Friday; windy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping/ part 2

Friday; windy with a chance of rioting or serial shopping/ part 2

fiction
Edward w Pritchard

The rioters have began to burn cars and houses as they walk en mass through neighborhoods. Anyone with a landscaped yard, anyone with a nice home, anyone who doesn't put thirty or forty US dollars in a Water proof glass jar on a small folding chair at the front of their yard is subject to being burnt out by the roving rioters. Once they take your jar with your contribution to the cause the rioters use a large broom and paint a purple stripe down the center of the front door your house, then property and loved ones are safe for now. Safe until the color changes again, from purple to orange, or green, anything but bright red. Red is the symbol that a traitor to the rioter's and the revolution's cause lives within.

I have long since given up on protecting the house. Funny it isn't burned yet; for the last several decades I haven't kept the place up but in time it will be torched, it's been weeks since I put any money in a can in a sealed glass jar sitting on a folding chair on the curb. At first I would sit out in the cold late at night and cheer the rioters.

I lost the car to thieves a month ago. No matter it wasn't dependable enough to drive about in times like these and of course I fear the Police and the Guardsmen.

I watch the squirrels to decide how to behave during the times of rioting. The squirrels are very busy and extremely nervous as they move about finding and hiding food. I have constructed a hidden lair over by the lake where I hide underground when I hear the thump of the footsteps of the rioters coming through my neighborhood. The rest of the time I am like the squirrels, always moving, searching, and storing away for later. I used an ancient abandoned badger's den for my secret lair; course I had to enlarge it some by digging and scraping but it is snug and warm inside and I think it is good protection from the bands of roving rioters.

Sometimes I ask my neighbor Goldstein what will happen next. He isn't a rioter but they tell him at synagogue what is going on. At least that's what I think. I never talk to children. If they don't like your looks or are feeling contrary today they will report you to the rioters for spite.

In camouflage clothes with black paint on my face and hands I lay underground in my lair very quietly when the rioters move about. It's very dangerous when the rioters are on the move. At least that's what I think.