MRS. JOHNSON … “how much?” she wonders. (Beat.) A girl in my class. “What is the weight of a lie?” And at first, I think perhaps I haven’t heard her correctly. I say “What?” and I ask her to repeat what she’s said … but I didn’t mishear her … I have heard her correctly. “How much does a lie weigh?” She wants to know … but in ounces … or pounds … or however you would do it. Weigh it out. You see, I had once made reference to the weight of a “soul” … which has been argued over by scholars and poets and priests for years … and I had mentioned it to her in passing, and so here she is now, asking the same thing about a “lie.” How much it might weigh. The weight of it. Her father is a butcher and that’s what she wants to know … the weight of a lie in practical terms … and for once … I don’t have an answer. I pride myself on answers. It’s the sign of a good teacher, or that’s what I’ve been taught, anyway … a million years ago. Not even the right one, that isn’t even important, but to offer up an answer. That’s what our job is. As instructors. Guides. Teachers. To put forth a possibility, one idea or an assumption or … a truth, even, if such a thing really exists out there—the truth—that is what we do. We are asked things every day … over and over … and each time we must take the time to give an answer back. If it’s right, then that’s a wonderful thing … and if it’s wrong, then together we will discover that and work it out as a team, in groups of two or three or ten—as an entire classroom, even—and we will find out what is right and what is wrong. But that first one … that initial answer … that’s for me to say. To teach. To lead. To be an example. I’ve done it for thirty years now, or something very close to that … and I love it. It’s what I was meant to do with my life and I think I still do it with a kind of passion and energy and … well, with a kind of zest, even … that speaks for itself. And yet … I had nothing for this girl who asked me about lies and their weight and, I mean, rationally I think “Well, it’s probably subjective, in some way … each one must weigh a certain amount based on this and this or that …” but now I wonder if that is true. I wonder. (Beat.) It’s been years since whomever posed that question to me … but I’ve thought about it many times since then, and the answer … if there is a correct one out there in the universe somewhere … it has eluded me … no matter how much I puzzle over it or Google it or try to track it down … (Beat.) “What is the weight of a lie …?”