Lying is perfectly okay as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. Good answers are simple ones: ‘Your dress looks absolutely fantastic’ is a suitable alternative to: ‘That makes you look like a cheap slut!’
This answer sounds better. The listener approves of it. All is good. Everyone is happy.
Lying is an integral part of human social interaction. We like sharing and living within lies. Lies are part of our daily lives.
We entertain ourselves with lies all the time.
Santa Claus. The Easter Bunny. Forever Afters.
The lies start early in our lives—woven into the tapestry of language because they make us smile. Storytelling gives us a warm and fuzzy feeling inside. Humanity unites when it embraces excellently crafted lies. We sing about them. We rejoice with them.
There is a lie that snakes its way into conversation.
Silence
Things can turn bitterly cold if this one turns out to be a real lie.
Don’t get me wrong; silence doesn’t always conceal a frozen block of untruth. Sometimes, it’s just what it is: a nil response with zero intention.
How can we distinguish between silence with zero intention and anything else?
Trust. That’s how we decide. We should trust the silent one first. Silence should be allowed to remain innocent until it’s proven guilty.
Beware!
Waging war without facts is damaging. Excellent relationships have fallen to factless wars and those who want to fight against the silence simply because it is silent.
Perfectly good lies have remained undetected via silence, too.
Other Ways To Lie
Half-truths, deflections, and outright lies.
Our lying skills can be perfectly honed by alternating lies and blending them with measured amounts of the truth. Some of us are so good at blending that we no longer distinguish fact from fiction.
In SEETHINGS, the lies start small and are performed to keep marital peace. Our well-intended liars lose track of them as they grow. You won’t see the most significant lie when it comes. Your jaw will drop so far that its tip might bear a bruise a day or so later.
“Forman’s writing style is artful, with the protagonist Mitchell’s warped thought processes masterfully exposed. The author has a powerful and vivid command of language and his word pictures are stark and disturbingly real.”
– Linda J Bettenay, author of ‘Secrets Mothers Keep’ and ‘Wishes For Starlight’.
Discover more from Michael Forman – Author of Dark Fiction & Drama
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