100 / 50 WORDS
Tell Me Lies
Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #85 and Fifty Words #106: Liar
This fortnight’s thrifty word challenge is partly inspired by Melissa R. Mendelson’s latest story on lie telling. And also by a question from a friend seeking an update on the latest sagas in my life — how are things? For one desperate moment I felt the urge to splurge-vomit all my troubles into a text. ‘How are things? I’m drowning in things! I am fighting with my hospital consultants to get further treatment, while trying to cope with one teen’s pregnancy and the other’s depression — things are not great!’
Instead I did the grown-up thing, the mature and right thing to do, I took action befitting of a woman in her early 60s — I lied. I responded Challenging but keeping it in the day and trusting that things are unfolding as they should. Spk ltr.
There are times when only lies will do. When next we are face-to-face, I will be able to talk to my friend more honestly. At 9am on a weekday I knew it was not the time to start dumping my troubles into a text.
And you know it wasn’t really a lie — it was just a controlled truth. It certainly wasn’t a ‘demonstrable falsehood’ which were the kind of lies we got used to hearing from the incumbant who occupied the white house before this one… Or check out this story from Ruby Lee
When do you lie? Are there times when you find it easier to tell an untruth to telling the truth? What’s the worst lie you’ve ever told… Tell us all but make it thrifty!
Liar! — 50 or 100 words — GO!
Please choose either the 50-word or 100-word challenge, not both. See the guidelines for your chosen challenge below:
Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly 100 or 50 words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.) The editors reserve the right to add or remove words to ensure the exact word count. Keep an eye on your tags as laid out in the submission guidelines above.
Please use the kicker 100 WORDS or 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words 100 Challenge #85: ‘Liar’ or ‘Fifty Word Challenge #106: ‘Liar’ as your subtitle and submit by 10pm EST on Friday 18th November.
All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the next day in the roundup. (If you miss the deadline, you may get published but you won’t go into the roundup.)
Tell me sweet little lies…