What happens when you lean-in to heartache? When you take the bitterness and wrap it around yourself like a cloak? When you harness sadness as a means to grab attention from others rather than explore within for true fulfilment? Brigid Swanick’s “Little White Lies” examines the process and outcome of a character who chooses just that. “Their questions and concerns, their desire to help me,” says our narrator-protagonist, “their intense focus entirely on me made me obsessed, made me visible in a world that was otherwise indifferent.”
“It had become easier to lie to bring people closer to me until eventually I couldn’t stop.” But are all the theatrics really easier to keep up than being honest? “It was close enough to true so as to not really matter that it wasn’t. The point is I was sad.” How did this come about? Our narrator describes how she told lies as a coping mechanism, first by telling lies to herself, then by lying to others. After her relationship with Brian ends, she decides to create a new story for herself, “So I imagined that he’d died tragically and I was by extension also tragic – a beautiful woman in mourning, ruminating on my husband’s memory and sighing a lot.” And doing this won her some attention. “This is how I would get people to talk to me,” our narrator says.
Swanick brings us this playful yet cautionary tale with a dash of charm and a sprinkle of humour. In just the right amounts. When fibs and yarns no longer do the trick for this narrator? Well, she’s got a solution for that. “I threw myself onto the floor and began convulsing.” Which leads us, via ambulance, to the emergency room where the pattern continues with attention gained from medical staff. In fact, her lying and storytelling is exacerbated. “This had become the fullest expression of my creativity. I could be anyone to them.”
When is enough, enough? Do we have a turning-point? Does this character undergo the healing process that we all hope for her? Read the story and decide for yourself.
Source: Swanick, Brigid. “Little White Lies.” L’Esprit Literary Review, is. 4, 14 April 2024, https://lespritliteraryreview.org/2024/04/14/little-white-lies/.
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Pauline Shen 