Root of all secrets

humour

‘Ping’ went the doorbell. When I opened the door, Mrs B bustled in. There was a gleam in her eye and, I suspected, a juicy morsel in her mouth. I was right. She had hardly settled herself on the sofa before she burst out with, “Do you know the latest secret? Mrs V is expecting again. Not that she wanted to tell me. It just slipped out of her inadvertently.”

“Is that so?” I answered, adding in my own mind that now, with both of us in the know of things, it certainly wasn’t a secret anymore. However, I was being unfair. After all, how long does such a thing remain hidden? Time has its own way of divulging it and bringing it down eventually to a happy ending.

Who does not love a secret? Whether you are nine or 90, getting hold of a secret is an exciting thing. As the old lines have it, ‘We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.’ The secret of success is often the success of a secret. From time immemorial, they have served to mould destinies — not one’s own, but that of others. The Oracles of ancient Greece were much celebrated and sought after for their prescience. However this, more often than not, derived not from their knowledge of the future, but from the craft of ambiguity. When the King of Lydia inquired what would happen if he attacked Persia, he was told that a great kingdom would be destroyed. He assumed that the kingdom was Persia. Alas, it was he who was utterly defeated. 

Quacks have many a ruse up their sleeves to preserve their clientele. ‘Do not think of the pink elephant when you take these tablets,’ advised one. And that is precisely what popped into the victim’s mind as soon as he picked up the pills. Where would great and good literature be without the aid of secrets? The mark of a good storyteller is never to give away secrets in advance. Whether a short story, novel, drama or even a speech, that is where the interest, suspense and thrills lie. Fiction is best enjoyed when there is a beginning, middle and last, a secret, revealed, as in the Merchant of Venice or in the unforgettable mysteries of Alfred Hitchcock. 

Do you have any dark secrets? This little boy had one, but it came into the open, thanks to the solicitous enquiries of an old lady. What he did was to sell pastries to hungry churchgoers as they emerged after an hour-long sermon. His display was a truly scrumptious one and one day the kindly lady stopped by and asked him, “Don’t you ever feel tempted to eat one, my son?” Back came the reply, “No ma’am, I only lick them!”

Many are the skeletons hiding in our cupboards. One young thing confessed that she gets her back on the bully of a brother by cutting off his shirt buttons. An irate man admitted that his disagreeable neighbours provoked him at times into throwing his rubbish into their garden. And then there is this friend who was suddenly struck by a dreadful thought. What if she dropped dead without a warning? Her diaries contained many confessions that did not exactly cover her with glory. Perhaps she should specify in her will that they be confined to flames unopened.

It is said that none are so fond of secrets as those that do not mean to keep them. Can you keep them? Shhh... don’t answer, for if you cannot, no one will trust you with one!