In the casket laid Hubert Freckle. His family gathered to honor his passing. They all wore black. Not one of them had a lie left.

Though they had been warned against a eulogy, his son said he had to try. No matter what may happen, his father had asked for one in the will.

His son, Hubert the second, stood before the audience. He painfully tried to push the words he wrote for the eulogy from his lips. The sentences started so well. “You know, I always loved it when… I’ll always remember the… One day, my father took me out for ice cream. He forgot his wallet, and so…”

He tried hard to force a decent truth from his lips. The sweat dripped off his head. The crowd waited to see if he had a lie left. He kept starting sentences that ended as failures. There was no truth that worked and no lies to be had.

The daughter of the deceased stood as she saw her brother struggle. “Sit down. It’s just making it worse.”

“No…no…I can…can’t…I can’t lie about him. He was a horrible human being. Yes. I will speak ill of the dead. You want to know why I can’t lie? That jerk made me lie. He made me lie for him.”

The crowd started talking truth to one another. The truth was they were interested. A distant family member called out, “He did it to me, too. The bastard! Interviews were impossible afterward!”

The deceased’s wife stood. “When we got to the altar…I said I loved him. He tried to say it. He ended up saying he loved saying he loved me when other people were listening. He was a goo—goo—I hated that bastard! I hope he goes to hell! He never loved me!”

The daughter helped her back down to her seat.

The son called everyone back up to the front. “I remember when I was a teenager, and he brought home this college coed. He told me never to tell mother the truth.”

His mother cried from the audience. “You told me she was your girlfriend.”

“No. I had to lie because I walked in on them. He said he’d never forget if I didn’t lie for him. Honest to Jesus, why did we even have this ceremony? There was no good that could have come from it.” He turned to his father’s body, slammed close the casket, and said, “I bet you’re laughing at us. You did this.”