Truth be told

I’ve been keeping this secret so long now that I pretty much have decided it’s not true. There is no secret. There’s nothing to be revealed. Even if there were, it’s nothing anybody wants to hear about. So I’m not going to tell anybody anything. I’m not stupid. I don’t want people to think badly of me. I declare that nobody think ill of me. I’ll probably put that in writing tomorrow or at least no longer than two weeks from now. I never lie, so you can count on it. My word is worth its weight in gold.

In case you were wondering - and many people like to wonder about me because I’m well known, even famous. Even though I’m famous, I’m not a bad person. I’m just a person that people, most people, don’t like. They don’t like me because they’re jealous of my good looks, my height, my weight, my slitty, see-all eyes. I’ve got eyes like a lizard’s. Or like an eagle’s. I’ve got eagle eyes. With the help of my friends, I’ve been seeing it all, and I’ve got it all under control. I am very proud of myself, even if my parents weren’t proud of me. Or even happy with me. They didn’t want me as their son, but I made a deal with them: they wouldn’t badmouth me and I’d make them proud of my wealth.

But let’s talk about me, shall we? We can start with the biggest truths anybody’s eve seen: I’ve got the looks of a, a, a big, tall person with good eyesight. I mean, have you ever see me wear glasses? I don’t need them. I’m well-equipped to see and to control everything I can see. I don’t need to tell you that means it’s all mine. I own it because I don’t need to be best - I am best. A perfect specimen, whether I’m wearing a suit - the same baggy thing that hides any imperfections of my body, rumors of which are simply not true. I’m the best. I am the real thing. No hoax am I. And I plan to fix that. I’ve got my wooden blocks and sand all lined up. I’m an expert in buildings, the bigger the better.

You might wonder how I know I’m the best, but you can’t ask me to prove it. What an insult. I mean, just look at me, and try not to drool when you do. Look at my hair, how it’s so well-cut and sculpted, giving me the appearance of a Greek or a Roman god. (I don’t know which, because I never met any gods, and they’re all dead now an, so it doesn’t matter.) My hair is so perfect it almost doesn’t need cutting, have you noticed? Sometimes it shifts around a bit and takes on a different shade of gold, almost white. No matter, I’m still the envy of every kid on the block, even every kid in the city. Every kid in Florida. Maybe every kid in the country. In the world.

A person as perfect as I am shouldn’t have to worry about some silly little secret, but you brought it up, so I can’t help being concerned about the little secret I have, which - truth be told - you shouldn’t be even remotely interested in hearing about. If it were important, I’d tell you everything so you’d stop yapping and hoping for something you think you should know. Take it from me, the most honest person in the city, no, in the country, no, in the world. I am so honest and my secret is so unimportant that you’re committing a crime just drooling over the possibility something horrible might be revealed. Yes, stop yapping. It’s beneath me.

I’m not stupid. Why would I keep a secret if it’s useless to anybody now? Do you think I want you to use it against me, you petty, puny people? Oh, I’m sorry I sad that. It wasn’t nice of me, and everyone knows I’m a nice guy, a very nice guy. I know a lot about a lot of things and that means I have the right to tell everyone what to do. They should all do what I say, by the way. I am, as I said and I know, very nice. Maybe the nicest person who ever lived, with or without hyperbole. I think that has something to do with blowing things up, making them more than they are. That only applies to me. That’s a promise.

Like with this secret, which nobody needs to know, because it’s so small it doesn’t matter. It might hurt some people if it got out, so we should just decide it’s fake and never existed. You know you have to believe me, because I have gold money - real money not fake I don’t do fake - that can make you do it. Pure gold, like the sun that rises first over Eastport, Maine and sets over some islands out in the Pacific. Not important islands, like me, and nobody remembers their names or can find them on a map. Not gold islands, and probably lacking in other minerals as well, because certainly no famous person ever came from there. Not like Greenland, which has beautiful minerals we need to make toy soldier sets out of. We need lots of those and I’m going to have them so I can play - by myself, because only I can play so handsomely - more games. I love games, even if I don’t always understand the rules. Except my rules, which are - you guessed it - golden. Like those children’s books with the gilt spine that I should have learned to read.

You know I like games, right? That’s not my secret, which you probably have forgotten about already because I know more about secrets, big ones and great ones, than anybody else in the world; I know I can keep you chasing me, putting the spotlight on me. I deserve the spotlight- just look at me! Sometimes I know I need to remind you and everyone else that: I know about the best secrets in the world and you’re never going to find out about them because they’re all mine. Look all you want; all you’ll see is my big, beautiful face. I am immortal.

You might think I don’t like to share and I’m always all about me me me, but you’d be wrong to think that. I’m tall, golden, and handsomely tan - in places you’ll never get to see. Places you don’t want to see, I can promise you that. They are places like no other places. But. You’re stuck staring at my outer soul, as you should be, and be happy about that because I took it on a trip somewhere and gave it away, like I give my big, beautiful heart away. To the right people, that is, not to the ones who don’t deserve it. Not many people deserve to have me, to see me stretched out (all my six feet and six inches) on a sweet coverlet, waiting to be worshipped. I’ll wear a fluffy bathrobe and think of Jack, no, Arnold Palmer. (I never was good at the names of people or places.)

By now you’re probably on your knees begging me to reveal my secret which isn’t real and is actually all in your head. It couldn’t exist because of me. I am making an official declaration tomorrow when the rest of my friends come over.

The End.

The two screenwriters fell silent and looked at each other. They’d worked pretty hard on the script, but it still wasn’t what they’d hoped to achieve. They’d have to face the music if they couldn’t get it right. Definitely they were going to be held accountable for what they’d done. Created a nightmare. They end it if they could find a procedure to turn gold into lead.

Nobody cared about the secret. They knew the truth. Truth be told, they were all for it.