Death of Honesty

She was so pure that nobody had even tried to question her maxims. Until he came. He saw her applying double standards all the time she felt it was expedited. Was she manipulative? Was she aware of her hypocrisy or was she disguising truth even for herself? He did not know that. He was preoccupied with the fact itself – she was not the person everybody saw. Once he loved her. They met in a café, a remote part of their city. At first, he took no notice of her. On the contrary, she saw him and felt a subtle touch of hope licking at her very heart. It was not the strike of love; it was something different – something that nobody could explain when it came to the indescribable feeling of clarity mixed with mysteriousness. Her brown raincoat – it was raining back then – was another gruesome stain on the mediocre reality but her smile was shining brighter than the sun on a hot July day. Brighter than the light in the dentist's office perhaps. By contrast, his face could not be compared with hers: horizontal wrinkles on his forehead had become even darker by the time she came in, as if he was thinking about a matter of life and death. Obviously, there was no smile, and his brown eyes were fixed on the black table on which he had his hands laid. Perhaps he was waiting for the waitress or even his order itself. She did not know that and that was not the object – her interest was him. She found herself instantly interested in the man sitting alone in the corner of a café. It was not out of character for her to start talking with strangers but that day she hesitated a bit before actually acquainting with him. His aura was quite cold so that it made everyone think twice before asking him stupid questions – and there was no doubt that he considered all the questions stupid. He just did not fit into the universe – that was the feeling. Convinced that anyone could be melted, she approached him. The very first three seconds he did not look at her back but then he finally looked up from the table with the who-the-hell-are-you stare. “Hi,” she said not as loud as she had intended. “Sitting here alone?” He was quiet for a minute, give or take. He just looked at her with the expression on his face saying that he did not have the slightest idea of what she was doing there, why she was speaking to him and why she did not get to the point from the very beginning deciding to start with this dumb salutation. “Can I help you?” he asked instead of answering. Disappointed look emerged. She was not expecting him to be nice but she was not expecting him to be crude either. What kind of person was so uncourteous to strangers saying hello? Perhaps, he was too straightforward. Or perhaps he did not like her at first sight. “I just wanted to talk to someone while I’m waiting for my coffee.” “In that case I must say that currently I’m very busy.” And that was it. He did not add anything. Just looked at the table in front of him again with his face being reflective. No interest, no hope – there was nothing in his eyes that would say he was very pleased to talk with a stranger. That was the end of their first meeting. Though he did not show his hospitality, he had been thinking about her all the way to his home. She was probably one of those people who had a lot of energy and nothing to do, but it seemed to him that she would come back. Maybe not in real life but her reappearing had to be inevitable. For her part, she forgot about him the moment she left the café. He was just another example of people having different characters, so in her opinion it was not the case when she had to sit in an empty room and think what she had done wrong. Nothing was wrong. It was just a life. Three weeks passed. Nothing had changed: she was writing her love poems and uploading them on the well-known poetry site for aspiring authors and he was doing his job which concerned a huge number of figures. One day he caught himself thinking that it would be nice to read a couple of stanzas just to unwind and to rid his mind of the work that had almost squeezed him like a lemon. He was not a poetry buff but he had damn good literature classes back at school. He even made progress and, most surprising, he was a teacher's pet. Who could think of it? A man down to earth has a secret passion for poems. It did not matter what kind of poems there were – even the silliest ones could let him feel relaxed. So, he searched for the poems. With a big cup of black tea, in his rocking chair with the woollen plaid over his lap, he opened a link with the site for aspiring authors. The existence of an account was a bright indicator of his love of reading. A man with figures read. That was funny to most of people but not for him. He opened a random poem. At first, he skimmed the text just to make sure that it would fit, and then read it carefully. There was something that made him get back to the beginning and flick through the lines one more time. And again. And again. Four times. He read the damn poem four times. And the poem was the love