The story has its heart in the right place, but could profit from some action. Most of the story takes place in the cop car, with the cops just talking. One of them's a lazy white guy, and the other's an intellectual latino (with a decidedly non-latino name). Sparks will definitely fly, but the object of their disagreement is maybe about how the police are handling the pandemic among the various racial groups.

In the store, Andrew finds the hungry family and decides to let them go. A complete lack of tension. Throw in a fight to escape, or an irate owner with a shotgun. Don't make it easy for Andrew to just walk away from his duty.

On the plus side, I enjoyed the cop lingo.

I enjoyed this. Good back-and-forth between the characters.

Thought it might have been more impactful with the Carl character having the conversion rather than Andrew. Andrew already seems like a conscientious type.

The banter between them was interesting, but possibly would have had more impact if we knew what the book was – feels a bit dissatisfying not to know, although if you name the book you probably open up another can of worms with people arguing about the book’s validity – e.g. is it Thoreau? Marx? Some eastern philosophy?

There were some elemental grammatical mistakes in there as well, e.g. punctuation missing in some sentences. Saying a “female witness” felt a bit redundant, her gender didn’t influence the story. Andrew Marshall doesn't sound like a very Latino name.

You could have maybe intercut with Carl looking over Andrew’s book while Andrew is in the shop, maybe dipping into a page and shaking his head in exasperation. You needed to make it clear in their conversation that Andrew wouldn't have let the family go - maybe have him complaining about immigrants carrying the virus or something rather than have him complaining about the government. His character would make more sense if he was pro-government, a real law-and-order nut.

Good job overall.

Some lines were lost in translation, for sure. Intent was there, it just needs clarity. This is a clear case of the need to give your work to someone else for proofreading before submitting. Would also help to do a little research on 10 Code and police protocol.

That said, a decent little story of boredom and doing the right thing. Nice job, writer.

Hey!

Your logline pulls, the title not so much.

Car's standing is not clear. You should address it immediately when you open, maybe even put it in the slugline. Your main characters are not likeable, which is a problem when you play slow. Lots of imprecise formatting and imprecise visual descriptions. Story's not enough – for me.

All best