Stoned.

I remember lying on a pebbly beach somewhere, and they were throwing rocks at me.  And I didn’t move, but I could hear them calling things like: ‘Can he hear us?’ and  ‘He isn’t moving.’

Is that a memory of how a previous life ended?  Perhaps that is why it has stuck so clearly in my memory.  Perhaps that is why, at the time, it seemed frighteningly familiar.  Perhaps that was why I was unable to move or speak, but just lie there while they threw rocks, till they stopped.

The way I now remember it, I was with some other Boy Scouts.  I guess we were a Patrol.  I wasn’t particularly friendly with anyone.  I participated in everything without additional conversation with anyone.  We were on a beach somewhere.  In bathing suits.  For years afterwards I was haunted by the sight of one of the guys in black speedos.  I wanted to look like that, and tried for years, but never succeeded.  Anyhow, at the moment of my memory, like a snapshot in time, they were sitting together a short distance away, while I was lying on the sand that was mostly rocks, facing away and trying to ignore them and hoping they would all go away.  They eventually did, but not before doing everything to arouse me from apparent slumber.