The Pinocchio Syndrome and Me

Have you ever heard of the ‘Pinocchio syndrome’? Because somehow, I feel like it has made my life a living hell. My name is Dino Gorden, a final year student in Journalism, aspiring to become one of the most successful and famous reporters in the world– a dream I have been harbouring since childhood. Since you are expected to communicate only truthful information in this field, I have always despised anything related to lies and with that being said, I’m also unable to tell even the smallest lie possible. What comes from my mouth should be the complete truth or nothing.

 Over the years, I have been the reason for many conflicts. For example, when I told my mother that my elder sister had lied to her about studying at her friend’s place and was in fact partying with her boyfriend, or when I had told Uncle John that his ‘prodigy son’ was nothing like how he was flaunting him at the family meeting and was in fact doing weeds. There was also that famous night when we had been invited for dinner at the place of my father’s boss and the latter’s wife had served us with a horrible mashed potato. When the lady had asked me about how I found the food, I ended up blurting out all the little details that made the dish tasteless. Much to the dismay of my parents who had to cover my mouth to stop me from giving cooking advices to the lady, we had to leave the place as soon as possible. Fortunately, my dad still had his job after that infamous night.

But there are things that I still feel guilty about. One of them include the incident with our neighbour, Mr Hatter who had had a second marriage to a woman much younger than her. The woman, Daisy had offered to babysit me and my elder sister when my mom had to urgently leave for my grandmother’s place as the latter was sick. But when we went to her place, she was not alone, but with a man, who was not Mr Hatter. Both me and my sister saw them cuddling and kissing but she had begged us to keep it a secret. I swear I would never have let the cat out of the bag if Mr Hatter had not asked me about how his wife spent the day with us. My sister glared at me while I was telling Mr Hatter about the black deeds of his wife. Later that night, we heard the couple argue and then an ambulance took away Mr Hatter who had suffered from a stroke. I still think about that incident and wish that I could have just skipped the details or lie. But it’s not like I’ve never tried to lie before.

Once at high school, my best friend had decided to play hooky with some other boys despite my disapproval. When the teacher had come to class, he started asking random students about the missing boys and none were telling the truth. They were saying either that they had no clue or that the missing boys were sick. I was sweating like a pig and trying my best to avoid eye contact with the teacher, but fate had to dump me and the teacher asked me to get up.

“Mr Gorden, do you have any idea about why these boys are missing?” He asked with a stern face.

I was gulping constantly as I felt a lump stuck in my throat.

“N… N… Uh… Uh…” I started stammering and breathing heavily as I attempted to lie.

The teacher winced at my behaviour, suspecting that something was wrong and that I definitely knew about the absence of these students.

“You know where these boys are,right?” He continued.

My eyes widened and my lips started trembling; “I don… I don’t…. don’t …. “

“Mr Gorden, is it that these boys decided to skip my class and went to have fun?”

“N…. N… Yes!” I blurted out.

“Good boy! Now sit down!”

And that was the end of my friendship and the start of my bullying routine at school. I was constantly mocked at and sometimes even thrashed by the other boys that I had denounced that day. My high school life had become a real nightmare and I was praying every day for it to end, till the day I had finally graduated from high school.

Higher studies had proved to be peaceful, except for when I had an internship opportunity at a media company. I was assigned to do a live interview of a potential candidate for the running elections and I was ordered to make it in his favour. But having done a profound background research on him, I found out that he was entailed in a money laundering case which had been written off allegedly on the basis of bribery, and that also several of his female workers had claimed that they were victims of sexual harassment. So when he was pretending to be a honest and transparent politician in the interview, I could not participate in his lie and started bombarding him with questions relating to these offensive cases. Needless to say, he feigned that he was not feeling well so that he could finish the interview earlier. Later on, I was fired from this internship opportunity as well, as it turned out that he was funding the media company and that because of my careless act, the media company was now having to face a legal case filed against them by the corrupted political candidate.

University life also had me rejecting a proposal from a girl but in a very sourly way. Something I wish I had cut short. There was that shy girl in my class, who used to dress in a very unusual way, who much to my ignorance, had a crush on me. She had finally decided to confess her feelings to me that one day when I was sitting alone on a bench, working on one of my assignments.

“Hi, can I sit next to you?” She had asked very timidly with a silly grin on her face, which showed her braces filled with bits of food.

“Oh hi Maddy! Yes sure, nobody is siting here.”

She hesitantly sat on the other edge of the bench but was gradually coming closer to me.

“Huh? Do you need something?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable.

“Are you busy?” She asked.

“Uh! Why? You need something?” I asked.

She widened her silly smile and lowered her gaze on the floor.

“Actually, ……. Actually I needed to tell you something!” She said hesitantly.

“Yeah okay! Go ahead!”

“Actually. I like you!” She exclaimed and my eyes widened. “What about you? How do you find me?”

“I’m sorry but you’re not my type at all. You wear bizarre clothes! Your hairs are always messy. Your teeth are uncleaned. You rarely speak and when you do, it is in a very odd way! Your attitude and behaviour sometimes scare me a little bit as well.” I blurted out honestly but soon regretted it when I saw the expressionless face of Maddy. She burst into tears and ran away. I never saw her in class again. Later on, I learned that her health had deteriorated, and her family had moved to Ireland in hope that the new air would do her better. How I wish I had cut it to ‘I’m sorry but you’re not my type!” instead of giving her the whole list.

I exhale deeply as I reminisce about all those past moments of my life where my Pinocchio syndrome had landed me into trouble. I take a sip of my dark coffee which has turned cold as I jot down one last line and pen down. My autobiography, titled ‘The Pinocchio Syndrome and me’ was ready to be published on the upcoming edition of ‘Montanna’s top 10 Reporters.’ Yes! I have made it! Despite how much I had thought that this syndrome was a bane, once I had found my right place, it became a boon and enabled me to win so many prestigious awards related to the Journalism field. This syndrome has enabled me to save so many poor or innocent people’s life, where other reporters would lie in favour of those from higher society.

As such, the saying remains that the truth would never cost you anything but a lie could cost you everything!