An astonishing moment from my 20's.

I'm standing on the beach in a huddle. It's late summer and hours past sunset. The sand is cool, and a breeze is keeping the bugs at bay. I'm early-20's-young, and I quit my office job a few months ago. I'm spending a week at the beach drinking wine out of bottles, and whisky-coke from plastic cups.

Down the beach in both directions, other circles of youth have started fires. The flames flicker rapidly, and light up the undersides of hats and big hair. I have two bags in my pocket.

In the darkness I reach for a bag and a bowl, and in the dim light have difficulty packing. I work carefully in the windbreak of our huddle; diligent because anything lost will be unrecoverable waste.

I put in a good amount, but when I flick the lighter I am astonished. In the bowl is not the pot I was looking for, but torn bits of psychedelic mushrooms. My astonishment is not that this has happened. What really floors me is that this has happened before.