What a little lie can do

Dear diary,

Like most of us, I spend every day in court fighting for truth. If someone begins to give a false testimony, I scramble up onto the table and sprint past all the legal documents that are stacked there, and leap forth and kick the lying witness in the face. This protects justice from those who want to harm her.

But what if we were to relax for a moment and allow ourselves to tell just one little lie — what would you choose to lie about?

It’s hard to decide, isn’t it? That’s cuz we’ve spent so much time fighting for truth — it almost becomes impossible to even contemplate lying hypothetically: it’s hard to imagine.

But I think that if I weren’t incapable of forsaking the truth… Or rather, let me put it like this. If someone held a gun to my head and forced me to tell ONE lie, here is how it would play out:

First I’d walk over to that female prosecutor that I’m secretly in love with but whom I’ve always been afraid to talk to, and I’d say:

“Look at me I’m very handsome.”

And she would say: “No you’re not; at least not to me — I do not find you attractive at all.”

But then I would produce evidence, and I’d call in more than two witnesses to back up my lie. (Keep in mind, I would never do any such thing in actual life; but, since there’s a gun to my head, I have no choice but to prevaricate like this.)

“I stand corrected,” Madame Destiny would then say (I’m now close enough to read the bronze pin on her pant-suit’s jacket which displays her name and title — it turns out she’s actually the district attorney); “I am now in love with you and ready to begin our courtship.”

So, building upon this now-triumphant lie, we engage in a romantic affair that lasts for months; then we decide to tie the knot. She is so satisfied with our marriage that her work ethic shoots thru the roof, causing her career to skyrocket from promotion to promotion. Soon she becomes the Highest Judge in the Land. Not even King Solomon is a wiser genius than my wife.

I myself also am in bliss, being married to this foxy dynamo. She inspires me to redouble my energies and fight for truth even harder. No witness is safe, now. When a lying witness takes his seat in the booth and prepares to perjure himself, he now begins trembling: for he has heard the rumors about the strength of my punting leg, and the speed with which I attack all purveyors of injustice. As soon as the bailiff swears each witness in, under my wrath, heads begin to roll.

It is uniquely fitting that the Global Judge is bound in wedlock to the King of the Whole Wide World. For I got elected as World King after a particularly successful case, just a few days ago. Now the entire planet surges back to health:

The jungles are thicker and dark green with orange blooms. The falcons are soaring in the clear blue sky, matched by their reflections on the surface of the deep. The tygers are bounding about in raptures of ecstasy. Predators are finding it an absolute cinch to catch prey; and the prey are overjoyed that their death is now quick and relatively painless. For my own Human Kingdom is in harmony with their Animal Kingdom: we are like the ultimate monopoly that resulted after a final business merger.

And anyone who has any problem, no matter how big or small it is, can approach my wife, the Global Judge — Madame Destiny — and tell her all the details; then she will pass a sentence that is exactly right for the circumstances. People can’t believe how equitable her verdicts always are: she is consistently just and fair, and she has never yet made a mistake.

Even the animals are welcome to have their disputes settled in her royal courtroom. And often men will bring their pets to court, or vice versa, and my wife will listen to each side and bang her gavel, and justice is served.

To give an example: just last week, there was this puppy that brought its owner before Judge Destiny, and she looks sternly at the creature as if her eyes would burn straight to its very soul; then she turns slowly until her visage is pointed at the pup’s owner, and she does the same thing to him. But the puppy held up under pressure — it didn’t yelp or whimper, tho you could tell that it was holding back a sob — howbeit the owner, after a minute or two, began to sweat: huge beads began dripping down his forehead, and he gasped and reached out both of his arms as if to clutch a nearby structure for support, but there was nothing in the vicinity, so he looked comical, vainly groping at the air...

Then my wife shouts: “What!”

And the man cries “I beg your pardon?”

And my wife sez: “I said: What! — What’s your problem! Why are you bothering me!”

Here the puppy timidly steps forward and explains that the owner keeps shutting the door of their house every evening at sundown, thus relegating the poor little hound to sleep in the garage. And the garage is cold. So the puppy barks earnestly all night, trying to get his owner’s attention; but his owner is either unwilling to hear the prayers of his beloved pet, or his senses are lost in an alcoholic stupor. It’s impossible to tell how much the owner actually wills this nightly torment, because the two do not speak the same language — they, in fact, both come from extremely different cultures.

Now my wife, the Judge, Madame Destiny, slowly raises up her hand, as if to say “I’ve heard enough: I’m ready to unveil my supreme judgment now.” So the puppy stops and bows and paces backward respectfully. Then my wife delivers a verdict so apt and ideal that the entire audience ‘ooh’s. The owner hangs his head in shame, and the puppy wags its tail.

It’s also really fun to do normal recreational activities with my wife, who is the Judge of the Globe. Just because she’s so high and powerful, and I’m the Worldwide King, doesn’t mean that we can’t let loose and be regular people off and on. Shakespeare taught us that royal figures are but mortal humans under all that finery. Sometimes we even dress up as beggars, literally, just to remind ourselves what it’s like to be unlucky; and we’re so good at it that we’ve amassed a significant fortune by whimsically panhandling near the subway. She plays her violin and I sing achingly beautiful arias, which I make up on the spot, in my majestic baritone; and businesspeople empty the contents of their billfolds into our basket. Mobsters toss us cylindrical wads of cash. — But we only occasionally do this beggar routine; normally we go windsurfing or spearfishing. Sometimes we go skydiving. But we both like watersports, so it’s convenient that I conquered all the oceans.

