What Is True?

There once was a young boy who could never quite tell the truth. When his teachers asked him if he had his homework, he would quickly lie. When his mother would ask him if he had finished his chores, he would lie and say they were done. Even when the truth would not have hurt him if it were told, he still preferred to tell lies instead of the truth. So, for the most part, people avoided him because no one could stand to hear all of his lies.

One day, the young boy was playing near the edge of the woods when he saw a fire begin near the edge of town. He tried to put out the flames with a few buckets of water he saw near the town’s well, but the flames quickly spread, and he was unable to contain them with the small amount of water he had.

The boy ran into the town and began asking for help from the townspeople, telling everyone he met that a fire was quickly spreading towards the town. Had the people been able to believe the boy, they might have glanced in the direction he pointed. They might have seen the smoke moving closer to the town, but no one believed him, so no one bothered.

When it was too late to stop the deadly blaze, the townspeople began to realize the boy had been telling the truth. Everyone gathered together to fight the blazing inferno, but in truth, their actions were too little, too late. Before the fire could be brought under control, many lost their businesses and their homes.

The boy hung his head and cried. He knew he could have stopped the tragedy if only he could have convinced someone to believe him. That day he learned the painful truth—no one believes a liar, even once he finally speaks the truth.