The Rest Is Illusion

by Eric Arvin

  “What did you do that for?” Ashley asked dismayed, his voice panic-laden.

  “I thought,” Sarah shouted out. “I thought I saw Wilder by the window. I wanted to get…. I swear he was standing right there.” She broke into a sweat and quaked in dread. Her stomach sickened. Ashley took her into his embrace.

  “It’s all right,” he whispered, looking around them. “Let’s leave before anybody sees.” He took her by the hand, and they ran unseen to a denser part of campus. She nearly had to be dragged, still reeling from the shock.

  They found a large spruce and hid under it. Sarah wept and shook as Ashley held on to her.

  “I hate him, I hate him,” she said between halting sobs. And, strangely, her father’s face suddenly appeared in her mind.

  REACTION. HE was waiting for it. Expecting it. As soon as the snow left the palm of his hand, he knew some angry response would come. Before it even struck Dash, Wilder knew Tony would react. Some protective show of strength usually reserved for boys and their girlfriends would surface. Something primal. Basic. Instinctive.

  Wilder waited on a stone bench outside of Raven Hall, knees together. He hadn’t even bothered to sweep the heavy snow from the hard surface. He sat on it, feeling the fierce cold and the bitter pain rip through his thighs and legs. But he kept his jaw set, unwilling to let the weakness engulf him. Soon, the pain from the ice turned to numbness.

  A complete quiet calm of oblique despondency descended on him, a trance of needlessness and emptiness anchored to him by his father since childhood. Yet as quick as it came, he tossed it out of the reach of the child’s voice still within. He had no use for such self-indulgence. His mind was set right again.

  He had made his way back to Raven, leaving Dash whimpering in the snow under the great horrible tree, paying no attention to the gathering horde of students rushing to the Point. They ran past him, brushing against his coat, and he felt disgust for each one of them, for their easily distracted minds. He strode past the questions and wrong answers that flew all around him, waved them away like bothersome gnats. He had no time to converse with them. Wilder needed to get to his room. To get to the folders.

  So he waited for Tony’s retribution, for Dashel’s retribution. The wait was not long. In short order, the Protector appeared.

  Tony Votts, magnificent in his projected rage.

  KICKING THROUGH the thick snow, Tony had a single thought on his mind: beat the living shit out of Wilder Rawls. He’d discharge his fury and anger through his fists. Wilder’s assault on Dash wasn’t the sole cause of Tony’s rage, but the attack was certainly the catalyst. Tony had an excuse to unleash his violent resentment toward the world. Resentment grown to monstrous wrath from having been kept hidden in dark places. Resentment toward a world that lectured him about who he could and could not be. A rule-obsessed world. Now, finally, he’d found an appropriate, completely understandable outlet for his rage, beating the shit out of a politician’s smug son. The living shit. Nothing less.

  And yet, Dashel could not be totally dismissed. Something about him caused Tony’s heart to quicken. When Dash was wrenching in pain, Tony had panicked. And there had been something between them on the slope beneath the tree, an indefinable warmth flashing through him like a lost bolt of lightning. As if a soft breath and a heavy snooze had mingled and evolved into something even more relaxing and placid.

  Approaching Raven, he saw a figure seated on a stone bench to one side of the building. He veered in its direction with a harsh swoosh through the snow. Wilder, who had been hunched over in thought, straightened his posture as he saw Tony coming closer. Coming closer rapidly.

  Tony almost leapt at Wilder. Wilder jumped to his feet, but Tony hit him hard across the face and sent him sprawling to the snowy ground a few feet away, clutching his jaw. As he fell, Tony noticed that his coat opened, and a whole bunch of photos tumbled out. He came at Wilder again, inebriated from the full keg of rage in the pit of his stomach.

  “Wait!” Wilder screamed, holding up one hand, the other still clutched to his face. Blood dripped from his nose onto his shirt. “The pictures…. Look at the pictures, Tony,” Wilder gasped. His breathing was labored, and every so often he choked on his blood. “Recognize anything?” He narrowed his eyes menacingly.

