So I have severe scars all over my legs. They are very dramatic.

When I was 19 I was a camp counselor with some horrible little demons under my care. All summer I told them I got the scars in a shark attack in Baja. I was very specific in every detail. They were enthralled. 1/3

Sometimes the only way I could get them to do anything but try to murder each other over Pokemon cards was to share a new detail about my shark attack. I was the Scheherezade of spoiled angry pre-teens.

At the end of the summer I told them the truth: 2/3

I ran through a plate glass door when I was 10.

They were stunned. They felt so betrayed. I told them that’s how I’d felt while they lied to me all summer.

We talked for a long time about lies & stories & sharks & doors. & at the end they asked for another shark story anyway

I’ve never forgotten. I think about it every time I look at my legs. How hard it was to keep up such a lie for so long, how much it thrilled them. How they didn’t tell one lie the whole final week of camp

And how, even though they knew it wasn’t real, they still wanted the story

In the end, they liked the lie & wanted more of it, because it spoke of a larger, dangerous, exciting world. They were willing to give up their anger & the moral high ground for more

And when I see people preaching Q*non out there, I think about the shark that never bit me.

I became a writer, obviously, because I am good at the exciting lie.

Other people are also good at it, & use their talents to invent different sharks, other waters, other lessons

Remember, when you see it, those kids begging for more sharks, because the truth just wasn’t as fun

But not just that.

They wanted the thrill they felt when they thought it was real. The fix of being near a story of blood & danger & monsters

They preferred that world to the real one. Eyes open, completely aware. They chose the monsters

Don’t be surprised when adults do, too.