Was there no escape from this discussion? There seemed to be no limit to this man's lunacy. At times, he would fall silent, leading me to imagine that I might get away, but each of those moments was but the calm before a coming storm. A well meaning storm, perhaps, but one which would wash away even the faintest hint of lingering sanity.

Afghanistan. I was supposed to believe that this common piece of street trash had been to Kabul, to Baghdad, and points beyond, far beyond the places that I knew. And how he had paid for his airfare? He didn't want to say, averting his eyes in a sudden display of shame, easily understood. It was all a lie, a madman's lie told by this failed Baron Von Munchausen, who by now had to know that he hadn't even a good fairy tale to repay his hapless listener for the time which he ... which I had so graciously lent him. To whom would I retell this? Who would listen to it?

The pain which had begun as a throbbing in my forehead, every pulse felt as it raced through my fevered brain, had moved on to my eyes, which were beginning to sting from the punishment. I closed them, hoping that the weight of the lids would stop the pulsing, but no such luck. I was sure of my infection. A doctor would be needed.

How glad he was that I had agreed with him? Agreed to let myself fall into his verbal trap, I supposed. How unselfish I was to stop and let him know, he said, as he just rubbed my nose in it, the scoundrel! But I was trapped, getting sicker by the second, bound here by the unreasoning demands of common courtesy, forced to be the captive audience the young man had been seeking all along. I hadn't been a panther pouncing upon his unwary prey, I was a fish who had snapped at the bait that had been dangled in front of him during each mass, outwitted by a fool.

Did I hear music coming from above? "I must be getting worse", I thought.