Railroad Tracks

It was 8:24 PM, the sun had totally disappeared, giving way to a calming blanket of night, and I was headed down Lincoln.  I was at around 68th, the window on my side rolled all the way down.  It was cool out, and I figured since I had a hoodie on I could let the window all the way down.  Its early spring.
Driving on I made it to 60th just in time to be abruptly greeted by a red light, I came to a stop and saw, just barely, ahead the blinking of red lights, one light on each side, indicating that a train was passing.
“Great” I thought to myself, I was tired, I wanted to go home, but I had mail to send out that I figured would be in my best interest to mail out as soon as possible, and the post office lay beyond the train tracks.
As the light changed, 8:27, I could see that the rear of the train was passing and that the restraints were rising.
One of the pieces of mail I need to send out had fallen to the floor on the passenger’s side, so I bent over to pick it up, I figured it was safe, since there was no one in my lane, that I could see.
And it was then that I heard half of a crash.  I say only heard half, the beginning, I didn’t hear the tires spin, the glass fall to the ground, all I heard was the KSSSH of metal colliding and glass beginning to shatter, because after the initial impact I blacked out.
I came to, groggily, around 8:38.  I looked up to see that there was a car in front of me, it’s lights were off, I couldn’t have possibly hit it so hard that I killed it’s engine, I mean, I hit it from behind.
After finally composing myself I opened my car door and got out.  It was then that I half-realized that no one had even stopped to make sure we were ok.  People just continued on past, as if they were to stop they would be accused of being a part of it.
I took a few steps back, into oncoming traffic, smart, and took a mid-length look at my car.  The front, the hood, was arched up, like an arrow pointing to the sky.
Then I turned to the car I hit.  The rear end was near total devastation, the bumper lie on the ground, deformed.
I approached the car.  I could see, at the angle the car sat, that the person in the driver’s side was still alive.  But I saw no one in the passenger’s seat or the backseat.  Dear God, could I have just killed a small child, too hyper to realize that they haven’t put on their seatbelt?
I got to his window and saw that there was no one else in the car with him. I checked his windshield to make sure it didn’t have any holes into it big enough to squeeze a small human body, or any sized human body for that matter, through and send it shooting onto the concrete road.
No holes, thank the fuck Christ.
I then spoke to the driver, “Are you alright?” I didn’t wait for an answer, a gesture, or any kind of movement before I said “I don’t see any blood.”  I didn’t, and he appeared to be able to move every limb just fine.
Then he turned to me, no seat belt on.  Did he have it on when I hit him?  Of course he did, otherwise he’d have made the hole in the windshield that I feared but didn’t find.
“I’m fine” he said.  There was nothing in his voice.  No fear, no anger, nothing.  For someone who just got into a car crash he was shockingly calm about the whole scenario.  I suppose maybe he was numb.
“I didn’t see you sitting here; otherwise I wouldn’t have done what I did.  You see I was reaching f…”
“I know you didn’t see me, you couldn’t have seen me my lights weren’t on.”
“Oh”, I said, sort of strangely relieved.
“I didn’t have my seatbelt on either.  When you hit me, going as fast as you did, all that happened was my chest hit the steering wheel.  I can breath fine.”
Hadn’t had his seatbelt on?  Now I was beginning to feel just the slightest bit weirded out.
“Well, what were you doing sitting there with no lights on, at night, and no seatbelt.”
“Trying to die.”
Some invisible force had to have just flown by and slammed into my stomach, because I was taken aback, and I couldn’t really focus.  He was trying to die?  How?
“I was going to sit on the tracks, waiting the next train to come, and…well, the rest is self-explanatory, I think.”
“Hm, yeah.”
It was then that I realized that I had pushed his car off of the tracks and placed mine in his spot.
“Well, you’re not injured, and neither am I” I said, “So did you want to trade insurance information, I think that’s the procedure.”
“Sure” he got out of his car.
We went to the sidewalk and sat at the curb, we both, simultaneously, pulled out our wallets to retrieve our insurance cards.
Neither of us had any kind of paper or pen to write anything down with, so I went to my car to get some out of my backpack, in my backseat.
I was within about 3 feet of my back door when I heard an intense “THUD” followed by the breaking of glass, and finally the screeching of breaks.
Turned around I saw that there was a car, in the oncoming lane, with it’s windshield shattered, and lying on the hood of the car was the man whose car I had hit.
Even in my shock I was able to walk over to his body, lying as if in a deep, peaceful sleep, on his stomach, arms straight down his side.
The impact of his head against the glass had killed him instantly.