# The Ziggurat and the "petite" lie *The Urth list — 2 messages, 1 voices, 29 Aug 2008* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### Dave Tallman *29 Aug 2008, 01:09* There's something very strange at the end of "The Ziggurat." Emery is trying to lie his way out of trouble and he tells the police that "Tamar" is an exchange student who is staying with them. A little later he says: "My wife calls her petite." The lie came easily, unbidden. What's going on here? He's telling a lie his wife can contradict. That might make sense if they had a loving relationship and could collude beforehand, but they are adversaries in a divorce case. Another possible explanation is that he knows his wife and kids are dead. So do we need to dust off the Maximum Delusion theory I've seen in the archives? --- ### Dave Tallman *29 Aug 2008, 11:36 · in reply to Dave Tallman* > What's going on here? He's telling a lie his wife can contradict. That > might make sense if they had a loving relationship and could collude > beforehand, but they are adversaries in a divorce case. Another possible > explanation is that he knows his wife and kids are dead. So do we need > to dust off the Maximum Delusion theory I've seen in the archives It looks like he just isn't thinking clearly, which is understandable. He doesn't believe his wife is dead, because he whispers to Tamar that his wife will not want a divorce after she learns of the new company. Tamar is asleep and doesn't understand everything he says, so there is no reason for him to lie to her. ---