The truth is, I lied

A short story about truth and how we view ourselves and how the two usually don't mesh.

"I loved a woman once," said the kid next to me

as if he had been anywhere but around the block,

and that was probably only on his tricycle, but I listened anyways.

I found out a long time ago that people just want to know

that someone is listening. 

"She tore my heart out." he somberly spoke. "She lied to me..."

"Yeah?" I said, "Tell me something?" I asked.

"What?" he said.

"What'd you expect?"

He looked at me like he was gonna hit me, then softened and asked, 

"What do you mean?"

I took a drink of my bourbon then answered him slowly, carefully.

I didn't want to get hit. "Look kid, it's like this, everybody lies. Nobody

tells the truth about anything to anyone, not even themselves. And that,

my friend, is reality."

He sat there, mulling this over before saying, "Man, that's a terrible outlook.

According to your philosophy, everybody sucks."

"Now you're getting it son." I said in a grandfather manner. "I think it was Bob Marley

who said, and I quote, everybody's gonna hurt you, the trick is finding those

worth suffering for."

He sat there thinking for a long time, then said, "Wow! That's deep dude!"

I smiled a quick little grin and had another drink.

"I still think you're wrong about everybody lying," he said. "I don't lie."

"Really?" I laughed, "So when you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you 

tell yourself?"

"Huh?" he said.

"What you see and what you tell yourself are two completely different

things."

A look of utter confusion crossed his face, so I tried to explain it further.

"Okay. when you look in the mirror you see an out of shape

pimply faced kid with a bad haircut. But you don't tell yourself that. No! You tell yourself

that you're a buff, handsome man that any girl would kill for."

I look at him for a minute to make sure he's following this before continuing, "So you

lie to yourself. My point is this," I say as I hold up my glass to be refilled, "if you can't be

honest with yourself, how can you expect anyone else to be honest to you?"

He sat there, shaking his head, then said, "Man, that's fucked up!" then got up and 

headed towards the bathroom. 

The bartender returned, my drink now full, shaking his head, chuckling to himself.

"What's so funny?" I asked.

"You." he said matter of factly.

"Me? What'd I do?"

"Playing with peoples heads again, aren't you?"

"Hey," I say, "leave me alone! It's my only source of amusement these days."

He just laughed and set my drink down.

"He's probably not coming back, you know." he said as he walked away.

"Good!" I respond, "Didn't want to talk to anyone anyways!"

He laughed and changed the channel on the TV...........

Reviews

[Sandra Nair]

Good one friend and keep going!

[Sc Stackpole]

Thank you!