The thing is that lying is hard and truth is easy and there is this idea in the world that the best lie is the one that is close to the truth and that is beautiful bullshit and I will tell you why. That kind of lie is the most usable lie. It is easy to remember because most of it actually happened just like that and for most people in most situations that is all you need. But in any professional situation where a lie must be sustained in the long term where it must conceal a truth from a person determined and capable in the field of finding that truth then the lie must touch the real world exclusively at those places where the interface can be controlled. Deep lies are all about control and you cannot control a hybrid lie because any time you need to give further detail you risk giving detail which can be used to penetrate the lie.

“O hi Richie I saw you out with a blonde last night—”

“O hi Jack yeah my cousin Anna was in town from Potsdam—”

“O that is lovely have you been out there to visit?”

“Yes I have it was great Anna is like a tour-guide-type person and we stayed in this really terrific hotel—”

See what just happened there is that Richie fucked-up. Anna really is a tour guide from Potsdam and he is sticking as close to the truth as he can but oops his cousin is from Potsdam so why was she staying in a hotel with him there?

So if you are telling a lie that matters you do not want to be retrofitting it to the truth on the fly, which is what you will have to do if it touches the truth all along its length and now this feels dirty anyway ANYWAY you cannot do that you are not that smart and you think you are but you’re not. You will get busted because you will say something like:

“I recently had excellent ajiaco in its native setting.”

Did you now? Well that is interesting because ajiaco is a delicacy much favored in Bogotá like if you were to look at any tourist guide it would say try the soup and do you know what else is in Bogotá? No not cocaine that is a fucking stereotype. What is in Bogotá is the Emerald Trade Center, and if we think back we find ourselves saying: What was it that Mr. Client wanted us to steal but emeralds?

Now it is possible that that is all so much bullshit but I am willing to bet you that when Mr. Client said the word emerald his entire fucking soul was wearing the same dopey grin as poor dumb Richie staring up in his mind’s eye at whatever he and Anna-not-his-cousin did in the Alimony Auberge.