Solange and Marisol: I Can Feel the Breaking of Day (Covid Fiction)

Solange and Marisol Hunter are sisters in their early 20s who live at home with their parents in South Suburban Illinois.

Solange is a session drummer who makes her living by playing on various recordings as needed. Marisol is still trying to figure things out, jumping from job to job. Still, both are soulful, thoughtful young women who are concerned for the state of the world.

Sitting on the front porch with short sleeves, short pants and bare feet, they ponder the recent events in Minneapolis, Chicago and elsewhere in the midst of the 2020 pandemic quarantine.

Solange: It's 89 frickin' degrees out here.

Marisol: This I know. (Starts blowing bubbles with a plastic wand)

Solange: So why is Miss Nabors watering her grass? Won't it burn? I heard somebody say that.

Marisol: I don't know.about such things.

Solange: You were up late last night.

Marisol: Yeah ... Watching the news ... All of these nuts looting still.

Solange: The protesters?

Marisol: No. Not the protesters. The protesters are peaceful. Just a mass of people trying to express their right to assemble and express their heart. But somebody always gotta put a dirty cup in the Kool Aid. You know?

Solange: I'm sorry?

Marisol: There's always a bad one in the bunch.

Solange: Oh ....

Marisol: In this case, a lot more than just one ...That grocery store on the South Side ... They'd been praying for a fresh market in that area for years. Now here these goobers come breaking in and turning over shelves and coming out with baskets of stolen food. And one guy actually had his little kids in the back seat.

Solange: Are you kidding?

Marisol: No. This pastor was doing a live video to let his congregation know what was going on and to warn them to stay in the house. And the guy in the car next to him, thought that he was filming him. Telling the Man of God not to be filming his license plate. Or else he was going to eff him up.

Solange: So you know right from wrong enough to not want your plates filmed.

Marisol: But not enough to not expose your kids to such foolishness. Right. But like I said, the filming wasn't even about him. Just a pastor putting his life on the line to report back to his congregation.

Solange: Good man ... And why are the people looting again?

Marisol: Taking advantage of that young man's death.

Solange: The one that the cop put his knee on his neck?

Marisol: Yeah ... GEORGE FLOYD.

Solange: Sad.

Marisol: That case and other cases of police brutality and black people getting killed unjustly. Like the lady who was in her bed and was killed ....

Solange: BREONA TAYLOR.

Marisol: And the guy who was killed by the father and son because they thought he'd robbed somebody ....

Solange: AHMAUD ARBERY.

Marisol: Tearing up the town ... Moving from area to area and then to the suburbs, trying to cross over to Indiana.. But Indiana ain't having it ... Oooo, don't get me started.

Solange: Ok, here's what I don't understand ...

Marisol: Ok.

Solange: You tear up the neighborhood ...

Marisol: Right.

Solange: Breaking glass and knocking over shelves and stealing inventory and setting fires ....

Marisol: Right.

Solange: Ok ... So when your stolen food runs out ...

Marisol: Right.

Solange: And you give away or sell your ill gotten gain ....

Marisol: Speak on it.

Solange: When you need to get grocery and medicine in the coming weeks ....

Marisol: Right.

Solange: Where are you going to purchase it? Because you tore up and stole and totally destroyed all of the stores. And who is to say that the corporation that owns those stores is going to want to rebuild in that neighborhood. Because, obviously you didn't appreciate that entity. And as far they are concerned -- if I was them -- you don't deserve to have the store in your neighborhood rebuilt.

Marisol: Exactly.

Marisol & Solange: Numb-skulls!!!

Solange: Dag ... We're still quarantined. And what's to stop a second wave from coming on?

Marisol: Well, a lot of them have masks on.

Solange: But not all them, I'm sure.

Marisol: Not all of them.

[Little sister, Destiny, joins them, sitting towards the bottom of the staircase. She's carrying Solange's sleeping infant]

Solange: He okay?

Destiny: Yeah. Stirred in his sleep. But as soon as I picked him up, he fell back to sleep. What are ya'll talkin' about?

Marisol: This crazy world that Baby Boy is going to inherit.

Destiny: Them crazy folks better not bring that foolishness over this way. They don't want no smoke from the kid.

Marisol: Really? What are you gonna do if they come over here trying to riot?

Destiny: Hmmph! They just better not. That's all I'm saying.

Marisol: I repeat ... What are you gonna do if they come over here trying to riot?

Destiny: Same thing Ma Ingalls would do. Protect the babies.

Solange: (Snickers) Why does everything come down to Little House On The Prairie with you?

Destiny: Do not sleep on MICHAEL LANDON and MELISSA SUE ANDERSON. That show is full of life lessons. A lot of people could learn some vital information from that show. Not just with it being set in another time period, but that whole small town mentality of God, family and community.

Marisol: Maybe ... Or maybe people just get along a lot better when life is scripted.