poem. There were no extraordinary plot or strong characters – it was just a silly love story about a girl who was not loved back by her dreamboat. Unrequited love. Not the type of poetry that he would prefer but still there was something that grabbed his attention. The style. Delicate. Sacramental. Enigmatic. He decided to leave a comment which would be the first one. For a moment he mused. His imagination drew the pictures of that day in a café when a strange girl approached him and asked a stupid question. Why did he suddenly remember her after reading a silly poem about unrequited love? He waved his thoughts aside and started to write about his emotions instead. Words poured from his heart and in two minutes there was a detailed comment written under the impression of the poem. After leaving a comment he became interested in the author. It appeared to be a Luna Lewis. Instead of a real photo there was an icon of the red moon in the dark. "What an unusual choice!" he thought. In Luna's profile there was a link to her Facebook page. Of course he clicked it. And froze. It was her. The girl with a stupid question and ginger hair. She was smiling at him from the screen and was not even close to realizing that the man who had rejected her was actually interested in her. She liked many things. Spring, sunny weather, and meadows. Cats, birds, and caterpillars. Pink, black, and yellow. Short stories, love stories, happy ending stories. Tea, tea with bubbles, tea with sugar. And apparently, she liked to talk to strangers who had no interest in her. He made a friend request – just wanted to see her in the friends list. It would not mean anything special, not for him. That is how he convinced himself. She added him to friends almost immediately. It took her just a minute to do this. On the other side of the screen Luna was looking at an unhappy dark photo of a man sitting alone in the park during the snowstorm. The choice of avatar surprised her indeed. There was something mysterious about the man she saw in the café. He was cold – true, but there had to be a thing. His vibe pushed her away and at the same time attracted her. Inexplicable phenomenon. She did not text him. Instead, she scrolled through his posts which were mostly aesthetic photos with deep philosophical thoughts. Some of them tickled her fancy; she even commented on a couple. The following morning, she saw three comments to her poems. The style was quite familiar but she still could not figure out who it reminded her of. Then she looked at the profile photo more thoroughly: it was the man from the café! It could not be a mistake; it was definitely him! So that was how he found her on Facebook. He captured her attention. His way of thinking appealed to her even though it was different from hers. She could think of him as a pessimist, and she herself was more optimistic – she loved to live, she cherished every moment, she had been seeking the good even in the worst situations. He did not. Prepared for the worst, not expecting to be lucky, he had been promoting his ideology in posts accompanied by gruesome photos. His comments inspired her to write more. Rereading his remarks and impression made her happier than ever because it was constructive criticism which helped her improve the pieces of poetry. As for him, commenting on her works suited him down to the ground since he could relax and indulge in thoughts and dreams. Figures were peaceful too but they were his job. Poetry, on the contrary, was his escape. However, there was a poem which caused strong emotions of a different kind. Precisely, annoyance. And he did not intend to keep it down. She did not like that. As it turned out, she was perfectly fine with critics and readers’ emotions as long as they pleased her. If she felt sorry for her characters, readers were supposed to feel the same way. They were allowed to feel other emotions but only the positive ones – joy, for example. But irritation? Annoyance? Anger? No way! He was straightforward. Though without direct aggression and gross insults, his comments looked a bit rough. To her. Perhaps she thought she was ready for critics but in fact she was not. She replied to his comments and watched for his reaction which appeared very rarely. Usually, he just left a comment and read an answer to it without further discussions. However, sometimes he had such a mood that he felt the need to question everything. One day she felt a touch of sorrow. She had left friendly comments on his Facebook posts, and he dared to express his annoyance by her lyrical character! “How could he!” she thought. Once she mentioned that she did not mind any of the emotions because her characters were multifaceted indeed. He had remembered that, so he wrote comments with an open heart with no intent to hurt her feelings. Her opinion differed. Seeing all those real, yet unexpected, emotions, she took offence. She just stopped commenting and liking his posts on Facebook. She wanted him to guess why she had become a void to him. Let him twist in the wind