A Lovely Delusion (Short Story) - Chapter 1

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CHAPTER 1:

My mother and my father got divorced when I was very young. I think I was 8 years old by that time. My mother married to someone else, soon after, and I was being left with my father to spend the rest of my life. My father's name was Liam Gage. He was an ordinary man; never had an active social circle, nor have many friends. He used to spend most of his time, alone, and this habit of his has transferred to me as well. After my father's death, I have been living in solitude for almost 12 years.

When my mother left my father, I saw him breaking down with every passing second. He was an already quiet person and his divorce intensified his condition. He soon became an alcoholic and died with alcohol flowing in his veins. What about me? I was doing what I was destined to do - to just watch each and every suffering of my destiny crawling towards me. First, I saw my mother leaving me at an age when a child needs her mother the most. Then I saw my father breaking down, at a time when I was a teenager and I was being embarrassed among my friends, because of the fact that my father is an alcoholic and depressed person who cannot stand against the face of his cruel fate. This was another reason I did not have many friends, obviously it never feels good to be embarrassed. As an artist and a loner, nature has always been my best friend. Whenever I felt alone, I used to sit on a rock near the beach and I used to sit there for hours without being bored. I just loved to enjoy the calm and soft breeze of wind, and the sweet smell of sea, and the feelings that something, the nature at least, is with me and I am not alone.

While remembering about myself, I remember my room, it is full of paintings. I remember I was around 7 years old when I started to sketch and then paint. After all, what a child could do while sitting in a corner, watching his parents quarreling and fighting with each other like two mad persons. I started to visualize things from a different perspective at all and when the time came to express them, I started to express them with the help of sketching and painting. There are still paintings in my room, such as, my mum and dad fighting with each other, my mum leaving out of the house, my father being down in the dump, and me being alone.

I have been a troubled person through-out my life, but all my troubles and torments ended with a sweet breeze, when I met Hannah - Hannah Stella. How could I ever forget that day? I was sitting on the same rock near the beach, and I was indeed very sad on that day, because it was my birthday and there was no one for me to wish and embrace, except my cousin Joe and his wife Lydia. They cut the cake; spent a half hour with me, but then they left and I was alone again. I was drowned into the same thoughts when I heard a crying voice just below the rock-mound, I was sitting on. I climbed down and saw the most beautiful face in my entire life, with that velvety skin glowing even further when that tear, slipping down her cheek; glorying her charm.

I reached to her and asked: "Hello? What happened?"

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