A Shred of Truth Read Online Free PDF Page A

area with a container of chai.
    “You leaving us again?”
    “S’up, Diesel? Yeah, I have a … meeting this afternoon.”
    He dropped the chai on the counter, causing utensils to rattle in the drawers.
    “Careful there.” I pointed to a pallet of recently delivered supplies. “Think you can unload that while I’m gone?”
    “Why not? I’m used to picking up the slack.”
    “Slack? You did get your paycheck yesterday, didn’t you?”
    His cold and translucent eyes glanced up, then looked away. With his habit of chugging ahead regardless of consequences, Diesel Hillcrest’s nickname fit far better than Desmond. A lumbering kid from Ohio, he has the stocky look of a farm boy and a deep voice that I suspect hides scars of a rough childhood. He also possesses a restless intellect, which helped him get into the local Psi Chi honor society. We first met in my social psych class at Lipscomb University.
    “Here.” I grabbed a pair of tin snips. “Gimme a hand.”
    “Don’t worry, boss. I’ve got it covered.”
    “C’mon. Things’ll go faster with both of us.”
    After a couple of minutes of stacking boxes of Ghirardelli chocolate under the counter, his demeanor turned playful. He pointed at me and cocked his thumb. “Okay. Pop quiz.”
    “Right now?”
    “No fear,” he goaded. “Just sharpening you for Monday’s final exam.”
    “Don’t we have a study session tomorrow? Over at Sara’s?”
    “Figure you could use extra help, being the oldest in the class.”
    “I’m twenty-eight.”
    “Like I said. So here goes.”
    I groaned and handed over another load.
    “Choose the true statement: chewing gum takes seven years to pass through the digestive system, the first TV couple shown in bed together wasFred and Wilma Flintstone, or Osama bin Laden was once slated to be
Time
magazine’s Man of the Year.”
    “That one. About bin Laden.”
    “You sure?” He waited for my nod. “Wrong-o! But thank you for playing.”
    “Number two then.”
    “Wrong again.” A high-pitched buzzer sound. “None of them are true. Two days till our group final, and you still can’t tell falsehood from fact?”
    “Watch it now.”
    “All right. All right.”
    He backed off, but I had to admit he had me. I’d been a victim last year of a deception that had stirred all sorts of questions and murky emotions. What made us tick? What drove some people to murder and betrayal? And why did I always seem to attract trouble? In a move my mother would’ve endorsed, I enrolled for night courses at Lipscomb to see if an education in Christian truth and principles might provide a beacon of hope.
    A few weeks back our professor had assigned us a project titled “Legends and Lies: Cultural Susceptibility in a Secular Age.” He’d told us to create an urban legend to disseminate via word of mouth and on the Internet. Diesel and I were teamed up with Sara, a girl from East Tennessee, and we brain-stormed and voted on an idea to float in online chat rooms, forums, message boards, and mass e-mails. Diesel even submitted it to Wikipedia, carefully couched among actual facts.
    Ironic, huh? I was trying to understand truth by perpetuating a lie.
    On Monday at last we would unveil our legend to the class and receive our score on its plausibility, scope of propagation, and an oral presentation exploring the public perception that determines a legend’s success.
    “Diesel, listen. I won’t let you down.”
    “We’re counting on you, man.” He put away another box. “I know you’retaking this class for your own enlightenment or whatever, but I need an A. You hear me?”
    “Shouldn’t be a problem. You’re already acing the class.”
    “Try telling that to my parents. They just got here from Columbus for the weekend, and my dad’s already reminded me twice of the money they saved for years to get me here. Like I’m their prize racehorse waiting in the gate. Go, Desmond, go!”
    “Dude, that’s not right.”
    “It’s no