Daniel's Nose

Daniel's Nose(Alan M. Toback) The boy with a big nose, he hears it from whispered voices. He often tells a lie because the truth only can get him into trouble quicker. His name is Danny and has been equated to be much like Pinocchio who told lie upon lie and his wooden nose grew longer.

This boy, not realizing that he just got into more trouble than the truth would have, non-chalantly said what his immature mind told him to say. Everybody he spoke to would know the things he said were not always true, so they listened with muted ears. “He must grow-up and start realizing that falsehoods don’t get him anywhere in life,” they said. Daniel’s future seemed ominous the way it was progressing.

He was very lonely in his world. No friends would ask him to visit or come over and play. The world is cruel, he would think, and I must force myself upon it in an interesting way. A little lie now and then is okay and I will be loved and liked by many. The torment he was experiencing deprived him of sleep many nights, as Daniel watched the orange glow of sunrise.

How wrong he was to think he was not liked just for being himself. Daniel really cannot be completely faulted because lying was never shown to him. He came from a broken home, father dead and mom working twelve-hour shifts to make ends meet. He was to be found on street corners after school with a rough bunch of boys. He so wanted to fit in with them that he picked-up the bad language and personality these “tough guys” would project, though he knew it wasn’t really him. Sometimes he would look up into the night sky and feel the loneliness of moonlight streaming just on him.

Deep down inside him, a voice would yell, “Hey, that is wrong; don’t do it,” or “Get away from this group of losers.” Nevertheless, his lonely mind would sway him to stick with them.

Looking in the dresser mirror one morning, he thought there was a reflection of a wooden doll with a long nose staring back at him. ‘No, it couldn’t be … not him; (he remembered the tale of Pinocchio) they are only little lies, small untruths not meant to hurt anyone’.

The voice grew louder, deep inside him. It said, “Yes, it is you, telling lie after lie to make yourself a big man before others.” It is a false you! You really are a good-hearted lad if shown to the world. Let the real you overpower this false part. Just be yourself and let people like the real you!

He grew into a fine man and is now a minister of the church in his family’s neighborhood.