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Strange Visitor From Another Planet: Burton Newcomb
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“Sure,” the young reporter says, like it’s the most natural thing in the world, and I can’t help but frown and pause and look over at him. Not just for interrupting me (youngsters these days just don’t know that they’re supposed to listen to their elders), but also because the response seems a little strange.
“Sure,” he says, and I wonder what kind of life he’s led to make him look as if he really does know what it’s like to have a secret stashed away inside, a secret so big it makes it impossible to talk to anyone or meet anyone new or even walk down the street without looking at everyone and everything suspiciously, warily, as apprehensively as if you are in enemy territory.
This young reporter, this Clark Kent, has an open face, honest and unassuming, but I’ve known soldiers younger than him who looked just as guileless yet had seen war, so maybe it shouldn’t have come as such a surprise. But it does. Because he radiates honesty in a way few others can, and even when his partner looks at him in surprised derision, he doesn’t close down, just sputters out some line about sources.
I know what it’s like to have a secret festering inside you. I know what it’s like to hide it from everyone close to you--the lack of a wife or kids or any friends in this house can attest to that. I even know what it’s like to hide a secret behind a façade. So maybe this Kent actually does have a secret.
If so, he’s managed to handle it far better than I could. Or maybe it’s just because he’s young. Life hasn’t had a chance to sink its claws into him yet, hasn’t managed to thoroughly disillusion him and weight him down with all its burdens. As I well know, the world isn’t kind to those who hold secrets, and lies get crueler and harsher the longer they drip out of your mouth. Maybe one day, if he comes back (though considering the secret I’m keeping, I certainly hope he doesn’t have cause to want to talk to me again), I’ll look at him and see the lines etched into his face, the scars drawn by deception and fear.
I hope not. The secrets I keep aren’t worth the lies I told to keep them, that’s for sure. And giving these determined reporters a bit of help, even backhanded help I can’t (or won’t) admit to, isn’t going to make my own burdened past any lighter. But maybe, just maybe, it’ll help this young man realize that secrets always come to light sooner or later, and it’s never in the way you want.
Or maybe he already knows it. Maybe that’s why he can look so hopeful and unaffected by his secret--knowing that one day the secrecy will end might be what allows him to keep that hope shining there behind his thick glasses.
I don’t know. And truthfully, I don’t *want* to know.
I’ve had enough of secrets--a lifetime and more of secrets I couldn’t stomach even when I thought I was doing the right thing. So I’ll give them my secret and I’ll let them walk away and I’ll hope I never have to see them again.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll learn how to live my life *without* secrets.
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