Chapter 2

Josh walked down the stone path toward the purplish
building. He could hear strange, haunting, loud, and
exciting music coming from it. As he went inside he saw some
people dancing, some people talking and a group of people
surrounding what seemed to be a guru or a hypnotist with
long hair, dressed in long flowing robes.
He spotted a girl who seemed remotely interested in him and walked over to her. " What's going on here?" he asked.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she asked.
"This is only the coolest place in town. It's Club Nuevo.
Everybody comes here."
"But who's that?" he asked as he pointed to the
long haired hippie-like person.
"Whoa, you're really not from around here, are you?
That's only the greatest man who ever lived. I can't believe you've never heard of Darien Mallory. He's the one who's
responsible for all this.
"What- this club?"
"Have you been in a coma or something, dude?"
"Something like that."
"No, Darien is responsible for the revolution. Don't
tell me you haven't heard of that- oh yeah. Well, about ten
years ago when I was 8 or 9, this guy got this big idea
that we should just abolish all government and live how we
wanted to. What he was saying seemed really good and for some reason people listened to him. I really don't
understand all of it, but it seems to me that for the most
part, it's a lot better than it used to be."
"And so what do you do now?"
"Well, some of us do what we always did. There are still some people who insist in living in red taped bureaucratic societies. But for the most part, there are so
many people who don't that it's pretty much voluntary."
"But what about you?"
"I hang out here, there, explore. I pretty much live
off the land and what people share with me. I really enjoy
this kind of freedom and I'm taking the opportunity to
explore and learn as much as I can."
"Cool. Wanna go get a drink? Or don't people drink
here?"
"Of course. Why not? But there's a group of people I know who are going to play jump. Come with me."
The girl led Josh into the woods. They traveled down a
long path, talking as they went. They laughed and joked as they went along just generally enjoying the day. As they
talked, they both felt as if they had met a kindred spirit.
He learned that her name was Stacie and she had been living
like this for a year.
The woods were like none Josh had ever seen. And he was
almost as impressed with them as he was with Stacie. There
were all kinds of bright beautiful flowers. The trees looked
like they were miles high and might never end.
Before long they came to a fenced in clearing. Inside
the clearing was a courtyard with two poles on either end.
Each pole had round metal rings attached to it. The ground was made up of what looked like green, orange, and purple
sand all swirled together. No one else was there yet.
"Where is everyone?" Josh asked.
"They'll be here soon enough," said Stacie. "Why don't we practice?"
"I don't know how to play."
"It's easy. I'll teach you. There are two teams of
people. Each team is trying to throw the ball into one of
those two nets while bouncing the ball to move it," she
explained as she dribbled the ball.
Josh immediately caught on. "Like basketball."
"What?"
"Never mind." Josh took the ball and slam-dunked it.
She just stood there shocked and impressed."I've never seen anyone do that before. It's not against the rules, but wow! What do you call that?" she babbled.
"A slam dunk," he answered. "Now let's just play." So they did. It was a pretty even game, with some fast
moves from both of them, but it was just a game after all. Soon Stacie's friend's showed up. Mark had a Mohawk,
and was wearing baggy camouflage shorts. Paul had spiked hair and the same camo shorts. In fact the entire group, Drew, Dan, Gordo, Penney, and Skye all had on camo shorts. The two girls had on shirts with PRO Chice written on them. "What are those strange symbols on your shirt?" he
asked, puzzled.
"Where did you say you are from?" Stacie demanded yet
again.
"I didn't. It doesn't really matter. I'm not sure I
could explain it to you as I'm not sure where I'm from
anymore," he tried to explain. "So what does it mean?"
"That's our band Pro Choice" answered Penney. Mark
plays the zyther. I play fender. Dan sings and plays back-up
zyther, and Paul just plays xylophone and looks good. Skye,
Drew, and Gordo are just part of our road crew, our
entourage." Penney pointed out everyone as she spoke.
"So, why Pro-Choice? Do you believe in abortion or
something?" asked the always curious Josh.
"Abortion?" Drew looked puzzled." Nah, we just kinda believe that everyone has the right to make their own
decisions about what to believe, and for the most part, what
to do," he paused before adding, "by the way, I'm Drew, he's
Dan. Penney likes to make things confusing."
Drew, Dan, and Penney seemed to be aggressive players.
Gordo rounded out their team. Five against four wasn't
really fair (Stacie, Josh, Mark, Paul, and Skye) but it
didn't seem to matter. The four beat the five in game after
game until it began to get dark
Afterwards, Dan invited Stacie and Josh to spend the
night at their house. " I don't know. I just met you. I feel
like I would be imposing," Josh said reluctantly as he
realized he wouldn't mind getting to know his new friends (especially Stacie) better.
"Come on," Stacie begged. "Where else are you going to stay. They have a really big house."
"I guess so, I wasn't planning on meeting my friends
until tomorrow, anyway." Josh went off with them to their beautiful house that they seemed to share with every nature of vagabond and drifter. Josh looked forward to his stay here. He was eager to learn as much about this new world as he could and was sure these colorful people could tell him much about it.