Causality of Lies

Arthur David Verity clicked the submit button on his electronic unemployment form for the week. Although it was technically true that he’d looked for work, he hadn’t really put his heart into it. He’d now been jobless for three straight months with no prospects in sight, so he did the next best thing: he plopped down on a soiled couch in his tiny unkempt apartment and flipped on the television. He resolved to spend his entire Friday afternoon glued to the boob-tube.

As usual, the news network was the last thing he’d watched before going to sleep, hence it was the first thing to occupy his attention. The windows behind his television collected raindrops that trickled down the thin single panes of glass in melancholy streaks reflecting the depressing news stories of the day. Senator Reagan Donahue was doing a candid interview with one of the network’s many interchangeable anchorwomen. He ignored the discussion between the two ladies and watched the news feed as it ran across the bottom of the screen.

…Turkish forces intimidate Israel…Tensions between Pakistan and India heat up…tenth year of pandemic continues to limit personal freedoms…Chinese naval forces threaten the Philippines; U.S. navy moves to intercept…Major earthquake in Central America leaves Guatemala City and San Salvador in ruins; resulting tidal waves threaten to flood coastal cities in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica…Russia tests a 100 megaton warhead in the international waters of the Arctic Ocean; UN Security Council remains silent…

“Unbelievable,” Arthur mumbled, and turned his attention to the ongoing interview.

“Senator Donahue, thank you so much for that explanation as to how you propose to improve government healthcare and further reduce the cost to individual consumers. It was truly inspired.” the journalist kowtowed.

“What a suck-up! Give me a break,” Arthur fumed at the television, “Half the time, I go without my own prescriptions, and Dad is bankrupt in a crappy rest home still suffering from dementia because of your wonderful universal healthcare!”

“Now please forgive me Madam Senator, but I have one final question. How do you answer the multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by both male and female interns that you employed?” The interviewer had finally asked a tough question.

Senator Donahue brushed back her long dark tresses and looked directly into the camera. The unnatural smoothness of the skin at the corners of her eyes betrayed her many plastic surgeries. This and her gray hair dyed black only added to her image of untruth when she attempted to cunningly clarify. “In order to ensure the integrity of the investigations, I cannot discuss the details. However, you will see that when these investigations are complete, I will be fully vindicated and all of these vicious lies will be exposed as a conspiracy perpetrated by my opponent and his allies.”

“Oh, what a crock of crap!” Arthur shouted and changed the channel.

For a while he watched a program about the Spanish Inquisition on the Smithsonian network, until it got too morbid discussing the torture techniques that the Roman Church used to extract false confessions from its victims in order to make them conform to the Pope’s equally false doctrines. So he switched over to the History Channel, but it wasn’t long before that began to overwhelm him too. It was a show about how Joseph Goebbels propaganda efforts paved the way for Adolf Hitler’s tyrannical rise to power.

“It’s almost as if lies contribute directly to world suffering,” Art mused as he turned off the T.V. For some reason, and at the same moment, he remembered a lecture from a college course on western philosophy. His professor had told the class, “Immanuel Kant claimed that the mind does not conform to reality, but instead reality conforms to the mind.”

“Maybe he was onto something?” Art supposed. Rather than confuse himself any further, he dropped this train of thought and glanced down at his phone to check the time; it was only two-thirty. “I can catch the three o’clock bus to Dad’s and be back home for dinner,” he decided, “Maybe tomorrow I should just cancel my stupid cable.”

On the bus to his father’s place, he sat in the front row listening to the driver’s radio. As always, it was tuned to Z-97 rock, which currently belted out a lengthy old Metallica instrumental from 1988 titled, “To Live is to Die.”

Just before his father’s stop, he thought he heard some faint lyrics behind the music, but he didn’t quite catch them all. It said something about, “when a man lies, he murders” and “these are the pale deaths.” He wished he could rewind and listen more closely, but it was the radio after all and besides that, he’d arrived at his destination.

The nursing staff checked his temperature and let Art through to his father’s room. “Dad?” he asked as he sat down in a chair next to the bed. His thin-haired and gray-bearded father sat upright against some pillows and stared into a tiny flickering T.V. at the end of his bed.

The frail old man didn’t respond, so Arthur picked up the Bible from his dad’s nightstand and whispered, “I’ll just sit here and read for a while, Dad. If you feel like talking, I’ll be here until five.”

Arthur was never a big churchgoer, but his dad was. “What should I read, Dad?”

The only response came from the television, “…stock markets are all off today in response to…”

Art shrugged and opened the book to a random passage in Paul’s second letter to the Colossians. He read silently for a while and didn’t notice when he began reading aloud, “By canceling the record of debt that stood against us…nailing it to the cross…He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him.”

Suddenly Art’s father spoke, “This is the truth, boy.”

Arthur waited for more, but nothing came, so he asked, “What is truth, Dad?”

His father continued to stare into the television even as commercials played, but still, he quietly answered, “Jesus disarmed them, son.”

“Who, Dad? Who did Jesus disarm?”

This time his dad didn’t answer, so Art repeated, “Who, Dad? Who are the rulers and authorities that were disarmed?”

