When I was a young teenager, living in an outer suburb of Sydney, I had a most strange incident happen to me.
I was on my way home from school, and riding my bicycle up a reasonably steep hill. The road is usually busy at this time of day.
While riding from one intersection to the other, a few cars had passed me. By the time I got half way, I noticed no more cars and thought it was a lull in the traffic.
Suddenly I was catapulted forward. All I could do was to hang on like grim death. My bike veered off the road. I was just able to steer it up a driveway, across a footpath, and crash into a fence.
I picked myself up and looked around. There was no cars, nobody around, no birds, no sounds at all. It was as if existence was put on 'pause', except for me.
I sustained some injury from the crash. My bicycle was okay. I checked the rear wheel to see if something had hit me from behind, but there was no damage.
I got on my bike again, and kept riding up the hill. As I rode up to the corner shop, I noticed not a soul was around. That was something I have never experienced from that shop.
After passing the shop, I felt some relief to see a few cars coming up ahead of me, and hear the normal sounds again.
I felt a bit scared by this experience and decided to get home as quick as I could.
When I got home. I noticed I was fifteen minutes later than normal. That was a mystery to me, I thought 'how could that be', if anything I should be home bit earlier.