  Tony looked at Wilder in confusion. He still wanted to strike out in blind maddened anger, but he glanced down at a photo at his feet. The image hit him like a tackle on the field, knocking his thoughts off kilter. His mind swam with a peculiar vertigo.

  “Guess you don’t remember last night, huh?” Wilder said as he rose to his feet. He picked up the photo as he stood. “That’s my dick in your mouth,” he said, drawing slowly closer to Tony, thrusting the picture in his face.

  Tony began collecting all the scattered pictures on the ground with frantic abandon. The crowd surrounding Tony and Wilder was growing. After Tony had them all in a disarrayed jumble in his hands, Wilder came closer still.

  “I have negatives. And they’re not in my room, so don’t even think about looking for them there. I have them hidden away.” Wilder wiped some of the blood from his nose, watching it dry on his palm. He was face-to-face with Tony, who stared, frightened and dazed, back at him. “What have you gotten yourself into, Tony?” Wilder smirked. “Are you done trying to defend Dash? Are you? Or should I give these pretty pictures a pass-around to the crowd here?” he whispered.

  Tony hugged the wrinkled photos tighter to his chest, his knuckles turning white from the strength of his hold on them. “How,” he stuttered. “I don’t remember….” He wasn’t really looking at Wilder, but into a fragmented memory of the previous night.

  Wilder laughed uncomfortably loud. “Of course you don’t. You were so fucking drunk!” He put his arm around Tony, who grimaced. “But you know what my favorite part was? Huh? My favorite part was when I sat on your chest and came all over that pretty face,” he said, tapping Tony’s chin.

  Tony was a statue, completely devoid of a response.

  “Now, listen,” Wilder said as he stiffened, and his voice took on an air of threat Tony was unfamiliar with. “All you have to do is what I say. This is like the movies. This is like that scene where I take over control of your company. You’ve just been hired. Got it?” Possessed. “Don’t feel bad, Tony. Some people are meant to lead, most are meant to follow. You’re a follower is all.” He grinned victoriously, then let go of Tony’s shoulder and turned to the crowd.

  “It’s cool. We’re cool. Just a little misunderstanding. Right, Tony?” Wilder nudged Tony’s side. Tony was still lost, still trying to piece together buried incidents.

  “Right,” Tony whispered.

  “Right,” Wilder retorted so Tony alone could hear.

  Tony looked into the small crowd of students. They seemed disconnected, like cardboard cut-outs or flat replicas. Yet he saw one familiar face. An understanding face. Everyone else looked alien, faceless. But Maggie Parma…. Maggie looked as if she might cry for him.

  Chapter Five

  “WE SHOULD tell them what Wilder did,” Sarah said, regaining her composure under the spruce. “They’ll kick him out. They’ll have to.” She had a determined look in her eyes.

  “They won’t do anything to him,” Ashley answered. “He’ll say it was an accident, that he was just playing around. It was a snowball fight after all. And he is Wilder Rawls, the son of a very powerful politician around here. There’s nothing doin’, Sarah.”

  “But something’s got to happen! Wilder can’t get away with it. Not again.” Sarah almost became shrill. Her voice reached a crescendo before she steadied herself. “It’s not right. You know what he did to Dash. What he’s done.”

  “You’re right, Sarah,” Ashley said calmly. “It’s not fair or right, but I think Dash would rather find justice for past grievances on his own terms. You saw the way he was this afternoon. He didn’t seem angry at all.”

  “Because he’s given up!” Sarah snapped.

  “No
… maybe… I don’t know.” Ashley was still contemplating Dashel’s choice to keep his malady secret. “I think it’s because he’s found some peace of mind at last. Apparently, this illness is something he’s had to deal with for a long time without any support from us. Why he decided to keep it secret and hidden is his own business. The truth is, I wish he had told us. We could have helped, been there.” He was troubled. It suddenly hit him he felt betrayed by Dash for not at least telling him of the sickness. Ashley’s demeanor darkened, his eyes fierce and red, and Sarah understood the look completely.

  “Me too,” she said, regaining her calm composure. “I feel betrayed, too.” She put her hand in his. A clump of snow fell off a branch and landed with a dull thud in the gleaming powder below.

