It's odd. The things that go through your head just before you get hit by a bus. It's not what you would expect. Movies, TV shows and books alike express in great detail, the flash before you eyes of every event in the prior history of your life. The whole experience is akin to that of a shell-shocked Vietnam war veteran's flash back to the battle where his buddy Johnny was lost. I always imagined a man or woman standing staring their impending doom in the eyes with a look a serene, nostalgic peace on their face. It never really seemed like it would be that bad. Quick and sudden with little time for pain. There must be far worse ways to go.

I always thought the worst way to go would be in you sleep. Everybody claims that it's peaceful, quiet, calm. How the hell do they know? Isn't the definition of death that you're, well, dead. Not able to talk, listen or breath for that matter. You know the whole “Marle was dead” bit from "A Christmas Carol." Thus, the party in question would be unable to communicate with the living. In such a case, how would we be able to now exactly what it's like? At least getting hit by a truck, bus, train, angry group of large penguins, would be a conscious experience. There wouldn't be that whole fear of the unknown thing. At least not to the same level. You could prepare yourself if only a little. All that preparation and everything is bullshit.

With the threat of your doom crushing down at you, at 35 miles per hour, you lose yourself. Somewhere in the thought of four tons of steel, hardened plastic and innocent bystanders about to smash you like a bug, it hits you. You don't know jack.

Standing there. Staring at a bus. About to hit me in the face. There was no epiphany, no life flashing before my eyes, nothing. For a brief moment there was nothing. My mind was blank, nothing there, nothing between the ears. It was like sitting in my higher-level IB history course, minus the droning monotony of Mr. Rowe's ghost-like voice. The whole thing was just empty.

Finally something popped into my head, like the surprise that finally arrives after cranking that jack-in-the-box over and over until that moment when, bang, heres jack. The strange thing was though that it wasn't anything relevant to the situation. It wasn't a memory of a past life, or even one from my current life. It was a question and not even a valid one.

I wondered if hippos ever get self-conscious about their weight. Wait, what? Why would the one last thing that goes through my head right before I'm about to die be about an animal I never even seen in it's natural habitat. I've seen hippos at the zoo, sure. “Mommy why is the big hippo doing that to the other one?” the whole thing. I never did learn what they were doing, and I've never seen my mom so uncomfortable since. I've recounted this story before, and a nice zoo keeper told me what had happened. Hippos can be that unromantic. I mean really no flowers, no candles, not even any flirting. I mean, really, I can't be expected to believe any animal is so vulgar and ill-mannered. It's a sad thought.

Maybe that's just it. Our minds are scary things. We know more about the surface of the moon than we do about the human mind. We don't know what's going on in each others' heads. I don't even understand what goes on in my own head half the time.

I once told my friends that the interior of my head was comprised of a room with hundreds of computers, and at each computer was a squirrel and each of those squirrels was frantically typing away on their keyboard trying desperately to find away to get the picture of the acorn on their screen to transform into a real acorn. I have no doubt that one day they will accidentally write Shakespeare. A shame since it's already been written. For now however, it is just chaos. Pure and total chaos.

My train of thought did not improve from there. “If a penguin ever went to a black tie dinner would it wear a tuxedo?” “How am I going to turn in that English essay tomorrow?” “I wonder if the store still has those snack crackers I like?” A lot of questions but no answers. But that seems like a good way to go. A lot of people say they want answers. They want the answer to the question of life the universe and everything. I can help with this one, a very smart man once wrote the answer in a book. That answer is “42." I don't know why, I don't know how he came up with it, but he did. The answer, at least for him was 42. Douglas Adams was that man. He was a bit odd but a genius. He also said, “All you need to fly is to throw yourself at the ground and miss." Needless to say, many a child has received a bloody nose or scraped knee from testing that theory, but there is some sense in his nonsense. The real dilemma, he said, is not the answer. It's the question.

I found comfort in this thought as my many random and bizarre thoughts raced through my head. With each question, I came just that little bit closer to finding the one real question. The question man has been searching for, for eternity, and will most likely continue to search for. And then finally I came to a realization. I had an epiphany, one that I assume all men look for in a similar situation. I finally achieved a point in my thoughts of cognitive, tangible realization. I was standing in a crosswalk. The little man was green; the walk sign was flashing.

There was no danger, no impending doom, no eminent demise. Nothing. All my thought had been for not. In a fit of hungry fury, the squirrels had almost succeeded. They had almost written their "Hamlet." It was, however, not enough. I had come so close and not made it. Those four tons of steel , hardened plastic and innocent bystanders about to smash me like a bug were now slowing down and stopping at the red light. Stupid bus. Oh well, back to the business at hand. What was I doing again? Oh yeah, nothing. Stupid bus.

It's odd. The things that go through your head when you think your about to die. In that brief, split second between life and death, I hit a point. Like hitting a wall at high speed. Thoughts just smash into our heads faster than we know what to do with for that brief split second, that fleeting moment before it all ends. We reach a point of closure, a moment of chaotic serenity. Each thought, each question that flashes through our minds brings us one step closer to the real question we're all looking for. And then, just as fast as that moment came, it leaves, and we may never see it again.