Also frequently we make love in public — but it’s not gross or bad. We climb up onto a pedestal that was constructed for this purpose, and any bystanders are able to observe us as we recline, for we’re now at eye-level. Even prude religious folks enjoy the sight — they come walking out of the nearby church and happen to catch a glimpse of our public display: they stop and tell their kids “Look there!” and they use this occasion to teach their children about the proper way to treat one’s spouse in marriage, and how God intends for two souls to remain monogamous, after this fashion, and to become one flesh. Our act is as wholesome and inoffensive as a couple of barnyard animals, so these pious parents are able to take advantage of our exhibition to point out the most innocent aspects of sensual relations. “See there, kids — it’s like a piston in an internal combustion engine, with a remarkably similar motion.” — And any offspring conceived during these occasions are dedicated to the temple.

We also like to eat at restaurants. We’re both adventurous, when it comes to dining. We love all types of Chinese food; we also love Mexican food; Italian food; Russian and Indian food; French; Greek; Korean; Carribean… We pretty much love to eat anything — Behemoth; Leviathan — we just love it all. Seafood… beans… Soul food… boiled potatoes. Green peas are my favorite.

One time we were at the airport, laughing and joking, waiting for our private jet to arrive and take us on a vacation to a tropical island for our seventh golden honeymoon, but my wife cracked a joke that made us laugh so hard and long that we missed our flight — I mean, the jet took off without us. But when the pilot realized that he had forgotten his passengers, he slammed on the brakes and came right back to get us. That’s how nice people are to us. We get along with everyone. Total strangers allow us to borrow their most gorgeous jewels, and we always return them.

Also I made a bear as an art project. I mean, a real living bear: altho it’s still fake, cuz I constructed it from the parts of recycled household appliances, thus it’s wholly robotic. But you’d never be able to tell that it isn’t a real living bear, because it’s so accurate, right down to the tiniest detail:

I made the fur out of synthetic substances, and the eyeballs and tongue are artificial — so slimy and pliable — but it all looks as genuine as a photorealistic painting. And it moves just like an actual bear. It salivates copiously, and it kills and eats things: it even mimics the digestive process — it shits all over the place. (I programmed it to believe that it is living in the woods, even tho it haunts the halls of one of our east-coast hotels.) I even manufactured it so that it can reproduce its own kind. And I didn’t even mean for this to be a feature — it’s rather a bug, to be honest — but it can impregnate various other mammals, including beings that are rather differently structured, like moose and rhinoceroses. There was even a blue whale that it successfully fertilized — once, back when it was just a cub: it broke out of the training lab and ended up in the Gulf of St. Lawrence — but the hybrid didn’t survive.

Oh, and I almost forgot the most important part of our story! Last century, my wife and I decided to buy a Big Bank. So she worked in the upstairs area, and I worked downstairs. I got to open the giant vault every morning, and I always stole a little money when nobody was looking, just to give the auditing team a mystery to solve (nobody was hurt by these little pranks, because all the money was mine anyway: it was just a funny way to waste energy). We ran our bank well: all the customers were happy and they loved us. Some preferred to set up accounts thru my wife’s harem of secretaries upstairs, in the marble expanse; and some preferred to meet with me in the regular office on the ground floor, at the long table with all the scowling executives (“Don’t worry,” I’d always tell my guest, gesturing toward the old curmudgeons, “they’re just for show” — and this was true: I just paid a whole bunch of perturbed-looking corpulent men to wear suits and dye their hair white and come to the boardroom and sit in chairs and smoke cigars: that was their entire job description); but the one thing that neither me nor my wife ever did was turn a customer down on a loan. Anyone who asked would surely receive — altho we always gave them hell beforehand, demanding to see their business plan, and then questioning them vigorously — but we would unfailingly give them whatever amount they desired, in the end. If it was a loan for nine billion dollars, and the idea was to start up a poetry center, where aspiring artists could go to make art and date each other while developing new religions, either my wife or I (whoever they scheduled the meeting with) would frown and say: “What’s wrong with the current God? Why do we need new temple prostitutes — have all the old ones lost their blossom?” And then after some haggling back and forth, we’d inexplicably give in and say: “Alright, tell ya what. I’ll approve this loan. Actually, let’s call it a grant instead — so you don’t even need to pay us back. Unless you feel guilty after your venture proves mega-victorious, when you pass by the subway platform and chance to spot me in my beggar’s gear, belting out arias and rolling my ‘R’s — in that case, you can slip a check into my basket to soothe your conscience. But I apologize for pretending to be over-scrupulous when interviewing you this morning. I only wanted to give you a hard time, to throw my weight around a little, so that you could feel that you have some skin in the game. Here’s your nine hundred billion. Go erect your idol of Ashera, your grove with its pole or whatever it is. See if I care. Go and provoke the LORD to anger. Also build totemic places and images on every high hill, and under every green tree surrounding your strange new brand of worship. I’m sure the kids will love it. I sincerely hope that your enterprise proves lucrative. Make sure you add some abominations at the areas where I specified on the blueprints for the labyrinth and the floating pleasure dome. And feel free to use my Fake Real Bear as a surrogate until you can finish construction on your Minotaur. Last weekend I had time to add the most advanced machine-intelligence to Mister Brown; so he might prove useful. And, being the King of the World, my Net Worth is infinite, so I don’t need to worry about who does what with my resources; because the instant I begin to dislike the direction that something is heading, I just throw more funds at it; and then it often ends up in accordance with my original intentions. Things rarely get ugly.”