The Weight of the Horizon

The sky labored with heavy downpours as Atlas' ship rolled over waves in the sea. Every evening he traversed the open waters in service to the tides; able to return only after the moon had drifted to sleep. Floating in the sky, a great white shape of light angrily sent its gravity across Atlas' back until it rippled out through the sea itself. It wasn't the fault of the gods, he knew, because this nightly upheaval was just how the world worked. Somebody had to venture out from their foundations on soil to observe the deliberations of waves. Somebody had to try to survive amongst a world so focused on destroying everything in its path.

Trying to escape the night's call,
Atlas had but one cause to survive;
the burden of staying afloat
without the control
of shouldering the blame.

One night Atlas discovered a small boat with one oar bouncing up and down in the distance. There was a man inside the boat pouring water out with a small bucket. He was sinking.

Atlas yelled over at him, “Need some help?”

The man replied back, “I don't think so, just about to get it all.”

Upon closer inspection the boat had a hole in its side that opened and closed as a pupil of the eye. He was pouring water out of the boat, as if he could keep it afloat forever, while having no time to paddle to safety. The man's face was ignorant and blank, with an air of stress and gray to his wrinkled hands and cheeks. He was a short man, with white robes covered in sweat and seawater, and was humming a tune to himself to keep pace with the water.

Atlas piped up, “What's your name, traveler?”
“Sisyphus.”
“Been out at sea long then?”
“Oh, only as long as I can remember.”
“Really now? Why's that? Looks like you would have sunk by now.”
“Oh no, the boat is always filling up with water, sure, but not so much as to sink me. Just enough so that I can empty it out with my pail with regularity.”

'A pail?' Atlas thought, 'Well now, his bucket is actually a child's pail for sandcastles. This man is insane.'

His curiosity was piqued, “Why don't you just sink then? Or at least swim to shore?”
“No point in all that work, I already got a boat right here.” Sisyphus was confident.
“For all the good it's doing you...”
“Hey, a boat's better than no boat at all.”

Atlas couldn't argue with his logic. While they talked, a creature slowly circled their boats and emerged from the ocean. It looked like a skeletal dolphin with a beak like a parakeet. Atlas had seen many strange creatures touring the sea, but none quite as odd as this one.  

It looked at the two men and squeaked, “You're both sinking.” The creature’s voice was high pitched and arose impossibly from its lips with teeth barred.
“He's the one with the hole in his boat.” Atlas said defensively.
“I hardly see how that's relevant.” Sisyphus quipped back.
“Well you are eventually going to die out here.”
“So? We’re all going to die out here.”
“Rather bleak way to see it all, isn’t it?” Atlas was surprised by his own optimism.
“Eh, it makes sense though, doesn’t it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“Nope, but it is the end result.”

The creature sighed at their excuses and squeaked, “Down you'll both go” before sinking beneath the sea. Most creatures in the sea didn’t venture to the surface at night because of the approaching storms, though someone else must have urged this corpse-like dolphin up top.

Sisyphus turned his nose up at the ripples left by the creature. “Rude, cynical little beast, that one.”
“Indeed. I wonder who sent him?”
“Sent him eh? Rather paranoid fella’ aren’t you?”
“What? It isn’t like that many creatures emerge on the surface these nights.”
“I guess you’re right. I don’t notice too many out here.”
“Well you barely noticed my approach, so I’m not too surprised.”
“Ha, I do so get caught up in my work.”
“Well, how about a break? I can tow you to shore.”
“What? I'll be fine. Just a few more buckets and I'll be home in no time.”
Atlas sighed, “Your call, Sisyphus. Best of luck to you.” And paddled towards the horizon.
“Luck! Ha! There’s no such thing!” Sisyphus called back with some amount of pride, for a man in a sinking dinghy.  'Yes. Clearly insane' Atlas figured.

It was the world that forced weight
down upon the backs of men
incapable of pushing it away
because it was asked of them.

The wind began to pick up and Atlas crouched down and pointed in towards land. Every evening the storms blew in after most of the night had passed. Waves began to churn beneath his tiny craft, pushing him wantonly around, while all he could do was brace against the soggy wood at his back. 'The world can't keep up this intensity of weather for long,' he thought. 'It simply must vent its energy above the sea where no one may be harmed. I'm just a witness to the planet's daily ranting seasons, which is why I am spared.' It was a reasonable thought, but even Atlas knew it was just covering up for his fear of the unknown outcome of each night.

It wasn’t as if the outcome of the night was unknown though, given that he has survived so many nights since when he began. The outcome was practically a given that he would survive, but the helplessness of his position in life out here kept him on his toes. Thunder crackled above him, illuminating sheets of rain plummeting down. 'All sound and fury,' he nervously noted. Even as far away as the moon is, the writhing energy it exerts atop the ocean is felt without relent every night. As Atlas saw through the clouds and into space, he thought: ‘There's no end to the effort of the stars to smite the pale blue dots of the universe.’ It isn’t as though the gods sought to destroy the planet, or even the people on it, but what they would allow to take place was just as destructive.

