Day 835: 5 Minute Freewrite: Sunday - Prompt: a long white beard

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Wednesday afternoon, third day of the drive-in lockdown of downtown Big Loft: a senior gentleman with a pearl-pink face, long white beard, and thoughtful expression was walking with a younger colleague of the same complexion from City Hall to get lunch. To the senior gentleman, this was a bit difficult; he had just had knee replacement surgery a month before.

But, there was no other way for him or anyone else in downtown Big Loft to get to lunch but to walk. Since Monday, traffic had been locked up at lunch time and rush hour by 12,000 families whose Black and Latino relatives had been uncounted in the Ridgeline Fire death toll, families who were driving in 1,200 at a time to the courthouse to demand that charges of murder be added on for each of their family members. With 1,200 families in cars and on public transportation as well, coming in as a unit at key hours, downtown and all its powerful people were getting locked down twice a day, every day.

“Who messed up and decided to let these people actually think they were people who could do this to us?” the younger colleague said.

The senior gentleman with the long white beard stopped, thoughtfully stroked his beard, and sighed.

“You know, most of my life I've had your opinion. But today I dropped my Bible, and I read the first verse it opened to. The Bible says at that point that God made of one blood all the families of the earth. Since the Bible is true, that means we have a problem, friend. These people here have been people all along. We're just now figuring it out.”

The younger colleague froze for a moment, and then went into a rage.

“You've gone to their side!”

And he shove his senior colleague out into the midst of traffic. No harm done, though, because traffic wasn't moving – and it wouldn't move for a good while because every Black and Latino man who had driven in and saw what had happened turned their cars off, got out, and gang-tackled the attempted murderer.

Lieutenants Anderson and Longley from the Big Loft police department were running through the stopped traffic at that moment to intervene in the situation. They stopped and checked on the senior gentleman first.

“I'm fine, just shook up – I can hardly believe that happened, but, the Spirit warned me that it would.”

“Check him out, Longley, while I go rescue this fool over here –.”

Not that the younger colleague was being hurt, per se … he just sounded like a dying calf as he was being held down until gentle giant Lieutenant Anderson could wade into the pile.

“Officer, you see what these thugs have done –.”

“I saw the whole thing – you're under arrest for suspicion of attempted murder.”

“What?”

“You heard me – turn him over so I can handcuff him, good citizens, and thank you for apprehending this criminal!”

And then Lieutenant Anderson repeated the last part in Spanish, to the shock and then smiles of the Latino citizens present as well.

Photo by Bernard Tuck on Unsplash