Liar

Liar by VALMRY

They say many things about telling false words and most stories have been told in the form of fairytales. This story, however, came from my encounter with a peddler. He was a strange man but nothing short of pleasant and courteous. He was standing right next to a bench overlooking the New England coast and had an aura about him that seemed to attract people passing by. He had a simple woven fabric placed on the ground with various items strewn about and he sung a harmonious tone with the tunes of his harp. Normally I would have thought it was a little strange that he be in such an odd place doing a bit abnormal tune with a not so popular instrument anymore; but homeless or poor people often set up places like this to make money for their necessities. Even though I had other things to do, I had found myself in front of this man looking at his things. Normally, I would just look and leave. Maybe, perhaps, inspect a couple things and then buy one just to be nice. This time however I noticed something that made me think twice about leaving.

In able to understand what I had seen I have to explain something very fundamental about myself, I am an empath. While I won’t go into detail about what exactly I can and cannot do with this capability, the one thing it does allow me to see is when people are lying. They show themselves in a nice thick orange yellow color.

This brings me back to the peddler, whom, while he was singing and making his tunes, was eyeing everyone who was talking amongst themselves. The thing I had noticed was whomever was talking was saying rather peculiar things, things they should never repeat in public.

“You know, I slept with your sister…”

“I hate your guts but I love your money…”

“I really don’t like my boss…”

“This weeks financial scam is going pretty good so I should take a little extra don’t you think?”

“Why do you even bother to keep seeing my husband when you know he will never leave me…?”

“Sometimes I just wish you would croak already so I didn’t have to visit every other week…”

When I noticed this, the peddler noticed me. I thought I caught a glimpse of beady green eyes but they were just a nice shade of green.

“Is there anything I can help you with?” he asked.

His tone seemed a little slithery, something you’d expect to hear from an experienced con-artist.

“No thank you” I replied, looking down at the items.

Nothing seemed to stand out to me and yet I couldn’t bring myself to leave.

“It seems that is not entirely true.”

I looked up to him in alarm, I hadn’t lied. My intention was to be polite and ask about a few items before taking my leave.

“No, I don’t need anything here.”

His eyes shown in understanding and he suddenly pulled out a rather unusual aquamarine rose.

“Perhaps, this may help.”

I was going to turn him down, I was going to politely turn him away. I instead stared into the rose like it was endless and blinked when I realized I was staring into space completely zoned out. The people around me had returned to whatever they were discussing before and walked to wherever they were heading.

After I headed home and walked into my small apartment, my wife was waiting for me.

“Hey, thanks for the rose babe” she called out from the kitchen.

I froze realizing I had never even taken the rose from the peddler. There on the table the rose was placed in a nice clear vase.

“When did I leave that?” I asked casually.

“You don’t remember? You dropped it off during lunch” she laughed off.

I swallow hard and stared at it, the petals seeming to sparkle in the light.

“Although I don’t know where you got it from but it’s beautiful.”

I brushed it off, still a little anxious though. Then as the days passed by I noticed some very peculiar things. A man was beat near to death down the street, the owner of my complex left his husband after he won the lottery, someone who was an acquaintance of a friend was recently promoted after his boss was fired for hostile workplace behavior, the tenant next door was arrested for embezzlement, the woman across the street was murdered by a jealous lover, and the keeper of a local flower shop inherited a large sum after her grandmother passed away.

I remember hoping, to whatever reasoning I could, that the rose wouldn’t do anything and I could move on without any incident. The fact that all of these peculiar situations happened right after the peddler arrived and then mysteriously disappeared could have just been a coincidence. Still, I looked at the rose every time something reminded me of it and noticed with each incident a petal fell onto the table until only one was left.

“You know, you look at that thing a lot” my wife pointed out one evening.

“Yea, it’s just that I get a weird feeling from it.”

“Oh yea? Well I guess I do think it is sort of a strange color. I mean it is almost dead but it still has one petal left that is so vibrant. Wasn’t it, like, an aquamarine? It’s so orange and yellow now. Maybe because it is dying?”

“Yea, I guess I’m just overthinking things.”

She gently laid on my lap and smiled up at me as we ate our popcorn and watched TV.

“Love you” she kissed on my cheek.

“Love you too.”

After a moment I thought about the color of the rose and asked a peculiar question.

“Hey, you would never leave me right?”

She smiled at me as she sat back down on the couch with another popcorn bag.

“Never, of course as long as you don’t lie to me.”

She was smiling and it was supposed to be a joke, until I realized that the petal had fallen and the rose was no longer there.