A WIZARD OF A LIZARD - A rather large iguana-esque creature (the head is the size of a small pumpkin) who is one of the local celebrities in front of a shop where I drank beer, across the street from the immigration office in Vientiane. A man there with a dirty polo shirt and a whole lot of beer inside him struck up a conversation with me; he had come back from America hoping to see this animal, which has been there for many years and through many regimes...a wise old survivor of man's follies...

The man turned out to be more enigmatic than the herpetezoid, however, when he told me that his former job in Laos was working for the CIA, that he was now a rich man living in Walnut Creek, California. (wouldn't it be dangerous to come back here if that were the case?)

I told him I had an auntie living there - but somehow our two exchanges seemed mismatched, like one of those English textbook exercises where you are supposed to recognize that "Thank you, I'm fine" is not the right answer to "Where are you from?"

The man continued to broadcast the CIA story to any and all who passed on the street, and I, feeling the crosshairs coming a little too close for comfort, finished my beer discreetly, and with a nod to the lizard, slunk on down the street to the market to search for more gooey bee larvae.