a little bit so that he would change his mind and started to like her characters, all of them. That was what she had in mind. However, he figured her out and… laughed. She was the one who said that people must communicate their discontent with irritating things and talk through problems instead of giving the silent treatment. That was the first time when he had faced her double standards. Was she manipulative? Of course she was. Was she aware of it? How the hell would he know! She waited for friendly comments to her poem. He waited for her to puff up with indignation like a toad with resentment and finally realize that the problem was not with him but with her. She was convinced that she was right. He was just as sure that she was wrong. He waited for her to get over it but a week passed and she did not turn up on Facebook. He had no idea why she was playing these stupid games though he was angry with her. In a bid to clamour for her attention, he published a few posts mentioning the things she liked – a bit about cats, a bit about dreaming of spring, and a bit about getting used to tea without sugar (the latter being a white lie). She did not react which continued to piss him off. Where was her “people should talk through problems”? He saw only the silent treatment, which she professed to detest. He decided not to play her game and to be the adult – someone had to be, in their bizarre non-relationship. He continued to comment on her works, only this time he was more subtle (though he considered it a hypocrisy), and posted a couple of short quotes from Camus which were in no way connected to the girl not knowing how to deal with readers’ emotions. Basically, he lived his life as if a girl with double standards had never existed. He did not ignore her though – new likes on her posts kept appearing. Finally, the moment came – she melted. Her childish behaviour vanished, and she began to act like an adult. However, he did notice some changes. Firstly, she deleted several posts on Facebook. Secondly, she shortened her friends list. Thirdly, she stopped uploading new instalments to her poem. The latter was temporary, but it was still unusual for her. It all seemed as if she was turning a new page in her life. Getting rid of old friends and posts, reconsidering her approach to writing and maybe to readers’ reactions (he had doubts about the last one), changing the profile photo – she gave the impression of a person who was simply confused. Perhaps, she was an unconscious hypocrite: all her life she thought she could handle any type of reader until that very moment. She suddenly understood that her mood was dependent on readers’ reactions. On his reaction. Why was she so eager to know what he would think of her poems? Why had he become an authority figure for her if he had not even tried writing poems or prose? Had he? Anyway, it did not matter. What mattered – why she caught herself worshipping the opinion of a stranger. A lion does not concern himself with the opinions of a sheep. This phrase suddenly emerged in her mind like a soap bubble. She heard this line in some series but that was not the point. The point was, she thought of herself as a lion. She convinced everyone around her that she was. Nobody even questioned it – she was strong, right, and honest. Indeed, honesty had been one of her qualities; there was no lie about that. So why did she now appear to be a hypocrite? Because she believed she was honest and had projected this idea onto everyone around her. All this time she had been lying to herself about two things: her ability to withstand any reader’s opinion and her capacity for being fair with herself. She moved on. At least she tried. In some way she kept refusing to believe this hideous truth – she told herself it was he who was straightforward and therefore unsympathetic and in some areas crude. She just buried herself beneath layer upon layer of self-deception and everyone believed her unconscious hypocrisy. Honesty was unattainable for her. He moved on too. This time, knowing that some people could convince themselves of their own honesty. Believe in a lie, in other words. He could not stand it; he detested it with every fibre of his being but at the same time he could not help it. He could not change people, their behaviour and the way of thinking because it was impossible. This realization made him sad. He was overwhelmed by desperation. He was consumed by the anger. He could not work it through. Tried but could not. He felt it with every inch of his body: all those hard feelings were floating through his veins, heating and burning them, almost making him scream. Instead, he decided to bury himself under a huge pile of work where figures did not cause rage. Time passed. He accepted the ugly truth about double standards devouring honesty. She was too stubborn to come to terms with it. And so they lived. They did not harbour any hard feelings towards each other, though. Somehow, they managed to get over the past and move forward. One in truth, the other in a lie.