I sensed something was off the moment I walked into the pub. Gordon wasn't his usual self. The air around him felt heavy, like he was carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders. His smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and every time our conversation hit a lull, his gaze wandered—like he was waiting for something, or someone, to break the silence.
The pub was quieter than usual tonight. The typical chatter had faded, leaving just a soft murmur and the occasional clink of glasses. I sat across from Gordon—or rather, *Wilburt*—who seemed lost in thought, his usual light-hearted demeanor clouded by something heavy. There was a tension in the air, as though he was carrying a secret that had been weighing on him for far too long.
I sensed something was coming. There was a shift in the way he was acting, and it wasn't the Gordon I had known since the beginning of university. He took a long pause, fingers tightening around his glass, his knuckles white. For a second, I thought he might pull back—decide not to tell me anything at all. His eyes darted toward the pub's entrance, and I wondered if he was calculating the risk. The risk of trusting me with something so personal. Something that could ruin him if it ever got out.
"You ever feel like you're living a double life?" he asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper.
I raised an eyebrow, confused by the sudden turn in conversation. "What do you mean?"
He sighed, running a hand through his hair, and for the first time, I noticed a flicker of vulnerability in his eyes. "My name isn't Gordon," he said after a long pause. "It's Wilburt."
I blinked in surprise. "Wilburt?"
He nodded, his gaze dropping to the table, avoiding eye contact. "Yeah, Wilburt. Gordon was… well, it was a name I chose when I decided to disappear."
The revelation caught me off guard, but before I could even process it, he continued.
"I'm from Shanxi, China," he said, his voice steady, as though he was bracing himself to finally share his past. "My family owns Red River Vineyards. You've probably heard of it."
Red River Vineyards. I knew the name. Anyone into fine wine did. It was a luxury brand that was impossible to miss in the industry—a prestigious winery in the heart of Shanxi, famous for its rich Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Chenin Blanc. The region's unique climate, with its dry summers, cold winters, and high-altitude vineyards, made it the perfect place to cultivate some of the world's finest grapes. Shanxi was beautiful, bounded by mountain ranges and filled with dramatic plateaus. But I'd never imagined that Wilburt was connected to all of it.
He continued, still avoiding my gaze. "They built the winery from nothing, investing everything they had into it. Red River is more than just a family business—it's my parents' legacy. And I'm their only son."
I leaned forward, my curiosity deepening. "So, why the change? Why Gordon? Why hide?"
He took a deep breath, his hand gripping his glass a little tighter. "Because I didn't want to be the son of Red River Vineyards who became a meme. I didn't want the whole internet to find out who I was and drag my family's name through the mud."
There it was. The raw truth, out in the open. He hesitated for a moment, and then the floodgates opened.
"I was born with a birthmark," he explained. "A huge one that covered half my face. I was always the 'different' kid, the one people stared at. But it wasn't until someone took a picture of me in school—without me even knowing—that everything spiraled out of control. That photo became a meme. Overnight, my face was plastered all over the internet. People in China, Malaysia, even globally—they shared it, laughed at it, made me the butt of every joke."
He paused, his voice tightening. "I couldn't escape it. Every time I went online, there I was—Wilburt, the meme. And it wasn't just my face they were mocking. It was me. My family. Our legacy. I still remember the day I first saw it. I was sitting at the dinner table, my mom talking about expanding the vineyard, my dad going on about the new grapes they'd imported. And then my phone buzzed. Over and over. Friends, acquaintances, strangers—all of them sending me the same thing. My face. My birthmark. Turned into a joke. I watched as the comments poured in—thousands of people laughing at me. Not just at my face. At *me*. That's when I realized, I wasn't Wilburt anymore. I was just… a meme."
He finally met my eyes, and I could see the pain lingering there, scars from years of ridicule and shame. "My parents, they didn't deserve to be caught up in that mess. They'd built this prestigious business—Red River Vineyards is their life's work. But I couldn't stand the thought of their son, the face of their legacy, being turned into a joke."
It was then that I understood why he changed everything—his name, his face, his life.
"So, I left," he continued. "I ran. South Korea was my escape. It's where I got the surgeries. I didn't just want to hide—I wanted to erase Wilburt from the internet, from the world, from myself. I thought if I became someone new, I could leave the pain behind. I took the name Gordon because it was safe. Anonymous. No one would connect the guy running a pub in Malaysia to the viral meme that haunted my past."
There was a long silence between us as the weight of his words settled in.
"But it didn't work," Wilburt said, his voice softer now, more resigned. "Changing my face didn't change how I felt inside. I still carried the shame, the fear that someone would recognize me, that my past would catch up. I was always looking over my shoulder, afraid that my secret would come out and ruin my family's reputation. That's why I stayed off social media. Stayed low. If people connected me to Red River Vineyards, the internet frenzy could start all over again."
Wilburt turned the piece of pottery over in his hands, his thumb tracing the gold cracks. "I bought this after my surgeries," he said softly. "Every time I feel like I'm falling apart again, I look at this and remind myself: We're not broken. We're just… reshaped."
It was a piece of pottery, cracked in several places but repaired with shimmering gold. "You ever heard of Kintsugi?" he asked, turning the object over in his hand.
I shook my head.
"It's a Japanese art," he explained. "When pottery breaks, instead of throwing it away, they repair the cracks with gold. The idea is that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. It's a way of embracing imperfections, of highlighting the cracks instead of hiding them."
He held the piece up, the gold shimmering in the low light. "I think people are like that too," he said softly. "We all carry scars—some visible, some hidden. But those scars don't make us less. They make us more. They show that we've been through something, that we've survived. And that's where our beauty comes from. Not from perfection, but from the resilience to keep going despite the cracks."
For a moment, I didn't know what to say. This was the first time Wilburt had opened up to me in such a raw, vulnerable way, and I realized how much he had been carrying—how much of his life had been shaped by that one moment in his past. And yet, despite all the pain, all the surgeries, and the hiding, Wilburt was still here, running his pub, trying to live a life that wasn't consumed by the shadow of his past.
"Why tell me this now?" I asked gently.
He looked at me, a mix of relief and resignation in his eyes. "Because I see you, man. I see that you're hiding something too. And I get it. I know what it's like to carry a secret that eats away at you, to want to disappear. But you can't run forever. Trust me, I tried."
His words hit me hard, and I felt the weight of the *Oculus Aeternum* in my mind, the secret I had been guarding since I discovered it. I had been hiding, just like him, and the parallels between our stories hit me like a punch to the gut.
"I don't know what you're dealing with," he continued, "but I know this: you can't let your past define you. You've got to face it, or it'll eat you alive. I spent years trying to bury Wilburt, trying to escape the shame of that meme. But no matter how much I changed on the outside, it didn't fix what was broken on the inside."
There was a long pause before he added, "Your past is part of you, man. It doesn't define you, but it shapes you. And at some point, you've got to stop running and face it. Own it."
I sat there, the gravity of his words sinking in. Wilburt—Gordon—had shown me a side of him I never expected to see. He wasn't the carefree guy I thought he was. He had been through hell, and he was still figuring out how to live with the scars. But the truth was, so was I.
As I left the pub that night, the story of Red River Vineyards and the viral meme stayed with me. Wilburt's struggle wasn't just about his face or his family's legacy—it was about identity, about finding peace with who you are, even when the world tried to tear you down. The image of the broken pottery repaired with gold stayed with me. Wilburt's story of resilience and rebirth resonated deeply, and I realized that maybe it was time for me to stop hiding too. We all carry scars, but it's how we choose to carry them that defines us.