Lying

Hiding my frown under a smile, I try distraction.

“When’s our food coming?” I asked.

“Any minute now. Now tell me, when you were in that room, you switched on your flashlight. What did you see?”

“Oh, you know,” I said.

“No, I don’t.”

“Um, stuff. Old stuff. Dusty. Statues, those jars…I don’t know. Stuff. The kinda stuff you’d expect to find in an ancient Egyptian tomb.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You’re lying,” he said.

“Hahahaha,” I laughed nervously. “Oh look, our food’s here.”

We thanked the waitress, but his eyes bored into me as she set our plates down.

“Ancient Egyptian tombs have mummies inside.”

“Well, of course,” I agreed.

“The centerpiece, the sarcophagus.”

I nodded.

“The one thing, the most obvious thing, which you failed to mention.”

“Just slipped my mind,” I said.

“Uh-hu,” he nodded. “Because it’s the one thing you don’t want to talk about.”

“Hey, come on. Maybe the box was already empty. What? Like I put a 10,000 year old mummy in my back pocket and strolled on back out.”

“So, what did you see when you fell down there?”

I was running out of lies.