And so, on he drove, mindful of the fact that driving this big yellow school bus which, at this time of year, was actually a very dirty big yellow school bus, meant that he, as the driver, had to be in three places at once.
He had to be in the future, looking ahead to make sure he caught sight of any potential difficulties before he reached them. He had to look back, into his past , to make sure nothing had fallen off his bus or to see if anything was gaining on him. And, he had to be in the present, checking gauges and mirrors and lights and switches and passengers and anything else that came to mind.
He slowed his bus slightly and peered into the gloom, looking for the half-buried marking post that would tell him where to make his left hand turn.
He found it, made the proper mirror checks, signalled, turned and looked into his future.
It wasn’t there. There was no future. The road was gone. Nothing separated field from fencepost except an ocean of snow.
This was turning into a very interesting morning indeed. As he had noted, there had been a slight snowfall over night, but the wind must have kicked up as well, and the result was a road that was open yesterday but closed today.
“Well, what a fine kettle of fish this is,” he said, wondering all the while why those fish were in that kettle in the first place.
However, the bus driving gods must have had an eye or two out for him that day, because, as he tried to keep his bus headed straight and true, he noticed in front of him the faint footprints of an animal. A dog had gone down this way, or a deer. No matter. He saw that the tracks were pretty much in the middle of what once was the road, so he kept them between his headlights and ploughed on.
Things couldn’t get much worse than this. Or could they?
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