The Move: Just Flow Like Water

Holly sat stuffed in the back of a multicolored van. One painted with acrylics to be every color of the rainbow in the most anti-brutalist design possible. From the driver's seat to the doors in the back, it was lined with neon orange shag carpeting. The windows tinted pale pink and red rose and it made the light glitter off hundreds of hanging plastic beads look magical. The haze that filled the back of the van came in waves every few minutes from the passengers blowing thick columns of smoke and the tiny window in the back was only able to suck out so much at one time.

A man in his mid-twenties with long ginger hair, dressed in hemp clothing and wearing tiny green sunglasses sat across from Holly speaking to the group of five in the back, "... to experience ourselves as isolated awareness and action, placed in a world that is not us. That is foreign, alien, other; which we confront. Whereas in fact, the way an ecologist describes human behavior is as, an action what you do, is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now," he was staring at his open palms as one of the girls snuggled up against him, "you are something the whole universe is doing, in the same way that a wave is something that a whole ocean is doing."

"Oh my god... like a wave." Another woman next to Holly spoke up while a waft of bitter-sweet haze flowed from her mouth, "That's so, deep. Like the ocean."

The man that had been speaking - she thought he introduced himself as Arlo the Wizard when they met - folded his hands together and fell into a silent kind of deep thought. Holly did not mind listening to the philosopher when he occasionally decided to speak up, though she did not feel intellectually able to hold a meaningful conversation with him.

The van was on its way far upstate, they had begun their journey from the Pacific Ocean and were going wherever they were needed. Which was wherever the wind told them to go. Which was likely from West to East as that is typically how wind currents flowed. It had not mattered to Holly. She hitched a ride with the first set of people that did not look like they'd try to axe murder her. She actually had no destination in mind and supposed she'd go from coast to coast with them. Holly would end up someplace that was hopefully not dead in a ditch and figure it out from there. Her hands fiddled with an unopened pack of cigarettes as she thought. If she had a choice though, it would be a bigger city. A small town where everyone knew each other was just inconvenient when the gossip started and she did not want to be a part of that kind of drama any longer. Though small towns had their charm and maybe she would find a cottage in the woods to be called a hermit or a witch by the locals; it was a cute idea that involved a lot of garden plants... or in truth at least a place that did not involve nights under the stars with the hippies in this van that could apparently just sleep on rocks. She was so young, but her bones were already aching from the lack of cushioning the last couple of days.

The moment she tried to lean back to rest up a bit more the van POPPED a tire loudly exploding and they swerved to the side of the highway. Everyone in the back was tossed around due to a lack of seatbelts and seats in general. She vaguely remembered swearing an, "Oh fuck!" that was muddled in with other swears and screams. It was over quickly, and no one was injured. The van sat at the edge of the highway while they all piled out and not just one but the second back tire had exploded too, likely after the first one while they served. They eventually waved down someone who gave them a number to a tow service.

Two hours later the van was hooked up to the back of a truck. At the protest of the truck driver they had piled back into the van, Holly included as there were only two seats in the tow that were taken by the van's driver and his girlfriend. Though the tow driver simply decided to charge them extra for being a hazard, taking them to the nearest city that could get them the repairs they needed. Gotham.


- 'Arlo the Wizard' is using an Alan Watts quote.