ABSTRACT
In my memory it is dark. I am with a group of other boys, in a field behind the boarding school I attended as a child. It is cold. I am lying on the grass, having been kicked and punched to the ground, and now they have sticks and rocks in their hands. As they throw them at me I start to panic, not knowing if they will stop, what could hold them back or restrain their sudden, inexplicable malice. My world shrinks to blackness and contorted, horror-film faces; I flinch from their blows and wonder if I will die. Then, just as suddenly, it stops. One of them saying: ‘no, that’s enough’, the vicious knot of boys turns away, their laughter leaving me bawling and alone. I am six years old.
