Reality’s Illusion
Stephie Walls
Edited by
The Word Lyricist
Cover Designed by
Wicked By Design
Copyright © 2019 by Stephie Walls
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Warning to the Reader
Prologue
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Epilogue
Afterword
Playlist
About the Author
Also by Stephie Walls
Warning to the Reader
“Grief is the price we pay for love.”
Queen Elizabeth II
Prologue
Sera
A glimmer of hope could change my perspective, a chance encounter, a random person smiling at me on the street, a friendly cashier. The tiniest of meetings has the potential to save a person’s life—literally.
So much of who I am is hidden from the world, although I believe that is true of most of us. If people were to step back to evaluate who they truly are, they’d find dual personalities: the person they are when no one is watching and the public persona they allow others to see. I can’t prove that, but I think it’s true.
Most people don’t know who they truly are because they are afraid of what they might see if they examine themselves too closely. Humans are truly frightening beings. The public persona is what saves each of us from ourselves—keeping up that appearance, not allowing anyone to see the ugly truth—preventing destruction.
I am no different than anyone else.
My self is ugly.
The only difference between me and the majority of people in the world is that I see her—my self—daily. I talk to her. I know my self intimately, and, I admit, I hide her fiercely from the world. If people knew her, my life would be vastly different. Most days I am able to disguise her fairly well; the days she won’t stay in the closet are painful and difficult to get through. Those are the days that the chance encounters keep me from going dark.
Bastian Thames.
Chance encounter.
It has been years since I’ve seen him, and I was essentially a child then. I heard somewhere along the way that he’d given up painting but never really believed it to be true. An artist doesn’t quit; their craft is who they are at the core—it would be the equivalent of committing suicide.
When his name popped up on my friend request, that beautiful face…it was just short of euphoric, but at the very least, it probably saved my life that day.
I am a sculptor. It’s the only thing I’ve ever done. I love art of any kind, but getting my hands into clay is heaven. There’s nothing else like it—the feel on my skin, under my nails, the way it dries out my hands. But ultimately, it’s the control the clay offers; in a world where I’m powerless, that captivates me. I become a god when I’m sculpting—creating and molding something from nothing. If I can envision it, I can create it, bringing life to things that otherwise won’t exist.
That is power, and it is exhilarating.
I feel it in every piece I shape.
But aside from that, sculpting is an escape. It’s a place where people can’t reach me—they can’t touch my soul. I live in that world to escape reality.
My reality is a self-induced hell.
The bruises keep coming. I continue to hide them. I justify his behavior by convincing myself I deserve it—that the pain keeps me on edge and benefits my art.
The greater the suffering, the more brilliant the creativity. It’s true of all great artists in history, and I need it to be true for me.
I had survived one of the worst nights of my life the day Bastian appeared on my Facebook page. With fresh bruises showing through my pale skin, I was certain at least two of my fingers were broken. And since, Bastian is all that has kept me alive in the year that followed, but even he isn’t enough anymore. He can’t change who I am, and he can’t win the war that wages in my heart and mind. Hell, he can’t even help fight the battles.
The sting of the water makes that reality more true. I can’t hide behind the illusions anymore.
With the pain comes the realization that nothing will ever change. I will forever be bound by that constricting hell. I would chase happiness as if it were a prize to be won or auctioned off to the highest bidder, but the truth is, it doesn’t exist. Everyone always marches toward the next destination, the next stop on their journey, trying to make it to one more end, but the culmination of those experiences never gets them to the nirvana they seek.
Utopia isn’t an achievable destination on this side of eternity.
The prickly cold fades the deeper I sink. I don’t attempt to hold my breath as I succumb to the force of nature and allow myself to relax. There’s no drive to make it to the surface with the weight of my burdens taking me farther down. The darkness brings me the most peace I’ve felt in years.
No sound.
My body goes numb.
I allow it in.
Time ceases to exist, and my mind drifts through the events that brought me here. There was no good, no joy, no self-sacrifice. I am nothing but a speck in the universe.
The cold courses through my veins like heroin, one last fix. The last few minutes play over in my mind, walking down the streets, Bastian calling my name.
Sera.
Seraphim.
My mother had no idea she bore such a dark angel. My fall from grace was hard, evident by my broken body and soul. My only solace in the suffering I’ve brought others is the release they’ll soon feel, eliminating the burden of my truth and who I’ve become.
No one will ever know my punisher’s truth, not from my life. Other than Bastian, no one holds those squalid details.
