Atlas

It came naturally to Atlas, his enigma, and only upon the wings of charming smiles and sparkling eyes that wandered too far. He was a creature best meant for travelling and folding the pages of books he no longer kept, but the years had indeed changed him. Now, he was less prone to disappearing, an act that he knew too well, and perhaps he was also somewhat lethargic when it came to seeking the adventure that had once driven him toward his very dreams. Everything was softer now, somehow hazy, and more certainly a memory than the life he envisioned before him. It was true that everything was also changing before his eyes—his thoughts, his opinions, his ideas… They were morphing, transforming, and bending to a new rhythm… one that seemed to match the refrain in one of Lena’s songs.

She was an enlightening creature to say the least, more apt to run from his antics than to oblige them, but increasingly curious about them as it would seem. Perhaps it was her apparent willingness to stay that allowed him the confidence needed to guide them both where insecurities kept them from sailing into the vastness of their mounting wonder. Atlas wished for the day that their masts would align so equally that there would no longer remain the tender thread of defiance that persisted between them, silver and tight. It was that string that slacked and swayed when he approached, only to draw taut when Lena realized its evident give. What then did she look like when her pristine veils were removed and her priestess smile no longer offered her strength? What songs did she sing when the world fell quiet and the only souls to hear her were long gone, past the threshold of their own mortal beings? Again, Atlas was consumed by her, destroyed by her, and enraptured. It mimicked an ailment he’d never known, but the agony still clamored from within the empty chambers of his heart.

Atlas feared that remaining by her side would forever cause him pain, but with that pain came violent and unmatched happiness. He wanted more than life itself to reveal the hurts that kept Lena from his embrace, but longed more for her consent. But, for what, one might ask? Intimacy was neither his qualm nor his intent. Atlas had searched far and wide for a companion to quell his desires, to end his drifting. He had found something timeless in Lena—her songs had enchanted him, but her utter sense of self had staunched his bleeding heart. It had always left a trail in his wake, of stories and lies that couldn’t be true, but with her skin beneath his lips and her scent feathered against his nose… he felt whole. It was merely a taste of her and all that she was, but it was an intoxicating mixture of wanting and needing, a line that grew suddenly blurred and without end.

Like a leaf upon the breeze, she shuttered and pulled, losing herself to his touch, or so he imagined. The look in her eye was heavy and thoughtful, perhaps confused, but Atlas had no answers to her questions and so he removed himself from the line of fire. Lena’s life appeared to be all about structure—she needed answers for everything, for her feelings, for her release, for her heart… but Atlas was not a man made for giving. Instead, he followed the river of his actions until they were all the remained. His breath gathered in his chest as they gazed at one another, challenging and melting the existing thread in time to the other’s rigid breathing. Yet, Atlas couldn’t force himself to imagine any longer how she felt and he turned from her molten stare only to flinch from the imaginary snapping of the barrier that might always keep him from her. It was a moment he would later recall when the silence of his restlessness kept him awake, but his momentary thoughts no longer focused on the taste of her skin upon his lips.

When the moment had passed altogether, Atlas returned his focus to the world around them. The land had certainly earned its name from the elaborate set of pathways that stretched before him like a map. Lena too appeared to be rebuilding her walls as her words only mirrored his own, challenging and jubilant. He smiled at them, caustic and rude, still upset by the lingering traces of his growing desire for the lass. “You tell me,” he laughed. It was something of a double-edge sword—he wanted to know her motivations and yet wanted to keep himself from spilling into a muddled slick before her. Perhaps that was why it had always been easier for him to taunt and tease her, lead her away from the truths he too was discovering…  If the spotlight was focused on the prim and proper Lena, then perhaps she would miss the fraying lines of his own mistakes and afflictions. As he studied again her response, her mind turning over his requests and his questions as if they were much profounder than Atlas certainly intended them to be, he became suddenly aware of her likeness to him.

It was uncanny that they were so consumed by the games they played, as tempted and lured from their towers as they were, to dance beneath the stars and moonlight beyond their foreboding castles. It was the only thing Atlas could think about when she was away… Lena offered him the distraction and the story upon which he could mount his dreams. He watched sullenly as Imogen prodded the earthen maid toward action and fought his inner need to ask what delayed her. Atlas had never given her reason to believe he harbored any ill-will, so it must have been something else, something deeper… something he was certainly unfamiliar with. When she consented at last, the great star-kissed titan moved onward, leading his lady into the abyss.