cassandra in reverse
something about lies and beliefs and screaming i'm here i'm here i'm here
I stole a twenty-dollar bill from my mother’s purse when I was seven. Up until this point, I had always prided myself on being a bad liar; whenever we played hide-and-seek, a simple call of “are you there?” would force a cry of “I’m here!” from me. My mother called me into her office and asked me if I knew where the money had gone, I said “I don’t know.” We stood in silence for a minute, my heart desperately clawing its way up my throat and my lie forcing it back down to my chest. I thought for sure my mother would see through my lie, but she just sighed and muttered something about being more forgetful these days. I left her office; my heart continued to scream “I’m here!” but the words wouldn’t leave my throat.
The more you lie, the more you realize people don’t care about truth so much as narrative. I’m twisting my words, but I’m not sure if the end result is a lie or a story; I’m not so sure there’s a difference. Pause at the right beat. Emphasize the right words. Exaggerate just enough that your friends would describe you as melodramatic, but not delusional. The crowd laughs on cue; your mother still believes her daughter is not a thief. Let both of those facts drown out the heart that continues to scream “I’m here!”
Nadav tells me I’m a good storyteller and what I think he means is I’m a good liar. He says my metaphors are based in conviction over reality and this makes my stories more compelling and what I hear is I’m a good liar. I tell him that I worry I have gotten too comfortable in my own lies and he says that myth is closer to reality anyway, so I might as well be telling the truth. I resist the urge to correct him: people want to believe in myth so much that they’d reinvent reality around it, but that doesn’t stop the truth from being the truth.
Nadav isn’t the only one to tell me I’m a good storyteller and I keep resisting the urge to correct people: I am not a good storyteller, I’m a good liar. I stole twenty dollars from my mother when I was a child and since then I have been terrified that someone will look me in the eyes and say they know I’m lying. That last one was another untruth: I am desperately waiting for someone — anyone! — to call me out on my lies. I am begging for someone to call me out for the fraud I am, but the throat, the heart, the office all remain silent. I’m beginning to feel like Cassandra in reverse: pleading to be believed less. I ask Nadav “do you believe me or believe in me?” and he says “what’s the difference?”
The throat, the heart, the office remain silent. Nadav responds “what’s the difference?” and I say “I stole twenty dollars from my mother and she only believed me because she believed in me” and I mean I stole twenty dollars from my mother and she never believed me because the whole time my heart was screaming “I’m here!” Nadav responds “what’s the difference?” and I say “sometimes I wish you believed me less and questioned me more” and what I mean is I wish my mother still asked me “are you there?” Nadav responds “what’s the difference?” and I say “I’m trying so hard to be good and when I say I’m trying, I don’t know if you believe me or believe in me” and what I mean is I wish I wasn’t a liar.
I call my mother to say her belief in me is suffocating, but the only words that come out are “are you still there?” My mother says she can hear me and I want to ask if she would still be there if she knew I was a liar, but the throat, the heart, the office remain silent. I pretend I ask the question, I pretend she says yes, I pretend that I am someone that doesn’t care about the truth so much as narrative. I say “do you believe me or believe in me?” and what I mean is “do you see me as a narrative or person?” and pretend the answer I’m looking for is “person.” The question never leaves my mouth; my mother hangs up the phone. The throat, the heart, the office remain silent.
first off, this is so so so pretty and well articulated. I think what you wrote about in this article is kind of a terrible realization to have to confront because of how intrinsic it becomes. we weren't born with this habit, but one day, lying is done to protect ourselves and after that, lying becomes second nature.
Oh Wenyi. What's the difference?