By James Fitzgerald It felt like all eyes were on him as he sat there pondering his last words — an utterance that had come from his heart, and which he thought would take the dull, cruel conversation in another, healthier, direction. But the silence was deafening, as if he had just walked into a saloon in the old Wild West and the piano had just stopped playing. What should he do now, he pondered, withdraw and find another outlet, or pull his proverbial gun out one more time, and blast these sycophants between the eyes? “John98765354” wasn’t really in a western bar, but he was in Bandit Country — a focal point of cyberspace we have come to know as social media. He had interjected in a thread about mask wearing under Covid conditions, and had challenged the status quo of the group by suggesting that masks might be…