I lie: a short story

I lie

     Maybe its because I’m a writer. Maybe I just want the story to sound a little better. Maybe not. My life becomes sparkly when I add a word, one word for you, one for me. Sparkly like the reflection off the face of a watch when the sun shines off of it and I redirect it to form a circle just below your eye, just enough to get your attention, maybe scare you a bit, but in the end, not harmful at all. And certainly not the sparkle of a drop of shiny red, defined by the stark, swinging, overhead bulb, on the tip of a sharp and pointed knife. Such a high lying life would surely make my testimony untrustworthy. If you think I am lying, I will never discover your truths, and if I never discover your truths, I will never be able to tell your story. I have great, the greatest, respect for the truth, holding it at arms length lets me admire its beauty from afar and then examine it like a seasoned coroner examining a victim.
     Now you expect me to tell a story, and invite you to determine the truth and the lies within. Maybe you need me to tell you the true story of that little part of town where you grew up, but can no longer remember because the details have drifted away from your memory, hiding behind your present, chaotic life. Maybe you need me to lie to you about that time when you were 8 or 9, playing in that abandoned house with the neighborhood kids and how you left Milly, three whole grades below you, in the basement, all alone.
     Maybe you don’t need my stories. You wouldn’t be able to determine truth from fiction, not like this, not merely through the untrustworthy black pixels dancing on your screen, capable of changing with a simple click of your mouse and a tap of a key. And to you, the skeptical one who wouldn’t believe the truth if I etched it into the monolith of granite standing three stories high in Earth Sciences, and yet wouldn’t believe the lies either, to you, I will only lean forward and whisper in your ear the words you have been waiting your whole life to hear. And as I take a step back, you will look at me first with confusion, then anger when you will banish me from your life.
     Maybe days, maybe years later, you will be reading the news online, smiling smugly to yourself, and then you will remember my words. That is the moment you have a choice to earn redemption or forever be dammed. And in that moment, you won’t think about whether I had lied to you, shining light in your eye, or whether I had discovered the truth and shared the sparkle with you, because it doesn’t matter, my lying or not. It matters only that you believe me, and at that moment, you will believe me, and you will tell me your truths and I will tell your story and we shall see how many people believe you.

     Now come close because I will only whisper it once.

First draft: March 20, 2010
Inspiration: INTEG 221: Social Epistemology and Testimony and maybe some other ideas floating in the air