A nine-year-old kid learns to lie and eventually becomes the true god of lies.
Reading time: 7 minutes.

The God of Lies

“Dad, why did you lie to them?" the kid asked innocently.

The father did not know what to say. It's pretty hard to make a nine-year-old kid understand why you called in sick at work when you are perfectly up and running. “You see, champ, daddy wants some rest today, so he could work double tomorrow. If you see it that way, it’s a good lie. And, you get to spend all day with me.”

The kid did not ask another question; He was trying to grasp the concept of a good lie. Poor kid would spend his entire childhood figuring this out. He would not get it until the day he would lie, himself, for the first time.

The kid came back from school. It was a couple of weeks later. His mother asked him, “Did you finish your lunch, sweety?”

He opened his mouth to say ‘no’, but what came out was, "Yes, mom." That was the moment. He learned that if lying can keep him out of trouble and feed a poor kid, then it was a good lie.

Years later, the kid was searching his notebook in his backpack. But he couldn’t find it. ‘Oh, shit!’ he thought. He had forgotten his notebook at home.

“Those who haven’t submitted their report yet, please, stand up!” the teacher announced.

Slowly, a sixteen-year-old skinny boy rose from amongst the crowd. The teacher gave him a death stare.

“You haven’t completed your report yet?” she asked.

Once again, the kid was going to tell the truth. But he couldn't. "No, ma'am. I haven't even started it yet."

The teacher’s eyes grew wide open. “You didn’t even start it yet?” she repeated. “May I ask why?”

“Because I'm still trying to understand what you said the other day about the role of the industrial revolution in the emergence of Sociology. I can not write it until I understand it; I mean, that’s wrong. Isn’t it?”

Anybody could look at the teacher’s face and tell how proud she was. She gave him an extension, obviously. The kid was not just a pathetic nerdy loser. He was very incarnate of the god of lies himself.

One day, he came home late and drunk. His mother started interrogating him as soon as he stepped in.

“Where were you?” she asked.

“I was at my friend’s house, the one I told you about. I finally decided to help him in his studies.” He lied, yet again.

“How much of an idiot do you think I am?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, for god’s sake! You reek of alcohol.”

“Oh,” the kid pretended to be carefree about it. "Yeah, his dad was so grateful that I was helping their kid, so he offered me a beer. Nobody else helps him, you know, because of their reputation.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I know, but son, come one. I mean, alcohol? Really?”

“Oh, mom, I can’t explain it. You should have seen his face. The man didn’t know how else to say ‘thank you’. And anyway, it’s one more year before I can drink, so let it go.”

The mother did let it go. The kid's response was so unique that she didn't question its validity. No one ever did. The kid’s belief of a ‘good lie’ was long forgotten. It became more of a habit and then an addiction.

Days passed, then months, and then years. The kid grew up and went to college. The kid received an unmatched amount of respect and curiosity from his peers and teachers. Nobody knew what his deal was; Why he said what he said. The first time he acknowledged his sickness was when he was with a girl he loved.

They were both on the terrace on new year's eve. The girl was crying, and the kid was just standing behind her. He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking away. He wanted to say something to make her feel better, but he knew that only lies would come out of his mouth. The girl jerked her face back, and she asked him, “Why are you like this?” with such ferocity that the boy was surprised.

“There’s something I don’t want to tell you,” he said.

“Either spit it now or keep it to yourself. I don’t care!”

“I—uh—I hate you.”

The girl stopped crying out of mere shock. Then she ran away as fast and far as she could, leaving the kid alone in the darkness of the night.

The kid stood there for another minute. When he turned to leave, his friend came up the stairs. He saw the kid and, “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?” he barked.

“What?”

“Why did you lie to her?”

"Because I like it."

“No! That’s another lie! You have a pathological need to lie. You have a sickness.”

The kid took a few steps forward. His friend raised his hands.

“Whoa! You stay away from me, you sick son of a—you just stay away from me.”

And, just like that, the kid was alone, a price he had to pay to be the god.

It’s only a miracle that this kid, now a young man, never got into any trouble. Actually, the whole point of lying was not to get in trouble. He wanted to learn more to see how far he could take it. And, one day, he did.

It was years later; the young boy had become a man. He was in his early forties when he met someone. He was once again at a new year’s eve party. The venue was his friend's apartment on the tenth floor of a building. Our god stood in the balcony, sipping away his worries if he had any. That's when this girl approached him.

“Hey, there!”

“Hey yourself,” the man replied.

“Why are you standing here all by yourself, if I may ask?”

“Oh, I was definitely not admiring the view.”

The girl chuckled. “Your friend did warn me about you.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, he said everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. He calls you the god of lies.”

“Well, he’s lying, obviously.”

“Is he, though?”

"Yes. Your friend said everything that comes out of my mouth is a lie. That's a lie. Sometimes, some things that come out of my mouth are lies.”

"That's actually everyone. Everyone lies at some point in life."

"Yes. Yes, everyone does."

“Then why are you called the god of lies?” the girl asked.

Our man was about to throw another lie at her, but his friend appeared out of nowhere.

"Because people tell lies, and they can only hope for the recipient to take it as truth," he said. Then he looked at his friend and added, "The true god of lies can either tell the truth or lie—in fact, it doesn’t matter what he tells. He can make the recipient take it as either a lie or truth. There’s only one person in the world who can do it.” He presented his friend with both his hands.

“Interesting!” the girl said. She looked at our god up and down. "Well, what if a girl comes to you and asks what you think of her?" she asked.

“Well, I would tell her the truth that she is a tramp.”

The girl laughed her lungs out. The friend dissolved the tension.

"See, I told you. Now my friend could be telling the truth, but he made you take it as a lie.”

They all laughed this time. The girl left her number in our god’s pocket. She smiled and winked when she did that.

After the party was over. The god of lies and his friend were back on the balcony, finishing the leftover beer.

“Dude, can I ask you something?” the friend asked.

“You don’t have to ask me to ask a question, dude!”

“Right. Why do you do it? And don’t give that ‘I like it, crap. I know that’s a lie.”

Our lord hung his head down in disappointment. “Oh, not this again!” he went.

“Come one, man. I wanna know! What made you this way?”

“This is alcohol talking. You've had too much. Go to sleep. We'll talk in the morning."

“No,” the friend held our lord’s wrist tight and insisted. “You have to tell me.”

The god sighed. “Fine!” He stared deep into his friend’s eyes and began. “It started when I was nine. I saw a man being poisoned on the TV, and it got to me. I could not stop thinking about it.”

The friend was listening intently. He never expected his friend to open up so quickly. Maybe, it was years of friendship that made it happen. He couldn’t tell. He just kept listening.

“I don’t know, something happened to me. I just wanted to see it happen with my own eyes. So, one day I mixed rat poison in my lunch box and gave it to some poor kid.”

The friend dropped his jaw.

“That day, when I came home, mom asked me if I ate my lunch. That was the first time I lied.”

A single tear dropped from the balcony of the tenth floor and disappeared. Our god gave his friend a stare. The friend looked back, and suddenly, they both burst into laughter.

“Oh, man, my sides hurt,” the friend said. “You and your lies.” He picked up the scattered bottles and cans and walked away.

Our god of lies just stood there, smiling. See, a true god of lies is not someone who can tell a lie and make you take it as the truth or vice versa. A true god of lies is someone who can say anything and make you take it as either of those.

You can always count on a liar to lie, but you can never trust the god of lies.


"If someone says they always lie, is the person lying or telling the truth?" — The God of Lies.