Not everything which happens in life can be properly explained. The following story is one such happening .Read it and see if you can find an answer to the author's experience.

     The road where I live is very long and very straight .The surface is made of wood and the road is well lighted at night. The result is that cars and taxis going by during the night often go quite fast. I don't blame them. They hardly ever wake me unless they stop near the house. 　

     But about two months ago, one of them did wake me .The driver stopped suddenly just opposite my window. You know what a noise the wheels make when a car stops suddenly like that .Then after quite a short pause he drove on again .That was nothing , of course ,and it didn’t have much effect on me at the moment. I was only just asleep .But about two minutes later the same thing happened again .This time it was a taxi —— at least it sounded like a taxi. At just about the same place on the road the driver stopped the taxi suddenly and the wheels made the same kind of noise .Then I think he backed up a few yards, but I don't know .In any case he moved the car about a bit ,and in a minute or two he drove off .As you can imagine, this second event had a greater effect on me and when a third car did exactly the same thing — I really did try to consider the problem. You know that the mind is not very clear at three o'clock in the morning. I said," oh yes. I know what it is . It's the same as last February."

     In February — or was it January? — in any case, whenever it was, the main water-pipe burst, and a hole appeared in the middle of the road .They put a fence round it, and red lamps, and a watchman stayed there.

     That was all right, of course, but during the night a thick fog came on , and cars came at high speed along the road, and didn't see the lights until they were nearly on top of them, and had to stop suddenly. After the first two or three did this, the watchman left the hole and went to the side of the road.

     In any case I thought ,"That's happened again." But then I said ,"But it's August now — there can't be a fog in August ,so it's not that. I must see what's the matter."

     So I got out of bed and went to look out of the window. Soon a large car came fast along, and just opposite me it stopped suddenly like the others. I couldn't quite see where it had stopped because there are trees on each side of my window; but I heard people get out and there was a lot of excitement for about a minute. Then they climbed in again and the door was shut and away they went. You can quite imagine how interesting it all was. I said I could not bear this for another moment. I must go and see what was happening. So I put on a few clothes and went downstairs and out into the road.

     Beautiful warm night and a good moon. I looked up and down but there wasn't a thing in sight, and there seemed to be nothing whatever wrong with the road .So I crossed over to the place where all the cars had stopped so suddenly. I could see the marks of the wheels on the road. And then I saw the cause of all the trouble.
.

     The moonlight was quite bright, and about fifteen yards up the road there was a deep shadow thrown by a tree In this shadow there was a man lying. His back was towards me and his feet were about a yard from the edge of the road. He seemed to me to be dressed in light brown clothes with squares on the cloth. You often see girls with coats made of that kind of stuff.

     Well, of course ,I started walking up the road towards him, but when I got within five or six yards an extraordinary thing happened. He disappeared. Actually, he didn't exactly disappear, but I suddenly saw what he really was. He was a rough piece of the road. Something seemed to have gone wrong with the water-pipe during the afternoon. They had come and mended it. and hadn't had time to make the road good again. They had just put the wood blocks back loosely, and brushed some sand over the whole thing. This produced a perfectly astonishing effect; it looked like a man. And to add to the effect, there was a small pieces of paper stuck on the road, and it looked white just where the collar would be. .

     Well, I walked backwards and forwards across the place: just where you could see the man and then couldn't see him. And it was very astonishing. It's a little difficult to describe.

     I don't know whether any of you have been to the cinema. But when I went, one of the scenes showed a beautiful girl sitting on a stone seat by the side of a lake, with flowers and so on, really very fine. And then suddenly the whole thing disappeared and you found yourself in a low-down eating house in New York, watching an ugly man eating food.

     Well, that's what it was like while I was walking backwards and forwards. And while I was doing that a policeman came round the corner, very surprised to see me playing my little game so early in the morning. He probably said," Here's a fellow not properly dressed. I 'll arrest him, and that will do me good."

     He came up to me with a certain amount of hesitation, but I said , “Now you stand just here and look at that man lying there.” And he looked and gave a cry of astonishment .Then he started off up the road, meaning to pick him up. But in three or four yards he got to the place where the figure disappeared, and then it really was as good as a play. He looked , and rubbed his eyes, and looked again. Then he walked to the piece of road and examined that. And as soon as he had decided it wasn't my fault, I explained to him how dangerous it was. I told him that all the cars and taxis were stopping suddenly ,and there might be an accident. And they were waking me up every two minutes. So I said," If you'll stay here and warn people, I 'll go to see Sir William Horwood in the morning and ask him to make you an officer." And he said, " I am an officer." So I said " Never mind
— perhaps he'll make you another." And I went back to bed.

     At about four o'clock in the morning there were noises in the road, so I got up and looked out, and there was my policeman and an inspector walking backwards and forwards and enjoying themselves very much. They were doing a kind of slow dance on the road. I think they went on dancing till it got light.

     Well, the next day men came and mended the road properly, and that was the end of that.
That was in August .Now comes the strange part. Exactly two weeks ago — at about one o'clock in the morning — there was the same old noise of a car stopping suddenly and violently. I was half asleep, and I said ," The same thing 's going to go on all night, and I shan't get any sleep at all."

    But this car didn't drive on as it ought to have done. There were voices and footsteps, and the sound of the car being backed. General excitement After a few minutes of this I got curious, and I went out again. The car had stopped just at the same old place .But there wasn't any mistake this time. They had run over a man, and he was quite dead. They said he had walked right into them.

     He was wearing light brown clothes, with squares on the cloth. You often see girls with coats made of that kind of stuff.

     I call this chance. perhaps you do not .
..

From A Book of Short Stories, Longman Series.
. Approximately 12250 words.