  “Do you still love him?” Ashley inquired. “Did you ever stop?”

  “The truth?” she asked. “Yes. I guess I still do, though the way I feel about him has changed somewhat. I don’t quite know how to explain it, but I feel more connected to him than before. I mean, when I was just the girl who had a crush on him, that’s just what it was. But after I found out he was gay, it was like this wall disappeared, or a door opened, and he let me into a whole other part of him. A secret and special part very few get to see. I think I like it much better.” Sarah tightened her grip on Ashley’s hand. “You get to see that part of him too, don’t you?”

  “I do,” Ashley whispered. “We’re the lucky ones, huh?”

  He took in a deep breath, a signal for Sarah to get up and leave the comfort and shelter of the pine tree behind. They rose together, their hands still clasped as they cleared the low-hanging branches in the late afternoon sun.

  “I don’t want to go back,” Ashley said. He was thinking about things said and unsaid, secrets kept. “To campus, I mean. I want to stay out here. You go on if you want. I’m going to take a walk. Clear my head.” He shook his head in worry. “Dash,” he whispered.

  “A walk sounds nice. Do you mind if I tag along?” Sarah asked, her eyes glistening. She didn’t want to be alone. Or rather, she didn’t want to be alone with anyone else.

  “That would be great,” Ashley smiled, relieved. “First, let me call the hospital and see if Dash has a room yet,” he said, pulling out his cell phone.

  Once that was done and the cheerful woman on the other end had informed Ashley that Dashel had been assigned a room, but could not take any calls at the moment, Ashley took Sarah’s hand again.

  “Where to?” Sarah asked as they headed in the opposite direction of the morning’s upheaval and the broken chapel window. The deep blanket of undisturbed snow made walking very difficult.

  “I know a place,” Ashley said playfully as he gestured a finger to his pale lips in a secretive hush. “It’s where I go when I want to think or just get away from things. We can’t do anything for Dash right now, so maybe we just need to get away. They’ll be asking everyone on campus about that window. Let’s just hope nobody saw anything.” Sarah tightened her hand around his.

  “Don’t worry.” He smiled warmly. “It’s just a window, and a chapel is just a building.”

  WILDER SWABBED at his bloodied nose with a crumpled tissue, the stale, sickly off-white type the college provided, the kind that hurt a sensitive nose already aching from a winter sniffle. Wilder wiped at the remaining blood that dried in the inner linings of his nostrils. It was a victor’s blood he was holding in the tissue. Wilder closed his eyes and squeezed the tissue, as if absorbing the thought into his skin. His father would be most proud, of the way he was able to bring Tony to his knees, of his outthinking the supposed stronger individual.

  And yet, something in that thought diminished the moment’s excitement. Wilder opened his eyes, and a frown appeared in the mirror. His satisfaction was washed away, replaced with something older and more malevolent. His father had never shown pride in anything he did. Why is my conquest of Tony any different?

  The tissue fell to the floor, crumpled, bloody, and stiff. The sobering thought of his father reeled Wilder back to the reality of the plain, lifeless room in which he was standing. His triumph was stunted by the old man again.

  Behind him, he noticed Maggie Parma getting more and more uncomfortable and agitated. She had been standing there for a while. He had seen her in the crowd when he bested Tony. She couldn’t elude his gaze. He had gestured her over and told her to meet him in his room. And here she was, apprehensive and shaking. Standing behind Wilder like a long-buried statue, so fragile any sudden movement might crack or shake loose an arm. She said nothing, standing instead in dreaded anticipation of what was to come.

  “I don’t want to do anything with you tonight, Maggie. Not what you think, anyway,” Wilder said with a sneer. “But there is something.” He turned away from his reflection and faced her. She was so mousy. So petite. Her brown hair was cut short, so her ears protruded just a bit. It made her look elfin, like a sad, troubled sprite.

  Maggie mouthed the word “what,” but nothing came out.

  “Follow Tony. Keep an eye on him tonight. Watch the house. If he leaves, I want to know.” He stated things coldly, like a mechanical door clanging open and shut.

