Peter Kerestur

Perspective: a Driver's Tale Peter Kerestur

When a common man leaves his house and embarks on his routine ride to his workplace, no more than ten minutes into his trip he is unexpectedly delayed, and his drive becomes a race against time. Is he going to make it on time or not?
 

Locked in a metal box on spinning wheels, racing with time while staying within the restrictions built to ease him of some of the monies he is on his way to make, the protagonist must effectively deal with the situations the drive presents him with. One small mistake, resulting from his fleeting inattention, costs him in the end all the temporal gain he so patiently, and up to then, so expertly though laboriously negotiated, and which promised to beat eventually the initially highly improbable odds to make it on time only to be instantly rewound to no odds with a set of flashing lights, his destination within sight. Perspective (A Driver's Tale) opens with a scene from a prosecutor's office, introducing the driver firmly determined to fight his speeding ticket. As this line continues, navigating him through a full traffic court session, his determination to fight the ticket weakening in the process, a second line runs parallel to it, following the kinks and twists, physical as well as philosophical, of his journey that winds him up at court. Will he fight his ticket or will he toe the mark after all?
 

Perspective is a contemporary tale of arbitrary use of the absolute power innocently cloaked in pretentious concern for the public safety in which individuals are summarily taken for stupid chickens. The story chronicles some of the inexhaustible varieties of the forms this abuse of power puts on in full view as well as behind the closed door. The narrative unfolds through scenes alternating between the road and the courthouse, which are interspersed with commentaries, observations, and unorthodox opinions occasioned by a particular event just recounted - some metaphoric, some abstract - and their subject matter ranges from psychological, philosophical, etymological, historical, religious, sociological to plain common sense and cold logic. No punches are ever pulled back, no excuses made, no apologies concocted.
 

Simply stated, the story proper is the space of two hours isolated from the life of a common man per both his experiences, one on the road to his workplace, the other in the court setting. There are only four major characters inhabiting four hours: a driver, a policeman, a prosecutor, and a judge; but they swarm with a myriad of small, incidental characters. Still, not all is said. Far from it.
 

From a composition's perspective, every "chapter" acquires and sustains its own existence and the book can be opened at any page and commenced to be read without losing a beat, yet as a whole each enlarges the rest of the text regardless of their inclusive order.
 

And by the way, most individuals dutifully adopt their roles of a chicken, some relishing in them to the point of utter disgust.