HUMOR
What’s The First Lie You Remember Believing?
I was 6. The liar? My best friend.
First grade.
Henry Seavey and I were swinging on the swings, swinging and jumping at the highest point and flying and falling and slamming the ground with our rubbery, first-grade bodies, then doing it again. And if this was happening, which it was, then I’m completely certain Henry and I were talking about Star Wars.
I was explaining what Star Wars meant to me.
“Everything,” I said.
“More than God?” said Henry, satanically, though I misunderstood him.
“No,” I said. “No one can love Star Wars more than God does.”
“No, I mean do you love Star Wars more than you love God?”
“God invented stars and war,” I said, “so loving Star Wars is like loving him, which he requires. In other words, I will not be entrapped by you, Henry. Also, in case you’re wondering, I am in no danger of hell.”
As you know, I didn’t say this. I thought it up years later, in adulthood, which is the point of adulthood. It’s that zone of relative strength from which we journey down into the caverns of childhood, showing up like the big bad brothers of our younger selves, and we win, or at least fight back. Or…
