The Liar, Mr. Deception Hoax

“When you want to deceive the world, tell it the truth.”
- Bismark

The most striking thing about Deception Hoax, physically, was his hard face, his long and vibrant tongue and his two fingers on his forehead, which he excused by calling himself the “exception of geniuses.” As for his way of acting, taking his own words literally, he possessed the now lost virtue of always speaking the truth. He arrogantly declared that he “detested lies.”

But deep down, in the most hidden place of his thoughts, he venerated falsehood and deception. Because he believed himself to be an artist of lies, one cold and dark day, he challenged the devil, and they bet their souls to see who of the two could invent the best farce. As was logical, the devil won, and not because he was old but because he was the devil. Engaño Patraña enjoyed lying so much that his tongue had developed the strange ability to vibrate every time he told a lie.

He was an experienced storyteller: “I am 34 years old; I have traveled around the world; I am a photography enthusiast; I teach math classes and my salary is four times the average; I live with my family but I have an apartment for ‘those moments when I can’t stand them anymore’, where there is a telephone connected to a sophisticated computer that selects my calls.”

And the reality of Engaño was the following: he was barely 23 years old, he had traveled, yes, but to a nearby town and that, forced, he was an amateur at cutting out photos from National Geographic, he earned the minimum wage and, he owned an apartment, but in hell. Of his love life he told a group of friends one day, and also crying and lying on the floor, that he had just become a widower. His version was that his wife had had an abortion a month before and had died from bleeding.

Mr. Patraña lived in a small, dirty town where indifferent men and naive women abounded, although, to tell the truth, the men were more foolish. He liked women older than him. Perhaps he was looking for a new mother, which is relatively common in men. Some, the smarter ones, discovered him and quickly moved away. Others, despite knowing his tricks, played along for the sake of distraction. And for the sake of fun, some even brought a liar into the world. Or do you not believe in the power of genetics?

And since I mentioned genetics, which is the contribution of traits and behavior from parents to children, I want to take this opportunity to make some considerations about Mr. Patraña’s mother. She is a bitter woman, aged for her age, who focused her son’s upbringing on making him notice how evil people were. This is the reason why she controlled the steps he took and also the ones he stopped taking. In short, she was a coward. The interesting thing about this is that lying is a form of fear.

Lies, which are the main weapon of hypocrisy, are more common and tolerated than hypocrisy, even by social conventions. In fact, there are some absurd arguments created by “society” that have succeeded in elevating lies, these are:

“What is important about what is said in society is that it is funny, what is less important is that it is true”

“Sincerity was invented by someone who wanted to make life miserable for others”

“What can the truth, cold and naked, do against the brilliant appearance of lies?”

The truth is that Mr. Deceit had lied so much that he did not know all the truths about himself, he did not know who he was and what he felt. This caused him great anguish. One night, when he was alone with his lies, he committed suicide, leaving a note full of lies. The lie was his distraction and his grave, because by deceiving so much, he deceived himself.

His death made me reflect a lot. Of all this matter — I thought — the terrible thing is that the liars are the only ones who tell the truth. Ultimately, lying is a problem of creativity. People lie too much because of excess of fantasy. The truth is also invented.

And in honor of this last sentence, since the words “Deception” and “Trickery” are synonyms of “lie”, I baptized the protagonist of this real-life story with the name: “The Liar Mr. Deception Trickery”.