In the end, we are all liars, tellers of the tallest tales. We masquerade as daydreams of whom we hope to become, weaving the intricate storylines we want the public to read. No one’s story is the one the cover presents to the reader because our false personas are the only truth we allow others to know.
We long for a place in life that has never existed, and we drone on, hoping to create an illusion that differs from reality. Ironically, happiness was the true chimera—reality’s illusion—it was the one thing we all hoped for, but in fact, is impossible to achieve.
Knowing that truth allows the end to come easily.
The silence offers reconciliation for the lies the world perpetuates.
1
Chapter One
Bastian
One Year Earlier
When Sylvie died, it left a colossal hole in me. I put on the plastic appearance people anticipated, but internally, I wept. Continuing through the monotony of my daily life, I increasingly found myself lost in what my
friends—well, the one I still had—referred to as my fictional world. The illusion of relationships on social media. The more time I spent on Facebook, the more entrenched I became in the false advertising that existed on the screen. I believed those “friends” were concerned for me; they were what relationships were in real life. Sadly, they seemed to be the only things that kept me hanging on. But the thread threatened to break daily, frayed from top to bottom. The tightly woven fabric that was once my life had deteriorated beyond recognition.
My life had held value; at one point, it had meaning. It was everything I had ever imagined it could be. Without Sylvie, black clouds rolled through my mind, hindering my ability to think, eliminating productivity, stifling my creativity. My art was as dead as I was. But online… Online I could be anything I wanted, whatever version of myself I decided to show the world. I didn’t have to be the pathetic artist who’d lost his muse. I wasn’t required to be the sweet, sensitive man Sylvie had loved. My personal reinvention was still a mystery, but the idea of being whatever still existed in my soul didn’t hold any appeal. Changing my persona had become my craft, anything to escape. Surely, there was art in recreating an identity.
That blue-and-white screen brought me comfort, the newsfeed a link to a conversation, touching base with people I’d known for years, but it also introduced the possibility of newcomers. The “friend recommendation” was the online equivalent to a safe introduction to someone new; at least it was in my mind. I always checked out the recommendations: other painters or singers who had known Sylvie—or people I barely recognized from high school or college. Yet every once in a while, some random person surfaced with no tie to my past.
Those were the connections I found most interesting, most appealing.
They were the safest, having no knowledge of the person I once was, or how all that remained of me was a fragmented shell. I had made several “friends” that way, people I would say I was close to—even though we’d never met and likely never would. That was my fictional world; the one my real friend didn’t understand and believed was emotionally damaging to me. I wasn’t processing my grief…blah, blah, blah. If I heard that shit one more time, I might scream. Strangling him held appeal, too.
As soon as I logged in, the familiar recommendations bombarded me as if the universe had played some cruel joke. There she was, my Sylvie…only her name was Sera Martin. A perfect duplicate with the same striking green eyes, long, chestnut-colored hair, high cheekbones, and luscious, pouty lips.
I hadn’t inhaled or exhaled.
I gasped, holding my breath until my lungs burned. I hadn’t seen Sylvie in years. The day she had died, I came home and stripped our house of any reminder—every picture, every video, every stitch of clothing, anything she loved. It all had to go. I couldn’t bear the weight of what the world had taken from me or what it would look like without her. If I discarded everything, she wouldn’t haunt me, and maybe, somehow, I would manage to learn to live again if reminders of her didn’t surround me.
Yet, her loss possessed me. Daily.
This girl. This Sera. Mother Nature had returned my Sylvie to me in a strange twist of fate. It was possible—after years of suffering, dying inside, barely hanging on—that my savior had come. Without hesitation, I clicked “add friend.”
Sera responded to my request with a private message.
Sera: Wow! Are you really Bastian Thames?
Not at all the response I’d expected.
Me: Yes. Have we met?
My heart raced as my wife’s doppelgänger typed. I would have remembered meeting this woman.
Sera: Once, although I doubt you’d recall. It was a couple years ago at a gallery on the West End.
Sera: Is this the real Bastian? Not some lurker claiming to be the famous artist?
Me: A far cry from famous, but yes, one and the same. Are you certain we met that night? I remember the opening.
Sera: You were with your wife. I’m not sure which was more beautiful, her or the nudes you had in the collection. That showing was the talk of the local art community for months.
Me: That was the last opening I did.