His dad pointed a crooked finger at the book Art held and stated, “John 8:44.”

Arthur turned back and found the passage and read it for his father, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.”

His dad remained silent, so Art pressed him, “Dad, what are you telling me? So the ruler is Satan? I don’t get it.”

His father turned his head and locked eyes with his only son, “Yes. Lucifer has no more power over the earth…we cause our own suffering. ”

“How, dad? How do we cause it?” Art asked anxiously, expecting his dad to return to his typical catatonic state anytime now.

“By our words and our deeds, son. When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. These are the pale deaths men miscall their lives.”

“I just heard that same quote on the way here…who said it? I must know!”

The old man was unmoved and sat as still as a statue for at least ten minutes, but to Art’s surprise, his father finally responded, “Paul Gerhardt, German theologian and writer of hymns.”

Those were the last words of lucidity that his father would speak. After another hour of solitary and tranquil reflection, Art closed the Bible and left it in his dad’s lap. He thanked the nurse for her time, and headed home for supper. It had stopped raining just in time for a welcome sunset.

Arthur sipped on a diet soda after a bland meal of chicken and rice. He wanted to stop thinking about the philosophical and religious concepts that he’d found himself beset by throughout the day, so he lounged on his sofa and turned on a movie channel to relax.

It was already well into the classic fantasy, Excalibur, from 1981. “Maybe this will set my mind at ease?” he hoped.

King Arthur, expounding: “Which is our greatest quality of knighthood? Courage? Compassion? Loyalty? Humility? What do you say Merlin?”

Merlin, the Magician, stumbling: “Ah, the greatest, uh, well they blend like the metals we mix to make a good sword.”

King Arthur, pressing: “No poetry, just a straight answer. Which is it?”

Merlin, aggravated: “Alright then, truth. That’s it! Yes! It must be truth, above all. When a man lies, he murders some part of the world. You should know that.”

Art halted the movie. “There it is again! That quote…from the Lutheran monk…when a man lies, he murders some part of the world.” His mind was a whirl as he rewound the scene and played it back again and again. Finally it hit him. That was it! Everything suddenly made sense to Art…Paul Gerhardt’s observation, Immanuel Kant’s theory, and his Dad’s reference to John 8:44. Satan’s greatest power has always been deception. Although at first Lucifer was likely jubilant at Christ’s crucifixion, once He was resurrected on the third day, the devil knew he was finished. From that point on, only our own lies could affect our world, and like Kant presumed, reality conforms to the mind!

Earlier in the day, Art had thought, that it’s almost as if lies contribute directly to world suffering, but his mind hadn’t quite attained the full implication. “Every lie that is told has a causal relationship to some effect. Or better…every single lie directly causes some terrible consequence. It’s like chaos theory on steroids!” he stood up straight and roared, spilling his drink and dropping the remote control.

When his remote hit the ground, the channel flashed back to the news. This time they were showing a rally for Senator Donahue at the State Capital. She was going on with her lies about fixing government healthcare, and Arthur snapped. “That’s only six or seven blocks away…I’ve got to do something!” He left his T.V. on and sprinted from his apartment.

After making his way through a security checkpoint to ensure he wasn’t armed, he pushed through to the front of the crowd. Reagan Donahue had just about finished her speech when he shouted at the top of his lungs, “LIAR! In your first two terms you’ve done nothing for the people and only enriched yourself!”

The uncaring Senator ignored the outburst and concluded, “So if you elect me for a third term, I promise to complete the important work I started to restore quality healthcare for all! Thank you!”

Arthur was not deterred, “LIAR! STOP LYING! If people would all just stop lying, then maybe we could live in peace and prosperity!”

Some hisses and boos were heard as she stepped back from the podium, confirming that there was some truth in Art’s accusation. One man, who may have felt the same about the Senator as Arthur, added a taunt of his own, “You didn’t do anything for us! The only things you did were interns!”

“I did no such thing!” the aged candidate yelled her denial before whispering something to security, presumably to have the protestor removed, but Arthur had already jumped on stage and grabbed the microphone.

“There is a causality of lies! Every lie that is told directly causes some horrible effect! If you think that man-made CO2 causes global climate change…that’s nothing compared to the effects immediately caused on a daily basis by all the lying liars that licentiously lie!” Before Art could continue, the security guards had him by the arms and were pushing him down off the stage. The next instant, a loud blast like an explosion was heard high overhead, immediately followed by the high-pitched whine of a large falling object. A careening news helicopter crashed into the fleeing panicked crowd very near the speaker’s platform. Chaos and pandemonium resulted.

Arthur David Verity’s television continued to display the evening news broadcast even though he never made it home to his hovel. Across the bottom of the screen, the news feed announced the day’s events to no one.

…Air traffic controllers strike again…Category 4 hurricane headed for New Orleans; people prepare for the worst storm since Katrina…A.G. announces that Senator Reagan Donohue will be arraigned on the first of five allegations of sexual misconduct on Monday…freak helicopter crash at political rally; dozens injured; man who claimed he wanted all people to stop lying in order to save the planet, died along with the pilot and a news cameraman just after it appears the candidate lied…