The first time 53-year-old Brian Peterson was seen drunk was the last time he was seen alive.
It was a drizzly Saturday evening outside The Hairy Hamster pub. Regulars knew Brian as the quietly polite accountant who never drank. But that night, he staggered out onto the pavement, unsteady, red-faced, voice slurred as he fumbled with his car keys. Eyewitnesses told how he insisted on getting behind the wheel, how he spoke of heading home to Liverpool docks. Rumours spread fast: Brian was drunk and driving.
The police report painted a damning portrait: a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit, glassy eyes, uncoordinated speech. The crunch of metal, the screech of tyres, a lone headlight spiralling away into the night; all pointed toward a drunk-driving tragedy:
But, Brian Peterson never coasted his car into a lamppost. He never slid across a roadway at breakneck speed. He was on foot, crossing The Strand at midnight, phone clutched in one hand. A passing black saloon veered off course, its driver distracted by a text message. And just like that, Brian was struck, flung several yards onto the wet asphalt. The car never slowed. It disappeared into the rain-smeared night.
In the hush that followed, the last image anyone held of him was that of a man who, by all appearances, had chosen to get drunk and drive. The inquest exposed the cruel irony: the tragedy was never his own recklessness behind a steering wheel, but his simple misfortune as a pedestrian.
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 