It seemed like ten lifetimes ago. I’d kill to go back to that night, to have one more day, one more kiss, one more anything with my wife. The loss never got easier.
Sera: Are you not painting anymore? I hate to admit that I lost track of your work when I went off to college. I was a huge fan.
Me: Life happened. I haven’t painted in some time.
Sera: I can’t imagine you quit. Surely you just stopped putting them out for the public.
Me: No. I haven’t so much as held a brush in five years.
Sera: That’s a shame.
Sera: Hey look, Bastian, I have to run out, but I accepted your request. I hope we can talk some later. Maybe you’ll let me pick your brain about a project I’m working on?
Me: Of course. I hope to hear from you soon.
Sera: Bye
Me: Later
My mind raced with possibilities as I searched her profile for information. I needed to know as much as possible before our next conversation—assuming one came. Twenty-five. Graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a Masters in Fine Arts. And holy hell, she was a sculptor.
If those were photos of her work, she had phenomenal talent. Despite how long I searched, her profile only provided surface-level information with virtually nothing personal. Her photos were with other artists or at galleries or in a studio. Her wall was littered with the proverbial Facebook bullshit: posts by other artists, artwork memes, jokes, nothing of importance.
But one picture kept me from closing the page. Two beautiful women, scantily clad, one bent over and the other yielding a paddle, and the words, “Someone’s been a bad girl.” Jesus Christ. There were one hundred eighty-four comments and two hundred fifty-three likes on the thread posted by Maria Martin.
I clicked on Maria’s name, assuming she was a sister or cousin, not expecting it to be Sera’s mom. No mother in her right mind should post that kind of thing on her daughter’s Facebook wall, but the banter was cheeky and fun—and full of insight.
That one picture, one conversation, told me scads about Sera, not about her work, but what she enjoyed or possibly just fantasized about—intimately. Her responses ignited a fire in an area of my anatomy I thought had died with Sylvie. As my cock twitched, that old familiar heat seeped through my crotch, and a warm sensation settled in my balls.
I stopped myself from reaching into my pants and rubbing one out. I was staring at dialogue—about a woman who could be my dead wife’s twin—between people I didn’t know. It was morbid, really. The creepy feeling of perversion pushed aside the lust, and I set my computer on the nightstand. Although, I didn’t close the laptop for fear of missing a message from Sera.
Lying back, I stared at the all-too-familiar ceiling. I knew every blemish on the drywall with aching familiarity. The depth of my pain was so fathomless, I often wondered how I had made it to the next day without feeling the cold steel in my hand, without pulling the trigger.
2
Chapter Two
I opened my eyes, fighting the pull of drowsiness. The final light before sundown peered through my window like the bleak brightness that struggled to break through to my soul. My room—normally a tomb of darkness—was illuminated in a romantic light. The shadows danced on the walls, generating a creative tickle I hadn’t felt in years. What I wouldn’t give to have the desire to paint, to once again see the world as a continuous canvas where the oils and acrylics brought my imagination to life. Even if I could manage the urge, I didn’t have any brushes or anything else that resembled art supplies.
A hint of laughter escaped my lips as I snickered, and an image of my creating a masterpiece with my fingers came to mind. Inspiration sparked and ignited my soul. It might have been a tiny flame, but it could also be the start of an inferno.
Jumping out of bed, I ran across the floor, nearly fall
ing as I went. Halfway through the living room, I stopped and turned on the ball of my foot. It took seconds to grab my laptop from my nightstand and continue to the kitchen.
Jesus.
I worked quickly—afraid the inspiration would fade if I didn’t harness it—with my computer connected to Bluetooth, music filled the air. A playlist I hadn’t heard in ages broke the silence, and I stopped mid-step, soaking in the sensation that used to drive my creativity. As memories flooded my mind, an air of sadness seeped in. I had to remind myself, this was just a whim; it wasn’t serious art—it was juvenile and elementary.
But…
I was free to create without criticizing eyes.
No one else would see.
I didn’t even know what this would be.
Desperate to find mediums, I opened the pantry, grabbing peanut butter, jelly, bread, peas, crackers, and canned beans. In the fridge, I found raspberries, blueberries, cream cheese. Anything with texture and color made its way to the counter. The cabinets remained open, and the kitchen was in total disarray. Using cereal bowls, I mixed my pallet of fruits and cream cheese. The more vibrant the color that emerged, the quicker my heart strummed. Adrenaline pulsed through me as the most vivacious tones appeared.
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