Central California - 2:25 a.m.
It did not seem like the first day of a revolution…
Block after block, the tall, narrow houses were packed tightly next to one another, significantly outnumbering the closed businesses, former churches and dilapidated parks in this section of the city. On the dingy and dark streets there were no cars; just hundreds of barrel fires that blotted out the stars in the night sky as plumes of gray smoke rose from the street corners like colossal twisting snakes with fiery tails. Hundreds of un-electrified city blocks were densely inhabited by all walks of society, from professionals to delinquents and everyone in between. But now everyone had the same status, and they were all living in a new hellish reality where all hope had been lost.
