The Day of Truth

Every year, on the 14th of October, the town of Alderbridge wakes up with a strange, heavy stillness.

It’s not a public holiday. There are no parades, no banners, no school closures. But everyone knows what day it is.

It’s Truth Day—and no one, not even a child, can tell a lie.

No one knows why it started.

Some say it began a hundred years ago when a traveling preacher cursed the town after being exposed as a fraud. Others whisper about a forgotten god who demanded a single day of honesty from a world of deception.

The historians say nothing about it at all.

But it’s real.

Once a year, no lie can cross a person's lips—not even a white one. Not even one meant to protect. Not even one to save.

People prepare for it like a storm.

Secrets are buried deeper. Conversations are avoided. Apologies rehearsed. Some people take the day off. Others lock themselves indoors and refuse to speak.

And a few—the brave, or foolish—see it as a day of reckoning.

This year, nineteen-year-old Emory Lake stood at her bedroom window, watching the sky turn from ash to rose.

The clock read 6:59 AM.

The second hand ticked.

Then the town bell rang.

7:00 AM.

It began.

At breakfast, her mother sat at the table, fingers wrapped around her coffee cup. Emory knew she wouldn’t speak unless necessary.

It was safest that way.

But Emory had rehearsed all week.

“I know,” she said softly, “that you found the acceptance letter.”

Her mother didn’t look up.

“To the writing program in Paris.”

Still, no response.

“I also know you never mailed my reply.”

The silence stretched.

“I want to go,” Emory said. “And I’m going.”

Her mother’s lips parted, trembling. She was fighting it.

But then, the truth came, ragged and raw:

“I was afraid you’d never come back.”

At the bakery, Mr. Halbrook—the town’s mayor—handed a chocolate muffin to his wife and said, “It’s not that I don’t love you. I just don’t want to be married anymore.”

A customer at the counter dropped her coffee.

Outside, a child clutched her father’s hand and asked, “Why didn’t you come see me last weekend?”

He opened his mouth.

“I was with someone else.”

The child nodded, as if she already knew.

For the people of Alderbridge, the truth was a weight—and a balm.

Old enemies found apologies waiting on their tongues.

Friends learned how often they’d hurt each other without meaning to.

Lovers either deepened their bonds or unraveled them.

And in rare moments, truth became something holy.

At 10:14 AM, Emory stood in front of the library.

She had one more truth to speak.

One more wound to press her hand against.

She found him in the reading room.

Caleb, with ink-stained fingers and that crooked smile that hadn’t faded since they were sixteen.

“Did you mean it?” she asked.

He looked up, startled.

“What I heard you say last Truth Day. About me.”

He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t.

“I did,” he said. “I do.”

He looked away, then added, “But you never said anything back.”

“I was scared.”

Now it was her turn.

She took a breath.

“I still am. But I love you too.”

The air shimmered between them—not with magic, but with clarity.

It didn’t fix everything.

But it started something.

And that was enough.

By 7:01 the next morning, the spell—or curse, or blessing—lifted.

People returned to small lies and half-truths. “I’m fine.” “I’m busy.” “I’ll call you back.”

But something always stayed.

Wounds began to heal where truth had poured in.

Children grew into adults who remembered which questions made their parents cry.

Some couples divorced.

Others remarried.

And some, like Emory and Caleb, dared to speak the truth every day.

Not just once a year.