Bobbing up and down after an hour of stormy weather, Atlas thought beyond the weight of this night and all others, towards the light of the day. In the day, he knew, the stars graced the planet from afar with love, whereas night bred only distant towering showers of jealous light unable to break the dark sky. The day carried a life without routine labor and near capsizing pain; instead relying on the relief of morning rays and the forging of color from the lifeless grays that precede it.

In the night lay a simple hurt of life without control, while the day gave even Atlas a choice of what to feel and who to meet. Every day as the night tumbled away in an echo of noise, he found Her waiting by the shoreline, half asleep with an umbrella for him.

“Rough night?” she'd ask with a hope that, for once, it was not.
“Rough world.” He'd answer, but upon falling into her arms with his waterlogged head, the rough storms of a memory were softened immediately.

She pried at his more relaxed mind, “Why do you do it, night after night?”
They had this conversation almost daily, and Atlas responded the same way he always did: “Because there isn’t anyone else.”
“So I’ve heard, but that’s not good enough.”
“Well, it’s what I’m comfortable with okay? The world on my shoulders just feels natural.”
“Can’t you hear yourself? You sound batty. It makes you unhappy.”
He shrugged at her, “Well that’s life.”
“I know, but life doesn’t have to be unhappy all the time.”
“It isn’t. I’m happy now. With you.”
“Hey, we’re talking about you. Be happy away from me too dammit.” Her smile seemed to punctuate the point at him. “Sadness is no way to spend a night.”
He laughed meekly, “Well I can’t help being sad out there. It’s how the job works. If I were proud, I’d go nuts.”
“I know. It isn’t like the world treats you well.”
“The sea is just full of pain and if I’m not there, then you’d feel it here at home.”
She raised her eyebrow at that line of thought, “I can take pain too you know? Even just to share yours.”
“I know.”
“You know, but you don’t believe.”
“I just don’t like to see you sad is all.”
“Well you can’t stop that. I’m sad all night as the gods beat you up out there.”
Concern struck his chest, “Don’t be, it’s just a job.”
“A job that kills you.”
“No faster than any life could. Besides, I live longer now than I used to.”
“Yeah, full of mental pain instead of physical. Heck of a trade off.”

They began to walk up the sand dunes on the beach towards home. The winds began to die down as the sky became more brightly lit.
“Some things can’t be helped. I agreed to this, whether it’s fair or not.”
“Life isn’t fair, and you knew that when you signed the deal.”
“Still, I have to do this. It’s the pressure that changes my existence.”
“You’ve been the same sad man for a millennia and then some.”
“Hey.” Atlas could feel the truth scratching at his skull.
“I’m sorry. I just hate when you stubbornly keep up this deathly job.”
“Take it up with the Fates.”
“Don’t think I won’t call them.”
He laughed, “No no no, don’t bug my bosses. It’ll just make things complicated.”
“More complicated than balancing the world’s burdens on your back while being in love with me without any burdens to tie you down?”
“There’s always a burden.”
“Like what?”
He knew she caught him there, “I feel so guilty working out there, since I can’t spend much time with you.”
“We can’t always be together.”
“Time would disagree.”
“Leave him out of this. I’m just saying we need time apart like anybody else. You should be happy away from home too.”
“I know. I’ll do what I can, but it isn’t much.”
“Just think of me, that should keep you smiling right?” She snickered at him.
“Yeah, it will. Your goofy face gets me through the day.” She punched him in the arm jokingly as they entered their house. The building was a single story tall, perched near tall grasses with mountains at its back. They had sparsely furnished the lot of it, leaving only the essential needs of food and sleep to become important.

Her appearance never left a huge impression on his mind, because her demeanor and little words always defined how he saw her there. There was no end to the caring which spilled from her lips like light upon his ever-darkening nights. 'What was her name again?' Atlas tried to recall, but even after a thousand days in her presence the sight of her face had blocked that petty fact out. She was the hope to his life, the meaning that pulsed down through the clouds as rays on his yellowing skin. 'What did I do to deserve this wondrous person?' Atlas was perplexed after another night of laborious tide-floating.

Even amongst night and day
there is salvation in human light,
when all the stars can offer
are insight into the night to come,
yet a smile as small as the moon's sliver
foretells of a day when the dark of night
is no longer an option.

It struck him after a thousand centuries more in her presence that his life was not that of a man torn in two by the work of the stars and the sea. No, he was defined by his day where all was clear above the murky deep beside her glowing smile and all the color the world had to offer. She was his hope of life after nights of hoping solely for survival. There was no need to only survive, he knew, because he wasn't dodging the weight of the world anymore, just living alongside it. Dying wasn't a concern no matter how heavy the world got; Atlas was busy trying to live.