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P. 54
The Truth About Lying
“When we gained imagination,” Vincent said. “Curiosity. Seventy thousand years ago. Maybe more.”
“And vanity,” Claire muttered.
“And lying,” Henry said.
“Exactly.
Vincent pulled out a chair and sat.
“You know the story of Adam and Eve, Jinji?”
“The apple, the snake, the fall. Yeah,” she said. “I know it.”
“That’s the Sunday school version. Sit down. Let me give you my spin.” He nodded at Henry. “If that’s okay with you, Mister Spin Maestro?”
Henry smiled. The room quieted.
“Long before the first priest ever muttered a prayer, we were animals. Smart, but still animals. We hunted. We gathered. We survived. We didn’t wonder why the stars stayed in the sky. We just were. There was no ‘I.’ There was only ‘Now.’
“Then something changed.
“An evolutionary explosion that defies natural selection. Evolution is a slow crawl. This was a sprint.
“A creature looked into still water... and recognized itself.”
He let that sit.
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