back, oppressing me with its harsh, scratchy blanket of heat.

That was when it might or might not have happened.

Exactly where it might or might not have happened was almost at the midpoint of a corner in the road. Almost. I am not quite sure now, you understand; it might or might not have happened at the center of a corner of a road.

In any case, I alighted from the bus and was headed for home. Along the way was a tight turn in the road, and I was just at the midpoint of the curve (or thereabouts) when a car rounded the corner.

I cannot remember the make or even the color of the car.

At the moment the car and I might or might not be at the center of the corner in the road, there was just a breath of air between skin and metal. And at that very moment of precarious proximity, I had raised my left hand to adjust the strap of my bag on my shoulder, and my head turned left, in the direction of the car.

What was it that had caught my attention? Did I do a doubletake? I suppose I will never find out; after all, it might or might not have happened.

In the passeger seat was a female whose face I never saw. All I remember of her now - and then - is her long black hair, straight.

At that very moment, perhaps she had turned to look out the window. Maybe the sudden movement of my left hand swinging up to adjust my bag strap caught her attention. I do not know if she did a doubletake, but I thought she had been staring through the window at me as I had her.

In a flash, the moment had dissipated, the only remnant of evidence of its existence in time was a faint trail of exhaust fumes, diffusing just as quickly.

Then it occurred to me that the girl in the car might have been Louise, an old friend. Maybe it was Louise in that car; maybe she had recognized me - maybe that was why she was looking me; maybe the recognition was what caused her to take a (longer) second look.

As I continued on my way home, my steps ponderous, I thought, If that was indeed Louise, then she should've seen the bracelet on my hand. (It it not really a bracelet but a necklace I wore wound twice around my wrist.) Louise would've recognized the bracelet/necklace because she was the one who had given it to me.

After that, I kept waiting for my cellphone to ring. Louise, I knew, was back from Paris for a couple of months, and as I was anticipating her call, I contemplated giving her one.

However, the nearer I got to my house, the less certain I became about the whole 'incident'. By the time I had locked the front gates behind me and opened the front door, I was not even sure if it had actually taken place. Perhaps I had daydreamed it.

There are so many uncertainties about it; even what little facts I could gather are ambiguous. I never did receive a call from Louise, nor did I make one to her.

But all that is not important; perhaps then - or later - but not now, not this very moment. After all,

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

I shall have forever to wonder, until the line between what had happened and what had not becomes impossibly indistingushable, and memory and fiction melds into something that is both and neither.

Which is all very well.

Human kind, after all, cannot bear very much reality.