She was probably asleep against the bus window when the bullet entered her brain. She didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, she didn’t know she’d die. No fear, no anxiety. And no pain.  After all, isn’t that what we worry most about death? The possibility of pain before dying, the mystery of the when, of the how? That’s what I’d worry if I was to worry about death. I don’t really, and I’m glad she didn’t. 

I’ll tell you how it must have happened, I’m sure some coroner’s report will say something to that effect anyway. The bullet, in its way to who knows where, ended up in the wrong direction, catching the split-second window that put her head, resting against the open bus window, on its exact trajectory. It then proceed to touch all the right places that make sure she’d die instantly. Like a really skilled pinball machine player, jackpot. She never knew what happened. She was asleep, something I know will show up in the report as well. She must have been. She looked perfectly content when I saw her, a bleeding hole in her skull disagreeing with the peacefulness of her face. 

The bus was driving east, so the sun must have hit her face since the beginning of the trip. She must have fallen asleep as soon as the bus departed. The facts of how the bullet came to be in that specific point in time and space are not interesting to me. The police can take care of that. The type of bullet, which gun it came from, why the hell someone was shooting someone else (or something) in the middle of nowhere, don’t care. The she never felt fear, pain or the helplessness of certain death, that’s what matters.