The Utility of Strangers

If I were reading a book and it became
too intense I could put it down for a
break, but confronting me was no book
but an irate stranger whom happenstance
has placed before me as he waxes
indignant over the state of world affairs.
I did nothing other than to be there when
he was also there in that public place
where books line the library shelves
my presence somehow goading him to
approach and ventilate his distemper with
the times. In the process revealing more
than any stranger might want to know
outside the pages of a novel yet his
eagerness to reveal himself kept me
prisoner to his rants as did the bristling
bulk of his aroused presence with no
easy escape beyond courtesy for who 
am I to shun anyone in such obvious need
as this man born in Cuba to a barefoot
doctor, himself attending university in
Russia travelling to Tunisia because he
spurned Communism and atheism. As a
Christian he found no comfort sojourning
in Tunisia despite its cosmopolitan flair
ending up in my country, now his yet
its glaring faults mystify and enrage him
as he acquaints me passionately with
every one of his disappointments in life.