Fib Nauseous

“We don’t come apart when we swim.”

One recent movie gives us

A character who is said

To have a strange condition:

Lying makes her nauseous.

This seems disabling,

Which the audience senses

As well as a detective,

As the writers intended.

How terrifying 

Not to be able to lie

Without humiliation

And wretched discovery.

In the story, folks buy it,

And the detective buys it,

And the director has fun

With scenes built around vomit.

The incapable liar

Is sweet and wins a fortune

From vilely unworthy heirs.

We have our happy ending.

Does the audience buy it?

Seems to. The movie’s a hit.

Online plot explanations

(Spoiler alert!) toe the line.

I don’t buy it. Not one bit.

First, there’s no such condition.

And second, what a power

That would be, to have convinced

Everyone, even the cops,

Even the moviegoers,

That you really, physically, 

Cannot tell a lie

Without giving it away

With what you ate for breakfast.

Once people accepted that,

Their trust would be guaranteed.

As Groucho Marx joked,

The key to acting

Is sincerity.

Once you can fake that, you’re set.

I think the writers knew this,

Knew their victim heroine

Was brilliantly murderous,

Then waited to see who’d guess.

I imagine them, reading

Returns, still holding their breath,

Swallowing and swallowing

Truth that makes them nauseous.