  “I… I have a test. I need to study….” Her voice was frail. Insignificant. It annoyed him.

  “Bitch, do I need to remind you what I can do to you? To your fucking worthless life?” Wilder strolled up to her. She looked away and nodded in resignation.

  “Now go,” Wilder said.

  She left quickly, defeated and despairing.

  “WHERE ARE we going?” Sarah asked with a tinge of exasperation. Ashley enjoyed surprises, and he figured other people liked them as well.

  “Trust me,” Ashley said. “You’ll love it. It’s my favorite place in the whole world. I don’t think anybody else knows about it. I’ve never seen any hint of another Veronan there.”

  He gripped her hand as he led her down a steep path onto an area of the campus less frequently used. The sloped landscape was dotted with glistening boulders and stiff trees. As they strolled carefully through the deep powder into the beginnings of the woods that bordered the school, the trees grew more numerous and dense, and the incline steepened.

  The forest became ethereal, having been swept over by the great snowstorm. Throughout the day, the tall trees hardly let in any sun, their branches thick and heavy with ice. As Sarah and Ashley descended farther down into the forested vale, the effect became more magical, more eye-opening. Every thorn bush and tree stump, every broken limb and twisted twig had transformed into crystal glass. When a crack of sunlight did find its way through the canopy, it danced about wildly on the snow. It was a dazzling, hidden world surrounding the college, and Sarah and Ashley were adventurers in the strange, beautiful land.

  “I’ve never seen it like this before,” Ashley gasped, eyes wide with innocent wonder, gazing from side to side in reverence.

  The vale was winter silent. Not a sound or echo could be heard as the crisp air sucked up anything audible, like a sponge.

  “I feel like we’re disturbing it, like we’re not supposed to be here or see any of this,” Sarah whispered as if the trees and bushes might awaken and shed their new winter garments with shudders and shakes. “I’ve never…,” she began, but stopped as a warm tingle ran through her entire body.

  The journey to the bottom of the vale was impeded by ice. The sun was probably higher in the sky, though the forest’s veil made it impossible to tell. The trees had obstructed any hint of sunbeam. Light still surrounded them, though, as if the valley floor itself was exhaling fluorescence. It echoed down into the valley from snowdrift to tree branch, creating a bluish glow far and wide.

  Far below, Sarah and Ashley stood at the bottom of everything, hand in hand, silent in a stilled creek bed. They were at one in the mettle of the natural world, covered and sheltered, serenely safe in the very arms of Mother Earth. The world was silent. Not even the call of a bird or the snap of a twig punctuated the moment. The trees could tell
no secrets because everything could be heard plainly.

  “This is amazing,” Sarah breathed out. Words did the space no justice. “There’s nothing here at all, is there? Not a bird or bug?”

  The canopy above them was like the dome of a crystal cathedral, and they its worshippers. Smaller trees, somber parishioners, stood nearby on the banks and hills, unmoving and prayerful. Fallen timber made pews, and the silver air was the songbook.

  “There are millions of things here,” Ashley replied, suddenly transforming his mannerism into that of teacher. “We just can’t see them. But they watch us. They’ve been here for a very long time. Longer than the college.” Sarah was confused and a little frightened. “Maybe we’ll get fortunate tonight and see one of them,” Ashley said. “This way. The path is just over here.”

  He guided her with greater assurance down the creek, passing under an archway of two magnificent oaks forever locked in an embrace. They walked through the rocks of the frozen bed, and it felt as if the old growth of the woods watched them, followed them. When Sarah knocked over a rock that hung precariously on a dead log, she swore the entire vale took a deep waking breath.

  “It’s so raw here,” she said. Eyes, eyes everywhere watching.

  “It’s not rawness, it’s honesty. We’re just not used to it,” Ashley said. “The world isn’t an honest place anymore. I think it used to be when it was young. But people have made it dishonest by the way they treat it.”

  He stopped and viewed the area up to the treetops and over the creek bank. Sprinkles of snow dusted around them as a breeze brushed the top branches. It became part of the song, the worship. Ashley and Sarah sensed hope in the song, hope for their dying friend, hope for themselves.