My wife Nancy recommended her. Before she set down her bag, she ordered Nancy to pay her in a superstitious fashion. “Pay me two drachmas, or it’s no use talking.”

Thinking her a reporter, I greeted her in kind. When I do that, I can’t contain myself. “Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.”

She ordered me to strip naked, slathering me in cinnamon and lard. She laid me on my belly and set hot stones on my spine where they slid down my greased cages, their tracks she noted with a “tsk-tsk”.

Next, the old woman dragged her vulture’s talon across my skin. She sniffed the bleeding scrape. “Your heart smells like brine. It’s peeling too, there’s such a smell of onions. It’s a raw globe of layered tears. You’re becoming demented, your age is souring your mind. You’ve lost direction too. Retire, that is my finding.”

I cried in the shower as my wife gently bathed me. My mind was going but I had one more request. “Dear wife, please dab a sponge of water on my heart, it burns.”