“The client was lying. They always were. The question was which part.”

The man opposite me finished his story. I held my smile, all while my hands made a fist beneath the table, knuckles white in anger. They all believed themselves so clever, as if nobody before them had had the audacity to come before me and lie. As if they alone could see some hidden detail that would escape those like me, whom had spent years in the trade of worming out the truth from incomplete, unconvincing, insultingly detail-lacking tales exactly like the one I'd just heard. Their arrogance infuriated me, and not for the first time made wish I had chosen a different path in my youth. Still... the job had to be done. So I asked myself, for the upteenth time: were was the lie?

And yet, I felt the urge to deceive even as my hand unclenched beneath the table. I alone could make the best of this situation. Either my pen or my tongue would set this right.

Pen, I decided. A short, stiff, strongly worded letter, with just the right amount of grievances, a sprinkle of indignation, a glimmer of a well-veiled threat. Steer the reader just so; wait, watch.

But how could a pen be the weapon? Isn't the sword mightier? Especially when the victim was found with blood splatter indicative of a slashing motion. Though at times, the pen might be mightier.

Well, the truth never mattered much anyway. The next morning every news paper on earth was printing headlines like - ‘The Pen Strikes Again!’ , and ‘The Pen is Meatier than the sword - 50% off all deli meats’. The world never changes. One persons death was just another lazy marketing scheme for a quick cash grab. And that’s how this cookie crumbled. The End.