atlas, at the end of eons

An exert from my upcoming novel, THE REIGN OF HER

the little star fell like a teardrop onto Atlas’ lap, and there she beamed, fallen from grace and the stardust etched cavity that set her up in the sky like a row of pearly white teeth in a pardo chasm of space and time.

“hello.” the little star sang, an aubade to the rising sun rolling across Atlas’ shoulders.

to the Titan, the little star was nothing more than a susurrus in the resol emptiness, and the only thing that caught his attention was the flickering of light that bounced off his kettle black eyes. 

“hello.” he said softly, but his voice still made the mountains on his shoulders tremble, and the leaves on the sturdiest of oak trees shivered. he bowed his head.

the little star looked back on the cosmos orbiting around them both, watching them eagerly, tightly knitted constellations leaning in like flowers followed the wind.

“why do you still hold up the universe, Titan?” the little star said. “eons have passed, and the age of the gods is over. you are free to let go now.”

the Titan let out a roar of thundering laughter, laughter that ripped through the terrain and opened up the worlds ribcage in one swift, bitter chuckle. it wasn’t a laugh of joy or relief, but rather the Titan looked down at the little star and shook his head.

she had a ebullience about her, and in her demure form of starlight, there was a sense of halcyon that burned brighter than her sepia-filled crater of quivering atoms. something about this made Atlas laugh, and it made him happy to see such innocence still floating around the backwater of the cosmos. 

“you are a silly little thing. what makes you think i can just leave this all behind?”

the little star only had one guess. “you are free now. no one will punish you anymore. your sentence for your crimes was fulfilled a long time ago. the world is in your debt.”

but this world was new to them both. they had not seen anything like it. the age of rulers and romance had passed, and the time for change was now. so, did debts still matter?

“i still have a job to do, little one. go home. go back into the arms of the night.”

yet Atlas couldn’t help thinking what kind of change was on its way. the world had been burned to its bones and grown into something new, it had new flesh, new skin.

new armour.

perhaps it was time for Atlas to let this go.

perhaps the universe didn’t need him anymore.

perhaps it had grown stronger on its own, without his shoulders to lean on, without his back made of steel to carry it around the sun.

the little star couldn’t accept it. “didn’t you hear me? you are free! you can stop carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders now. you can rest.”

the Titan was thinking about it. “and where would i go?”

the star shimmered. “home.”

“and where is home?”

“wherever you want it to be.”

for as long as Atlas could remember, he never had a home. the only place he knew was the very rocks he stood on, here, carrying and watching the universe go by. 

“this is home. now you must go back to your own and leave me be.”

the little star was surprised. she had fallen so far through ages of dead atoms to tell this Titan that he was free, and to find that he would not move an inch from his post. 

the little star grew up knowing she owed her entire existence to this giant made of rocks and iron, and that the only reason her and all the galaxies would not fall and rip into fumbling chaos was because of him. he kept the world spinning. he kept the cosmos alive, and through ages passed he held up the entire universe to keep them blooming.

she owed this stranger everything, yet he wouldn’t take a thing from her.

“what would happen if you left?” she asked, though she fearfully knew the answer, and her ancestors and brothers and sisters all winked at her nervously.

“order would be lost. darkness would cave in. there is nothing i want less for this place.”

“but it isn’t your responsibility anymore.”

Atlas knew that. Atlas knew that long ago, when the gods fell from their thrones and men no longer prayed. he had eyes in every cloud and every blade of grass, and with every footstep that marked the earth, it marked his skin and treaded sun kissed tattoos over the river bending along his spine.

“my destiny was to always tend to the garden of time, little one. now, i have the biggest garden of all to keep in check. i will not leave it to fight for itself.”

“we’ll be alright. we can take care of ourselves.”

the Titan wanted to believe it. perhaps he would have, in another life, when he first lifted the weight of the universe onto his back, but that Atlas was long gone. 

“perhaps you can, but still… there is still so much to do. a new age has dawned on us, and with a new age comes a new universe. i will be here to see it through.”

“so, you really won’t leave?”

“never. i will walk among the graveyard of stars and the garden of dreams until the day my arms give way and my knees buckle.”

the little star knew, in the back of her mind, that that day would never come.

“that is a cruel way to exist, Titan.”

“it is the only way i have ever know.”

“but don’t you want another way? are you truly happy like this?”

a bead of sweat rolled off the Titan’s brow and turned into dust as it floated into the cauldron of darkness below them. the little star wished her pity was enough.

Atlas never knew happiness. he didn’t know what that word meant. he knew the ways of men and gods and watched them evolved across millions of years, but never could he understand what happiness meant to them. 

“these people don’t deserve you, Titan. they never did. they have taken you and this world for granted. why do you still care for them?”

“this is my nature, little one, as well as my purpose. this is what i was raised and born to do. no one, not even you, can take this from me. you would have to pry my cold, dead hands from this very spot.”

he had watched heroes rise and fall, he had watched love conquer all, then to be swept away by hurricanes, to feel the salty tears of the world flooding the land and spilling over the edges like a drip onto his nose. it broke his heart to see his garden warped into a battlefield of dying chamomiles and merely the memories of creatures that once lived.

“then i shall stay with you until the end of time, my friend.”

friend. that was another word Atlas did not understand, but for the first time in centuries, he felt the ache of warmth fill his tombstone belly.

“i think i would like that very much, but you have a home too. you must go back to your brothers and sisters. they need you more than me.”

“but who will look after you?”

the old, tired Titan smiled, and it no longer hurt his crusty gravel cheeks. “don’t worry, little one, the stars have always kept me company.”

and so the little star found her place among the other stars once again, but she never stopped looking out for Atlas’ shadow beyond the expanse of galaxies and dusk. 

and so Atlas kept standing on one knee against those rocks and watched as tears of ink and iron rolled down his skin, and through eons passed, he kept holding on.

he kept the world up and never stopped.