The idea was simple: if I lied, people would accept and love me.
When I tried my first lie, I found it to be remarkably effective. It began when I was seven years old. I lied to my mother that I was sick, and I watched as she dropped everything to care for me.
My mother couldn’t offer care and compassion beyond what her miserable reality allowed. She was caught between the toil of household chores, the cruelty of my unforgiving father, and the responsibility of raising my four siblings—two brothers and two sisters. I was the second youngest.
But I needed love, so I resorted to lying.
The survival instinct considers love a necessity. It drove me to seek it, even if I didn’t realize it at the time, just as it drives us after birth, without conscious thought, to blindly seek nourishment from our mothers’ breasts, or to cry whenever we feel hunger or pain.
Now, I can understand why I told that lie to my mother at the age of seven. Afterward, whenever I felt a lack of love, I would lie. It pleased me to see my mother sad for my sake, to see my father’s concern. I would delve deeper into the lie, as if I were avenging my mother against him.
Then I learned—from school and from people’s talk—that lying was wrong, so I decided to stop.
I made that decision in theory, but I sometimes found myself forced to lie—though, in any case, my lies became infrequent. Still, I resolved not to abandon it entirely out of inability, but rather to give it up by my own will, while still possessing the skill and ability.
What puzzled me was that my mother became quick to detect my lies. Had her skill in understanding me evolved? Or had she always known I was feigning illness and simply overlooked it? It didn’t matter. It became a personal challenge to make her believe me. So, I decided to pay close attention to the details she used to uncover my deceit—my facial expressions, the look in my eyes, the tone of my voice, the way I spoke.
The first real test came when my siblings accused me of eating the cake my mother had prepared for her visiting neighbors. I met the accusation with surprise, bewilderment, and a show of innocence. It worked better than I could have ever expected, to the point that some of my siblings felt sorry for me and regretted their accusation.
That cake incident restored my confidence in my ability to lie without being discovered. Indeed, after that, I never failed in any lie I told.
I am now fifteen, and my skill is at its peak—at home, in the village, and at school, although I don’t use it much at school, as I am an excellent student.
But after a chance reading, I decided never to lie again. It was when I read the famous historical dialogue between Abu Sufyan and Heraclius. What caught my attention was Abu Sufyan’s statement: “Had I not been afraid of my companions labeling me a liar, I would have lied about him.”
After that phrase, I was motivated to read everything related to lying. I concluded that it is a terrible trait that forces a person to live multiple lives, which, in sum, amount to an unreal existence.
I made an irrevocable decision: I would not lie, no matter how necessary.
It wasn’t long before I faced the first test of my resolve. My father asked me to fetch my mother’s medicine from the city—it wasn’t really a city, more of a large town. The only pharmacy was about ten kilometers from our village, along a nearly deserted road with few vehicles. Since my two older brothers had left for university, I was the only one who could do it—my brothers had taught me a little about driving before they left. My father took the car key from his pocket, handed it to me, and said only, “Be careful at the curve in the village of Tuwalim.”
I set off for the pharmacy and found the medicine prepared, waiting for me on the counter. This medicine was dispensed from King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the capital, Riyadh, and sent to the pharmacy every month. The pharmacist was friendly and asked for my name, as it was the first time he had seen me; usually, my brothers picked up the medicine. I told him my name was Yusuf. He wished my mother a speedy recovery and asked me to convey his greetings to my father.
On my way back, the only thing on my mind was the curve at Tuwalim. I had passed it safely on the way there, but on the return, I didn’t take the turn wide enough. The car scraped against the stones lining the corner, leaving a clear scratch from front to back. I was in huge trouble. I had fallen into the very trap my father had warned me about.
Intense caution about something, constantly focusing on it, creates a mutual attraction between you and it. This makes the probability of approaching and falling into it high. It’s like staring at a mosaic, which draws you into its details, making you forget its borders. You get lost and fall while wavering between the details and the boundaries out of sheer caution.
Now, what was I to do about this disaster?
I could either save myself with a lie—and I was perfectly capable of deceiving my father and ten men like him—or I could stand by my decision not to lie, no matter the consequences.
I decided not to lie.
My father is a tyrant, and his reactions are unpredictable. His authority comes from this ambiguity. Once, when I was ten—for a trivial reason—he threw an iron cup at my mother. I saw blood pouring from her nose because she was late in bringing his food.
When I entered the house, I found my parents in the living room. My mother was sewing a garment, and my father was reclining, drinking tea.
I greeted them, walked over to my mother, kissed her head, and gave her the medicine. Then I turned to my father, handing him the car key. “The pharmacist sends his greetings,” I said. “And I scraped the car from front to back. The scratch is superficial.”
I told him what happened with clarity and firmness, my posture conveying my readiness to bear all consequences and any punishment he decided.
But the surprise was that he simply took the key and said, “You’re a failure. I expected as much from you.”
As I left, I glanced at my mother’s face. The thought of going back to kiss her head crossed my mind, but I was content with the language of love I saw in her eyes.
The narrator says: In 1977, Yusuf graduated from high school with honors and enrolled in the Faculty of Engineering at King Abdulaziz University. He lived in the university dorms and made sure to visit his village every week. Things were going well; he was excelling at university and keeping his mother happy with his weekly visits.
Whenever he returned from his travels, his mother treated him like a child, checking on him and satisfying her maternal instincts by talking to him and looking at him. On one occasion, as soon as he arrived, she chided him, sensing his face was pale and he had lost weight. She held his hand, feeling his arm as she scolded him, until her hand fell upon a bandage on his arm. She asked him about it.
He told her he had donated blood and had forgotten to remove it.
Then he said, “I want to ask you for something. If you agree, I’ll be the happiest man in the world.”
“What is it? Don’t tell me you’ve found a bride and want me to propose for you,” she said with a smile.
He smiled back. “No, not a bride. I’ve been nominated for a scholarship to study in Britain, and I’ve postponed my acceptance until I have your opinion.”
“Britain!”
“Yes, Britain.”
“And how long is the program? How far is Britain? How will I bear being so far from you?!”
“The program is only a year to a year and a half. It’s a short time, my love. And during that period, I’ll keep in touch with you through letters and update you on my news first-hand.”
The narrator says that Yusuf’s mother agreed to let him complete his studies in Britain.
The narrator says that Yusuf lied. He had not been nominated for a scholarship. He said that because he had been diagnosed with cancer, and his health was deteriorating noticeably. He didn’t want her to see him in that state and be distressed. He had been sending them letters as if they were coming from Britain; their letters were sent to a friend’s address in Britain, who then forwarded them to him in Saudi Arabia.
The narrator says that Yusuf’s mother passed away a year later, and that during the height of her illness, she would ask them to send messages to Yusuf telling him that her health was good.
The End
