07.08.2025

‘Most people lie,’ was all the comment that Alfonso made.

I had just finished venting about a particularly preposterous lie that I heard. I had been looking into the eyes of this liar and they had not even flinched. Was it possible that they even believed their own lies? Or were they completely shameless?

‘I don’t lie.’

‘That is why you do not have much,’ said Alfonso. ‘People don’t welcome the truth with open arms. In fact, they loathe it and will do anything in their power to destroy it.’

‘It is not the truth,’ I said tiredly. ‘It is a truth. One of many.’

‘You believe that hogwash?’ asked Alfonso incredulously. ‘You have told me yourself that you are the truth.’

‘Although not everything that passes as truth is the truth,’ I elaborated, ‘still there has to be some room for manouevre. You don’t want a rigid and totalitarian framework. Which is what knowledge passes as in this society of twits. Their fascism is supposedly knowledge.’

I thought again of this liar and the lie. I had heard some good ones in my time. Some of them had even fooled me. It was obvious why these people lied. Because the truth was too dangerous, because they wanted to cover up their own guilt, because perhaps their intellects were so unsound that they could actually believe the paper thin story they were trying to wrap events in. They were so skilled at lying to your face. And then they would call it ‘civilisation’, their false narrative.

‘Don’t let it bother you,’ said Alfonso, sensing what I was thinking about. ‘You live in a society of liars. I am surprised that you still haven’t gotten used to it.’

‘Only a coward accepts injustice,’ I said firmly.

‘Yet what do you do about people lying to you? Nothing.’

‘What can you do? As you said, they will not accept the truth. It is not worth wasting time on them.’

‘And if the lie is an injustice?’

‘If I had my way,’ I told Alfonso, ‘There would be no lying and there would be justice. This world has never been ready for that in its entire history. Why would it be ready for that now or in the future?’

‘So why do you exist then?’ asked Alfonso. He sneered at me, one of his trademark sneers. ‘I thought you told me that you fought for truth and justice.’

‘Yes, by telling the truth myself. Just like you can’t make someone love difference when they are prejudiced, just like you can’t make someone choose fairness when they are biased, just like you can’t reason with a bigot, so you cannot stop a liar from lying. They have a psychological problem and they need therapy. They are just compulsive liars.’

‘I keep telling you, don’t be upset. Forget everything.’

‘I will, I told Alfonso. I will go to sleep now.’

Alfonso clasped my hand. ‘If you are the truth,’ he said, ‘show us the freedom and the wildness of The Tiger.’ He knew what was in my dreams.