Shocks

Water used to be thought of as an entity. It was thought that if one cell of a being touched one molecule of water, that that entity was ruined or tainted. 

The first public neighborhood pools were opening nationwide after World War II. Men came home from war, eager to forget the strangers they blew up and start families of their own, socializing around pool decks with unchecked rage of their recent sins against Others. It probably operated from sun up to sun down, everyday of summer, with the exclusion of lightening strikes within 5 to 10 miles, ever since it was discovered that water conducts electricity; it must also conduct toxicity. All could attend and swim and have good wholesome fun, but the only caveat was you couldn't be black. 

Around the 1950s, people started relaxing those policies for people of color. It was really dependent on who they knew, who trusted them, and their kids. That they knew the power dynamics and the summer heat didn't just shine from a star at the center of our planetary system. That there was an unspoken understanding that the people who didn't burn easily were to be on their best behavior, because their lawns were still quite flameable. Because they always had to live in fear of the consequences; any discrepancy was met with capital punishment, either a burning cross on their own front lawn or worse, a lynching disguised as a family BBQ. 

Public pools became the spot of gossip and long lasting connections, and where people could relax and have fun in the sun with their untainted water molecules. 

As the civil rights threatened that white hot fun in the sun, the owners of the public pools decided to fill in the pools with cement. The white neighborhoods decided that if they were to be legally ordered to share their wet entities with people of color, that they'd divide the biblical baby of an issue, and fill in the cavity of their missing morality, taking away everyone's opportunities for fun in the sun.

Instead of wallowing and dramatically wailing on the curbs of previous sundown towns, black families retook the public cement pools, built warehouses around them, and created roller rinks. Roller skating and rinks boomed in the 1970s as the results of the wins of civil rights spread across the nation. Music like funk and disco propelled the roller rink scene further, fanning the trends of what was cool or uncool, according to some very silly people.

Times warped the realities of future generations while in the wake of desegregation, we sent young men off to war to kill people they didn't know about things neither of them understood. They may have not had a public pool to wash off their plights or even a healthy home to come back to, but they had roller rinks. They had a culture of waxing off the shit given to them with grinds and finding gold. They were the molecules that bound together, never tainted, never bad. Together.

People forget how horrible the majority were to their fellow man simply because no one reported it or called it out. No one white thought to connect the dots between pools that used to be and the roller rinks in which they became. The rinks began to be filled with the punk, flower children with greatest-generation parents who used to alight those crosses, and rolled more than just skates. They started seeing their fellow man as brothers. As equals. 

Perhaps, fellow molecules? Of one entity. Watch for the punks, those who fight against the moral majority, they're not on the right side just because they have a lot of money or influence in politics. Jesus befriended the misfits before he befriended the capitalists, or do incels skip over those verses?

...

Snow.