The One Lie
Mar. 21st, 2007 09:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalonShe can't sleep, which means i'm not allowed to.
"What?" I say as if she had just asked a question I could not answer.
"You know there is one lie that even the most noble, the most honest of any parent will eventually have to tell their child."
"Yeah and what would that be... that they love 'em?" I get a light smack in the arm for that one.
She pulls herself out of the tide of blanket, sits upright, snorts out a frustrated sigh. I can hear her fingers skitter and tap a blind salvage across the night table. Metallic sparks light up an arc around her face. Then the glow of a cherry floating there, the embers of a dying sun weaving around oblivion. I bury my face back in the pillows, trying to burrow my way down the softness back into the tunnel of dream.
I toss.
I turn.
I twist.
I flip on my belly. I flip back on my back.
"Well?" I demand finally.
She snorts a sad little laugh.
"'Well' what?" the stoicism savored as much as the smoke.
"What is the one lie?"
"That all parents will... no, must tell their children that they are terrible liars."
I'm a bit slow on a good day and this has been one long night as it is. I work it out in my head. I say it aloud to make sure I got it right.
"You mean the one lie is that their kids can't lie?"
"Obviously."
"Something you're trying to tell me?"
"... no."
"That's convincing."
"Not now. C'mon get some rest, Honey." She leans over and kisses my forehead, stamps out the dying sun of a smoke in a blackhole of an ashtray. Drifts down into my arms. Not a word. Both of us desperately pretending we're not awake.
"What?" I say as if she had just asked a question I could not answer.
"You know there is one lie that even the most noble, the most honest of any parent will eventually have to tell their child."
"Yeah and what would that be... that they love 'em?" I get a light smack in the arm for that one.
She pulls herself out of the tide of blanket, sits upright, snorts out a frustrated sigh. I can hear her fingers skitter and tap a blind salvage across the night table. Metallic sparks light up an arc around her face. Then the glow of a cherry floating there, the embers of a dying sun weaving around oblivion. I bury my face back in the pillows, trying to burrow my way down the softness back into the tunnel of dream.
I toss.
I turn.
I twist.
I flip on my belly. I flip back on my back.
"Well?" I demand finally.
She snorts a sad little laugh.
"'Well' what?" the stoicism savored as much as the smoke.
"What is the one lie?"
"That all parents will... no, must tell their children that they are terrible liars."
I'm a bit slow on a good day and this has been one long night as it is. I work it out in my head. I say it aloud to make sure I got it right.
"You mean the one lie is that their kids can't lie?"
"Obviously."
"Something you're trying to tell me?"
"... no."
"That's convincing."
"Not now. C'mon get some rest, Honey." She leans over and kisses my forehead, stamps out the dying sun of a smoke in a blackhole of an ashtray. Drifts down into my arms. Not a word. Both of us desperately pretending we're not awake.