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I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life.

Posted in Short Story on May 30, 2025

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✍️ 58 stories

The One That Falls Apart

Winner of Contest #305 🏆

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. “James Waters was the best man I ever knew.” I didn’t know the guy. An hour ago, I didn’t even know his name. If his goofy face hadn’t been framed next to his casket, I wouldn’t even know what he looked like. I didn’t know he even existed. Well, he didn’t anymore, so that was a moot point. It was still uncertain if this was my biggest lie—it depended on whether or not it would fall apart. But it was certainly about to get bigger because people in the room were still waiting for me to...

69 likes 48 comments 48
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The Book of Jeremy

Submitted to Contest #305

‘I mean, you tell me — am I the biggest hypocrite alive?’ I said, pulled out a cigarette, stuck it in my mouth. ‘Week after week, I stand up there, flapping my gums, feeding them stories I don’t even believe anymore. Just lies. All of it.’‘Jeremy, please.’ Heinmenner raised his hand. ‘I have two more patients after you.’ He pointed at the cigarette.‘The one-on-ones are the worst. I have a meeting with this kid tomorrow. Naive one,’ I said, staring at the coffee table between us but not really seeing it. ‘He says he wants to follow in my foot...

43 likes 20 comments 20
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The Last Truth of Guillermo del Valle

Submitted to Contest #305

Clarification: The story contains references to the Holocaust and World War II. It began as a nameless writing exercise. Later, I researched and loosely based the historical details of the character Wilhelm Krüger on a real-life high-ranking SS officer. All other elements in the story, including the name Guillermo del Valle, are fictional.“I told the greatest lie of all. However, people believed it, and over time, that lie became accepted as truth, like any other story.And what is truth, if not a tale told over and over, until the world stop...

23 likes 12 comments 12
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I Only Ride Acoustic

Submitted to Contest #305

Snap! You’re Busted has captured stunning footage of Chloe Armstrong, Elevated Lifestyle Magazine’s recently named “Health Architect of the Year,” scarfing down what bore a striking resemblance to a McDonald’s Big Mac. Our camera operator caught her mid-bite, eyes closed in what could only be described as a food-induced orgasm. When we called Chloe’s name, she rolled up her window and sped away, a french fry dangling from her mouth. Hey, we’re the last people to judge, but in an interview that aired just last week, Chloe renounced all proces...

19 likes 10 comments 10
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Perfect Teeth

Submitted to Contest #305

NOTE: Mention of suicide by overdose and one F-bomb used. I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. “She died peacefully.”Three hundred faces tilted toward me like sunflowers following a false light. My mother’s dental colleagues, her bridge club, the neighbors who’d borrowed sugar for thirty years. All of them desperate to believe that cancer was something open to negotiation, something that understood manners.She’d clawed at the bed rails until her fingernails split. Begged me to kill her with the same voice that once sang...

16 likes 11 comments 11
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The Loneliest Island

Submitted to Contest #305

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. “I wasn’t there.” The “there” I was talking about was a lake. Ferring Lake, to be exact. Ferring Lake is a 200 square-mile dynamic body of water, with strong central currents, pockets of picturesque clear-water beaches, and areas so full of thick mud that even the most durable wading boots don’t stand a chance. The beautiful clearings were once home to secret hammocks hung between shady trees and a plethora of old furniture dropped off by high school students. In one area, there was ...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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A Play on Gratitude

Submitted to Contest #305

The lights go up and they warm my face. Blank as always, I measure a moment to let my heart exhaust itself of its beating. I’m not a nervous person. When I perform, it takes only a few seconds to feel the rehearsal leave me, to fall beyond memory into motion. Part of it is lying artfully, part of it is simply overfeeling—enacting drama– like waking up in the morning, milking the dread, burying it under obligation in the end. Contain yourself. A motto I’ve inherited and lived with. The lights go up and all that falls away. And I stand in fro...

