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yet.
    At the very first intersection I came to a stop. I had to pause at the sight before me. A black Cadillac Escalade sat parked in the middle of the intersection blocking my right of way. Its dark tinted windows prevented me from seeing inside. Paused, I waited impatiently for a few moments excepting it to spring into motion. Women and their oversized SUV’s. They were always losing control of them; at least that is what I believed happened.
    Yet another delay, I could have easily gone around the vehicle, but I was pissed off at that point. The first thing I noticed as I pulled my helmet off was how cold it felt, that and the quiet. I was about to break the silence once again.
    “ Hey, move that over-sized, over-priced piece of shit!”
     
    My voice echoed as if I were still in the garage. I was taken back for a moment by the lack of people or cars on the road. Where were the dog walkers, the joggers, for that matter, where were the birds? I pushed my curiosity aside, leaned my bike on its kickstand, and stormed over to the driver’s side of the SUV.
    “ Come on, what’s the hold up?”
    There was no reaction nor sounds from within the SUV. I cupped my hands together and could see inside, it was then I realized the car was still running. No signs of life. The door was locked, but the keys were in the ignition. Who would leave their car in the middle of the road like this? A better question came to mind when I noticed the lit cigarette burning a hole into the grey leather seats. How long ago did this person leave and where did they go? The cigarette was burned down to the filter, but that didn’t tell me much.
    I didn’t have time to care. I retrieved my bike and continued toward Clark Street. About a half a block from the intersection a sea of cars brought me to a screeching halt. In haste I pulled my helmet from my head, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Several dozen cars were strewn throughout the intersection. Many vehicles had crashed into each other, many more onto the sidewalk and into nearby buildings. The massive scene was not the strangest site. There were no sounds, no people, not one police or rescue official, no one.
    “ How in the hell…?”
    It was as if I was staring at a video placed on pause and then edited to remove all the people. I turned my head, my eyes searched for something to explain the sight. Thoughts couldn’t form within my mind. It was so quiet and yet, I was looking at the worst accident I could remember.
    I had to rationalize the reality before me. What did I see? What was I missing? The cars, their positioning and the way they crashed, it was telling me something. I had passed this intersection almost every day since we moved in. I knew this area well. On my bike I had to pay attention to the traffic patterns and how different streets and intersections worked. I had to be careful. The thought of having an accident terrified me.
     
     
     
     
     
    The intersection of Clark Street and North Avenue was always busy. There had been many accidents that I had been witness to. The scene set before me however, was not like any I had seen before. The first most obvious difference was the lack of people. My helmet became heavy, I could no longer hold onto it, the sound it made when it fell to the pavement startled me. I cracked against the pavement like a head slamming into a steering wheel. I slowly made my way into the intersection. Each vehicle I passed I checked inside. They were all empty. Many of them were locked, all still had keys in the ignition. Some were still running.
    The pattern of the crashes didn’t match what I was used to seeing. Know that I am no expert, but I’ve seen what happens when someone runs a stoplight or is driving drunk. After my father was killed, I spent months reading and searching through the archives of accidents. This was not one or two cars meeting in the intersection, but the flow of traffic from all four sides meeting in the center, at