The foot of the mountain was familiar now, but it had not been when Atlas descended the mountain for the first time, free to leave but not free to walk away as the same man.
He punched in a code into a little box, the gates opened, and he breathed. He looked over his shoulder, at a silent yet jittery technician behind him. Atlas knew that the technician was playing with a couple of spare parts in his pocket, which jingled with his every step.
“I’m a little overdue to visit,” Atlas said, heading to double doors set into the rocks, “but nothing is wrong? No excess pressure, or anything rusted?”
“Everything is still stable,” the technician replied, as the two stepped through the doors, which opened with a hiss. Atlas was handed a hard hat, along with the technician.
“Safety is paramount,” Atlas mused, and smirking, he added: “Although I’m sure these won’t help us much if the machine fails.”
The elevator was so rapid, Atlas’s stomach lurched when he felt himself rise. He tried not to quiver so visibly.
The elevator stopped, and Atlas sighed, his nerves cooling as a dark, gloomy cavern was revealed, alight with the ironically warm light from lamps embedded in the slate floor.
Atlas looked around, his eyes focusing on the machine that held up the weight of the sky. The task that had once held him to this mountain every passing second of his life now required a check-up every few months.
Atlas didn’t remember how he ended up on the mountain, and all he knew of the first days were pain, a pain so great that his mind was too empty to even consider screaming. But by the fifth day, he learned the art of balance, and he could think.
First thought: How dare they sentence a physicist to hold up the sky? Make my science obsolete? “You good?” the technician asked, his black eyes matte and smooth in the dark. “Yes. Yes good,” Atlas said, but still looked around for a chair. Seeing none, he sat on the floor, restricted by the metal in his back. Then he fell back, sprawled just like before.
When Atlas surrendered the weight to the machine, he had to be pushed from behind. Even though the sky had no surface, no feel, Atlas felt when he lost contact with the sky. The blinding, original pain returned, and he lay in a heap on the ground, shapeless and paralyzed. He needed the sky, the weight that he could not bear.
He was picked up, and his bones screamed where he was held. His legs dangled useless and numb.
Sea level came and trees and animals. Oxygen rushed into suffering lungs, and Atlas’s soul flew like a kite...into a thunderstorm. The ragdoll that he had become was passed onto alarmed doctors, who did to Atlas what he had done to the sky: screwed it up to metal so it regained its ability to carry--and be--itself.