The Lie

The lie began as a tiny, almost invisible cloud of vapour, issuing so casually from the lips of its creator that hardly anyone noticed. But one person had been watching and waiting for the lie to appear, and when his patience was finally rewarded, he was as gratified as one whose prayers have been answered.

He deftly captured the lie in a little snare like a net for catching insects, woven from knotted strands of his own envy and spite, then carefully extracted it and tucked it into his breast pocket, where it began to swell and puff itself out, until the pocket was about to be torn away from the shirt.

So he carefully transferred the lie to a bag, which he zipped securely, but the lie, sensing the man's glee, kept expanding and threatening to burst the bag.

The man could scarcely contain his excitement at the way his pet lie (for by now he felt the tender regard for it that is inspired by a pet) was flourishing in his safe-keeping, so he decided to invite some friends around to share his delight.

His friends were people very much like himself. They rubbed their hands together in anticipation and nodded approvingly, taking it in turns to peep into the large closet where the lie was now installed, and competing with each other to be the first to translate the lie into Latin and Ancient Greek.

But the lie was growing too monstrous and too impatient to be contained in the closet. Its miasma was leaking out and enveloping the room, then the house, causing the guests to go into spasms of coughing as if they had inhaled a toxic vapour.

The lie's abductor and adopter, who by now regarded himself as its father and looked upon it with a proprietary air, became agitated. Surely his fine, fat lie was not about to escape? He hurriedly assembled the ropes he sometimes used to tie up the victims of his little secret games, and tried to tie the closet shut, but it was too late, the lie had escaped and was rushing down the corridor. He pursued it, calling: "Come back! You belong to me!"

Meanwhile, the ropes in his hands had somehow become entangled in the lie, and he found himself being dragged out of his own front door, through the garden and onto the roadway, with all his guests, who liked to refer to themselves as The Group, rushing behind, muttering feverishly in Latin or Ancient Greek, vainly attempting to translate quickly enough to keep pace with the lie's rate of growth and its rapid progression.

By now it looked like a huge mushroom of dense vapour, towering above the street, with the little man who had taken it to his bosom still clinging fast to the ropes, as if he could harness the cloud.

As the members of The Group watched, the cloud appeared to gather itself and then ascend like a hot-air balloon, taking their friend with it, high above the city.

In another suburb, the lie's originator looked up, astonished, at the strange object passing overhead. He couldn't even remember having told the lie that had grown into this grotesque, uncontrollable, shape-shifting object that trees and birds shrank away from.

Where was the lie going with such urgency? Who knows where lies go, once they escape from captivity? The man who had nurtured and cosseted and cherished the lie - grooming it daily, endowing it with his own inventive embellishments and ramifications, attaching greater and greater significance to it as he savoured the prospect of impressing his friends in The Group - was afraid to let go of it. He was obliged, like the tail of a kite, to be dragged along by the lie, because it had taken on a life of its own. In vain he cried, "Turn back! Turn back!" The lie was deaf to everything but its own agenda, and eager to conquer the city, the kingdom, before night fell. And who knows, on the morrow, maybe the world!

The man who had made the lie his own had become completely irrelevant. The parasite had consumed its host, and he was becoming smaller and smaller, until he had shrunk to a little cloud of vapour, as small and seemingly inconsequential and nearly invisible as the lie had been when it had first been uttered.

But even after he disappeared, the lie would continue to travel on, infecting all who mistook it for the truth, for such is the nature of lies.