A DECADENT SUNDAY

The doctor poured cognac into the prisoner’s balloon glass. The gesture was superficially expansive, but did nothing to disguise the cold underlying hostility. “So much of what you say is hardly plausible.”
The prisoner swirled the brandy in the ostentatious glass. He inhaled the alcohol vapor. He hadn’t eaten in so long, the fumes alone were capable of making him drunk. “If you had seen what I had seen, you would not be so reluctant to believe me.”
“If I had seen what you had seen I would not be required to believe you. I would be you.”
“But if you were me, who would I be?”
“Word games? Juvenile existentialism? Isn’t this all a little pointless?”
“I didn’t ask to be here.”
The doctor leaned back in his chair. “That is something I do believe.”
“That’s something you know for a fact. Belief or disbelief don’t even signify. I didn’t ask to be here, I actively resisted coming here, and I’m being held against my will. You actively facilitated my captivity. It is something that cannot be called into question.”
The doctor carefully pressed his fingertips together. “Whatever you think is being done to you is ultimately for your own good.”
“Bullshit.”
The doctor smiled. “Now who’s unwilling to believe?”
The prisoner sighed. “I’m willing to believe. Tell me anything. I’ll believe it. Just watch me.”