Some lies are for survival. Others are the only way we know how to live. This is a story about both.
This micro-fiction piece comes from the word prompt “Bluff”. A bluff is often about facing something head-on, pretending to be more than you are, or trying to outsmart the world.
For this piece, I thought about a moment when bluffing isn’t just about lying to others, but about the lies we tell ourselves to make it through. It’s about the risk, the truth behind the bravado, and the calm before things unravel.
Raymond stood at the edge of the bluff with a flask and a grin, like he’d won something. Below: desert. Above: buzzards.
“I told her I’d jump,” he said, squinting into the drop. “She said I was full of it.”
The wind tugged at his coat. He didn’t budge. “You ever lie so good you almost believe it?” I nodded. Too fast.
He chuckled. “Yeah, see, that’s the thing. It ain’t about whether you fall. It’s whether anyone sees you standing there first.”
He took a swig—whiskey, or something that burned the same—and offered me a hit. I shook my head.
Raymond didn’t care. He never did. The kind of guy whose stories had tire tracks and bloodstains but no names.
“You jump,” he said, “and it’s over. You don’t, and you gotta walk back with that lie in your shoes.”
The sun dipped behind him, turning his face into shadow. He stepped back from the edge. “I think I’ll make her wonder a little longer.”
(c) Eric Montgomery
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