Government and injustice
To Reef, the world is a place where everything was fine until the government came along and ruined the fun. He was just hanging out with his friends enjoying life, but then the government shut the space down, convicting it and destroying it. Although this is part of the comings-and-goings of daily life in any city, Reef experiences it as a drama of government interference. He longs for an anarchist utopia, and this serves as a platform imagery that is then adjusted through experience.
Rebellion and community
Angry and disenfranchised, Reef starts throwing rocks at cars. He sees the people as a monolithic representation of the systems he resents, so he just attacks his own community. He doesn't see that anger is warping his sense of justice to make him into a villain, but the reader sees it clearly. Reef is an agent of chaos in the world, making it worse rather than better, because his rebellion is not designed with community in mind. Rather, he just vents his anger against anyone and anything.
Rehabilitation
As part of his sentencing, this young menace is sentenced to community service. He works in a rehabilitation center. He is like young Siddhartha from Hesse's novel, learning piece by piece what human life is really like for people with less privilege. He sees illness, injury, madness, and disease, ravaging the community. The last thing these people need is some punk kid throwing rocks around making the place worse. He has to help them, and that opens his eyes to a new way of responding to injustice; he can become an agent of restoration.
Fate and coincidence
Fate is sometimes so brutal. It isn't enough that he learns his lesson. The fateful coincidence of his story brings him into close companionship with Leeza, a woman who was seriously injured by a car accident. He likes her a lot, but then, as time goes on, he realizes that her accident was caused by him. She was the person he hit with the rock. Fate and coincidence are like divine omens here, because Reef sees that he has done evil by harming a person he loved without thinking through the consequences.