16 likes 1 comment 1
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Cover Up

Submitted to Contest #305

Cover Up I was once asked a philosophical question by one of my graduate students. She asked if there was ever an instance when telling a lie was a better option than revealing the truth. My mind instantly thought of several instances in history where political leaders chose to cover up the truth. Later the leaders justified the tactile advantage of a cover up which would lead to a more favorable diplomatic situation in the long run. After mulling this over for several minutes, my answer was a definite maybe that left me some wiggle room....

11 likes 4 comments 4
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The Venue, the Crowd, the Comedienne, and the Show

Submitted to Contest #305

I tapped the microphone. The tap was followed by the ear-splitting buzz of feedback. One glance at the audience told me the reverb of the feedback did not take them back to the days of their first concerts. Mine was Hall & Oates, the Big Bam Boom tour. The concert tees were insanely righteous, and it pained me to no end when I discovered that my niece had found it, cut it off and made it into some kind of babydoll belly shirt. She wrapped a rubber band around the excess material in the back to make it fit her so tightly, I was afraid her...

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Steel-Toed Boots

Submitted to Contest #305

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. In a courtroom, in the witness seat, testifying regarding the divorce agreement I was settling with my soon-to-be ex-husband, I said, “Yes. This is the amount I agreed to take in my settlement. Yes, I think it’s fair.” I looked out at the courtroom, found him smiling wickedly at me and was glad of the lie; glad to be alive. Robert had a towing service when I met him. It took him two years to commit to a relationship, and only then when I dated someone else. The night we got married ...

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A Bottled Letter from Y. Found on Silent Shores of X

Submitted to Contest #305

I stared at the crowd and told the biggest lie of my life. Yes, we were sinking. Yes, science had no answers yet. Yes once more, we had nowhere to flee, now that the airport had been claimed by the ocean, and the harbour was resting only an insurmountable inch or two under the water’s surface. No way off our island remained, I repeated. A grumpy growl rose in the crowd like a threatened animal, and under the weight of that murmur, I drifted off script. Despite everything, we would be alright, I reassured them from the podium – those who atte...

10 likes 3 comments 3
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What Would Tim Do?

Submitted to Contest #305

Everyone needs a friend like Tim. Tim was the fearless goofball of our gang. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for a laugh or on a dare. He had a penchant for poor decision-making and an inappropriate response to the precarious situations he invariably found himself in. But, he wasn’t dumb. In fact, his wit was the stuff of legends! In short, Tim was a guy who made you say “He did what!? He said what!? Oh wait, you mean Tim? Oh, okay then, I get it.” Tim was our brilliant fool.Tim, for his part, thrived on the fuel we added to his fire. H...

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A Gut Feeling

Submitted to Contest #305

My first impression of her was that she killed twelve people.The report was dropped on my desk on a foggy Tuesday morning, a centimeter thick and crawling with evidence. Even then, despite all the words against her, I knew something was wrong. Call it what you want- detective’s intuition, a string of fate- it didn’t matter. The proof of her crimes was strong, though something in my gut clenched as I read over the details of the many victims’ demise. The hair so carefully placed, the shoe print so perfectly printed on the rug, the few drops o...

10 likes 8 comments 8
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The Enemy Within

Submitted to Contest #305

The alarm beeped at 6 AM exactly as it had for the last 17 years, an unrelenting cacophony filling the room until Jimmy finally reached over to silence it. He slowly got out of bed and rubbed his eyes as he made his way over to the washroom. He saw a stranger in the mirror looking back at him. Maybe it was just age, or the after effects of the war. But no, he knew it was far more than that, far worse than that. He threw on his gear and quietly made his way through the luxurious home, making sure to not wake his parents as he walked by their ...

9 likes 1 comment 1
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Uncle Yang's

Submitted to Contest #305

I stared at the expectant crowd, searching my brain for any answer..any answer at all but the truth...and I told the biggest lie I have ever told. I paced on the little hill that rose slightly above the ground and stared at the two moons hovering above us all. "I was in the wreckage of our ship recently. Most of it just a empty husk as you know, but somehow, I managed to climb up and got the ship's emergency radio working." The crowd murmured a little until a female voice rung out. "Pop, you shouldn't be trying stuff like that! You'll get yo...

9 likes 5 comments 5
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