He had been speaking to a town hall gathering about ways to stay on guard "against the species to which you belong" when he allowed the thick plum slung at him to hit him on the shoulder.  He had watched it almost all its way and was stunned when it took on the size of a bloody cantaloupe right before hitting him.  His fear had grown the closer and more purple it got, but then vanished the instant he was his most helpless against it.  The gathered, instead, seemed to take it on.  They sat frozen in silence, and then erupted in a noise of protests so loud that a fright struck him: had he just presented himself as one to guard themselves against?  But, as quickly, he realized otherwise: the gathered had turned their backs to him because the plum slinger was stomping out the hall.  And, then, almost as one, they sat back down to face him.  Their faces grew polite.  Taking cue, he politely continued on to finish his talk.  Not another cross word was said.  At the end, a woman did come over to ask, Are you bleeding?  When he looked down at himself, he was able to say the blood was plum juice.  The woman gave a slight shake of her head, and the gathered then started to filter out of the hall.  He stayed uncomprehending till he discovered that he had given the wrong talk to the wrong audience.  The attendees had expected to hear about ways they could help unfortunates in distant places and had heard instead on how they were culpable in creating the circumstances that crushed untold species of unfortunates.  On reflection, he regretted not adding that it was nothing particular to them, that it was in the nature of the species, and thus his plea to stay on guard "against the species to which we are born."