There was a screech of brakes, then nothing--no crunch, no thunk.

Then, a car door slamming, and two men yelling at each other.

A car-pedestrian close call had resulted in no contact, no injuries.

The guys involved were not working out a song of thanksgiving for the bad thing not happening. They were mad at each other and getting madder by the word to an extent that was scary. Were they going to get injury out of this, after all?

They were on a quiet side street, so they could go on and on.

Coming up hill toward their noisiness on the busier street that the side street went off was walking a woman who started singing. Quietly, no words.

It sounded like a cross between a high lonely folk song from the Appalachian Mountains and whale cries. Land and sea.

I felt the air molecules relax.

The men were so preoccupied and the song so quiet that I didn't know, watching from the uphill side of the busier street as she approached from the down hill side, if the men heard her.

It felt to me like a real change happened in the area around the yelling and including the yelling that increased the odds that what had started as a loud conversion would end as a loud conversation with nobody hurt. That is, in fact, what happened and didn't happen.