“Disease is dormant UNTIL” © Mark Blickley
The Truth About Lies: A Cautionary Tale
Over-burdened with the weight of abandoned world truths, Old Father Time stumbles, loses his immortality and relinquishes his grip upon the biggest truth-teller of them all – time.
Whoppers, porkies, fibs and fake news,
fact-bending falsehoods, and untruthful views.
A lie can be kind, a lie can be white,
it might be the weapon that wins you the fight.
But…
where does the truth go when you tell a lie?
Does it wilt in the corner?
Shrivel and die?
No, no, and no, or we’d not need this rhyme:
Lost truths are cared for by Old Father Time.
Through Hourglass Desert, across and then back,
his aching feet carve their own weary track.
His silver beard billows behind like a flag,
while vulnerable truths are tucked in his bag,
Truths swarm to him like bees to a flower,
hiding in safety, preserving their power,
and when it is time for a truth to be known
he opens the bag and sends it back home.
But…
in these modern times, outright lies are in vogue.
We celebrate the swindler; worship the rogue.
So many truths have been cast to the side,
that Old Father Time is losing his stride.
He’s bent almost double; he tries to keep pace
with the endless truth-stream sand-blasting his face.
Then a fresh truth flies in, all weighty and plump,
he trips on his beard and sprawls with a thump.
He loses his bundle and truths tumble out.
It’s a torrent of honesty, facts and no doubt.
He scrambles to save them, and stash them away,
But…
here come the Dark Ones, ready to play.
Controlling all time, each and every duration;
this is their plan for world domination.
They’ve waited forever for this very chance,
so they whip up a sandstorm and start their advance.
While Old Father Time curls into a ball,
the sand grinds his clothes till there’s nothing at all.
It pulverizes flesh, all the way to his bones,
till he’s an ivory gleam of anguish and moans.
But…
his beard is still safe, and that’s all that matters;
destroy it and his immortality shatters.
Sinew by sinew, his flesh starts to regrow,
it’s horribly painful and terribly slow.
Muscles and veins and nerves re-unite,
knitting and weaving until they’re just right.
But the Dark Ones tire of this gruesome charade,
and signal their scorpions to take up the raid.
With a sinister scuttle, cruel tails held high,
angry arachnids stab truths in the eye.
Deflated, despairing, truths spill their guts,
dying slow deaths by a thousand swift cuts.
And…
while the Dark Ones obsess, putting truths to the knife,
Old Father Time grows back to full life.
Again, proud and tall, rosy and glowing,
His full beard unfurls, all snowy and flowing.
From his robe he extracts a wicked-sharp sword,
which he wields with the care of an ancient time lord.
In a blur of precision, and fury-fuelled skill,
he disembowels scorpions, relishing each kill.
He crouches a moment to wipe his sword clean,
removing the juices, and chunks of raw spleen.
Crusty splinters of shell are so very small,
it takes a few seconds to get rid of them all.
But…
he should have known better than to let down his guard,
for The Darkest herself is flying in hard.
Bat-wings spreadeagled, spitting acid like rain,
She’s been scheming for eons, a relentless campaign.
Poor Father Time is truthless and lone,
no match at all for this vicious-beaked crone.
She wheels high above in a predator’s loop,
then lands at his back in a vulture-like swoop.
Eyes on the prize, poison lacing her beak,
she slices his beard with a blood-curdling shriek.
With talons like pincers she grasps that snow-hair,
and releases the strands on a current of air.
Time races faster as he falls to the ground,
and starts decomposing with barely a sound,
till the maggots arrive for a gluttony feast
of rotten meat, organs and gases released.
The Darkest joins in; she’s thrilled to imbibe
the grease and the gore and the whole fetid vibe.
Then in come the flies with neon-flared wings,
gobbling up time like bottle-eyed kings.
The Darkest, with glee, spreads her wings like a net,
and catches those flies without breaking a sweat.
She funnels them into a witchy glass jar,
marks it ‘Time Flies’ and seals it with tar.
She launches for home with a hyena-like cackle,
an immensely delighted, time-thieving jackal.
Of Old Father Time there is not a trace,
for Darkness has won the truth-telling race.
Anthea Jones writes quirky fiction and screenplays in her backyard in Brisbane, Australia. This is much easier now she has annexed the kids’ cubby and banished the spiders and geckoes. She has completed a Fishbowl Residency at the Queensland Writers Centre and attended Stowe Story Labs in Birmingham, Alabama. She loves the adrenalin-rush of prompted writing competitions, and is very proud that her writing was recently branded ‘demented and hilarious’ by someone who actually read it.
Mark Blickley grew up within walking distance of New York’s Bronx Zoo. He is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, PEN American Center, and Veterans For Responsible Leadership. His latest book is the flash fiction collection, Hunger Pains (Buttonhook Press).