there was once a man named Vinny.
Vinny had an impeccable driving record; for over 50 years Vinny obeyed every traffic regulation to the letter, even in the middle of the night, when no other driver was around for miles. Vinny was always first in line at the DMV and the courthouse, camped outside the door the night before he was eligible to renew his registration and license. every bolt and screw on every auto Vinny drove was torqued exactly to manufacturer spec, and he washed each every night before parking it in a temperature-controlled garage. before going to bed each night, Vinny scrubbed the carbon off the inside of his tailpipe. whenever Vinny noticed a pothole that needed to be filled or a painted line needing touchup, he pulled over in the nearest designated parking area ((he didn't dare use the shoulder)) and trekked back to do the job himself ((he kept such supplies in his car)), not wishing to burden the taxpayer with the responsibility.
until one day Vinny didn't come to a complete stop at an intersection. it was 4:03am in the middle of a wide, open country, with a clear dark sky under which you could see for miles and miles. there wasn't another living human soul, much less another vehicle, for 15 miles in any direction.
except: a policeman on a motorcyle who was hiding behind an old shed nearby for a very unrelated reason, and who was ornery for another altogether unrelated reason, happened to look up and notice that Vinny didn't quite come to a stop -- he seemed to slow down to 1/4 mile an hour, and then continue rolling. the cop could see the brakelights - the only light other than the star for a 30 minute drive in any direction. he could hear the crunch of the wheel rolling along the road - the only sound but wind and the policeman's own breathing, and the quiet hum of Vinny's immaculately maintained vehicle. but the sound of those wheels didn't *quite* cease, as the law required.
in the car, Vinny was listening to a recreation of Hebrew temple music, the singing of Psalm 119 in Aramaic to lute and lyre. Vinny was so overcome with emotion thinking about the perfect traffic law and how perfectly he kept it, that for one brief moment in his life he could not remember if he had stopped at the intersection and recited the shema internaly, as he normally did, and then continued on, or if he only imagined he did -- because the glorious perfect obedience that he was picturing himself carrying out in his mind seemed so real.
by the motorcycle, the officer of the law, ornery for a reason that doesn't bear on this story, out in the middle of no-man's land hiding in a shadow by an intersection for another reason that also has no consequence to the telling of this tale, could not escape the inescapable: he had just witnessed the technical violation of a written ordinance. fully within his rights, he pulled Vinny over and issued him the proper citation.
guess what?
Vinny is a lawbreaker. a criminal. an entire lifetime of obedience is meaningless now - he has not kept the law. he has a record. none of the decades of clean driving history mattered one whit to the circuit court judge: Vinny was liable to pay the penalty for his actions. none of those years erased that single moment. a lifetime could not contend with that fraction of a second: the law is the law.
Vinny had always thought that if he were ever to appear in court, it would be to be given an award. but the day finally did come, and on that day, Vinny was condemned, instead. condemned: justly, rightly, condemned.