Johannes Punkt’s Flaskpost

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Tag: lies

23/Dec/2013

A Certain Kind of Lie

There is a certain kind of lie. I know, I have a long list of specific mendacity, and this is yet another one. This lie is one that two humans say to each other when something ends, and they mean it at the time. As the days, weeks, months go by they hear it again, and reinterpret it, and something bubbles up that was there the whole time: they never meant it, in their heart of hearts.

I said, “for a while”. You nodded. I still mean it; give me time. I hope that was not one of these lies.

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8/Nov/2013

2013 NaNoWriMo Excerpt #8

The doctor pulled out the slab of metal on which their son lay with a black sheet over his body. “This is your last chance to back out,” he said. His voice was sonorous and instilled confidence, like he knew what he was saying, but Janelle and Eric did not back down.

They saw their dead son, with a giant hole in his head, and they smelled the sulfur and gunpowder, potent and stark.

“It’s called the gunshot virus,” said the doctor, pulling the sheet back over the dead child. “We don’t know how it works, but these are the results. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

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26/Sep/2013

Forever

Both the words chronic and permanent seem to mean forever at a first glance. The dictionary defines them not as forever per se, but kind of, sort of, basically. This is counter-intuitive, but like many counter-intuitive things, they make sense the more you think about them. A permanent resident is one with no plans to change that status, and as long as they do not change, they are functionally different from forever. A chronic illness can go away, but probably won’t. It is incurable. You understand.

This is just to say,

I said I would love you forever. I lied.

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3/Sep/2013

The Rabid Dogs #2 – Shepard Tone

She lies.

He bites me and draws blood. She becomes furious. She says this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. Though she feels more like a mule.

She says the fixer-men will come tomorrow, all hazmat suits and goggles, and they will restrain him. It will be a quick procedure, painless, she says.

She has this way of always taking it to the next level, without moving at all. It’s this ever-escalating false pitch that always sounds like it goes up however many times you hear it.

Yes, for serious, for real: tomorrow we will get him fixed.

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16/Aug/2013

How Little Girls in Schoolyards Lie

Is it true that, at the bottom of a deep well, with your eyes adjusted to the darkness, if you look up you will always see stars? Down where there is always night unless the sun, directly above, reaches down for you?

The answer is no, there are no stars, they kept you here with only the gurgle of water for company, no bucket or ladder or sky, stone lid above your head. Once a day, the sun reaches for you, but it only has a minute or so and it is not enough.

She said they would be back.

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