In this dream I am sitting across from a man in a suit and tie. He smiles politely at me, but behind this façade I sense something venomous and deadly; this is no more than a demon wearing a man’s skin. The demon is speaking to me, either telling a truth in the most dishonest way possible, or lying to me in the most honest way possible. It’s hard for me to tell which is the case, but the distinction is an unimportant one. All that really matters to me at this moment is the maddening drone of the demon’s voice as he speaks to me from behind his mask.

Every word that passes through his borrowed lips feels somehow false. Every phrase seems too calculated, too precisely neutral to be real. My ears pick up each uttered phrase, but my mind tunes them out. There is no substance to what the demon is saying; he will keep circling around the truth forever, trapping me here in an intricate web of vague assertions and half-statements.

This is Hell, I think, and as soon as the thought enters my mind, I am filled with the dreadful certainty that my new friend is a politician.