The Lies Comfort

By Josue Salazar

 

The Truth Hurts. That was the motto Henry went with. That was the lesson his life up until this point had taught him. To say otherwise is to expose one’s lack of experience: such were his thoughts.

Whether it was at work, exposing the fact that Ben, his lazy coworker, had been taking dangerous and disaster-prone shortcuts because otherwise he would be blamed. Ben had removed a line of code that was not working and replaced it with a quick fix.

It did get the intended results for a specific case, but it would soon make its presence known and the entire site could collapse. Henry would have to take on a workload and burden that were not his. He was sick of it, so he finally stood his ground.

He reported Ben to the higher-ups and exposed everything. Ben was fired, and he hated Henry—blamed him even. “If you were competent, then none of this would have happened.” Henry exposed the truth to Ben. Ben was hurt.

Or whether it was that random kid on the street who walked up to him and spilled his heart about his pet that had passed away. Skip was the name of his pet. “Mommy and Daddy told me that Skip is living on a farm far away and that one day he will come back.” was what the boy said.

When Henry told him the Truth, the boy broke down into tears, drawing a nasty look from everyone who had overheard. The Truth is not meant for us to hear.

Or whether it was the little Elliot showing his dad his newest ‘masterpiece’ that he had painted at school in art class. It was cute, but could he call it a masterpiece? When comparing it to the works of da Vinci or Van Gogh or Picasso, could it even be placed in the same room without it being considered an insult? Obviously not. The Truth Hurts.

Thus, The Lies Comfort. He had learned this lesson the hard way. Many stressful nights, many insults, many tears shed, and many threats received... It was all the consequence of Truth. So, he decided to Lie. Lies brought comfort. Lies brought happiness. Lies brought fortune.

Of course, taking on the burden of a coworker brought him discomfort, but when given the option of being hated or threatened versus the option of doing extra work for 30 minutes each day, the answer was obvious.

Overall, Lies were good and Truths were bad. That was the type of world we live in, he thought. And he was powerless to think, or live, otherwise. He had to conform to this ideology to thrive in this world. He would continue to lie as he aged.

As to when it would catch up to him, he did not know. Would it hurt as much as the accumulated Truths avoided? Would it hurt less than the Truth?

He looked back at his life. A life of smiling, yet he was not happy. They were simply Lies.

My life… was a lie. And in the end, the Truth of that Lie had hurt him more than anything.

 

Josue Salazar from US is a student at Salem State University. He loves reading and writing.