World Weary was first published in Popshot Quarterly: Earth Issue in May 2020.
World Weary
What broke your back first, Atlas? Was it the weight of the world itself or the heaviness of its peoples’ guilt? How did it feel to watch them fly away – out of your orbit – moving on to choke out Mars instead? After suffering through so much, how was this to be what brought you down?
Countless storms have pelted every inch of your ever-weakening arms. Yet still you held on.
Eventually, every coursing river in that world became corrupted – seeping through your fingertips and pumping polluted blood throughout your increasingly fragile frame. Yet still you held on.
Then came the nuclear fire – tearing lesions across your already calloused hands. I thought their momentary dominion over the atom was to be your undoing. Yet still you held on.
I recall how I laughed when they first thought themselves masters of my art. I had watched with contempt at their conception, chortled aloud as they cowered beneath the sky above them – fearing what I threw down whenever the feeling took me.
Then I remember my own fear the day their power overtook mine, when they moved from little lights on strings to illuminating the whole world. That orb on your back gleamed so beautifully then, but I knew my time with them had come to an end. What I could only perform in flashes, they could do indefinitely.
Now that moment has finally arrived for you, too.
Lay down that tarnished marble, Atlas. At last your duty is done…
Countless storms have pelted every inch of your ever-weakening arms. Yet still you held on.
Eventually, every coursing river in that world became corrupted – seeping through your fingertips and pumping polluted blood throughout your increasingly fragile frame. Yet still you held on.
Then came the nuclear fire – tearing lesions across your already calloused hands. I thought their momentary dominion over the atom was to be your undoing. Yet still you held on.
I recall how I laughed when they first thought themselves masters of my art. I had watched with contempt at their conception, chortled aloud as they cowered beneath the sky above them – fearing what I threw down whenever the feeling took me.
Then I remember my own fear the day their power overtook mine, when they moved from little lights on strings to illuminating the whole world. That orb on your back gleamed so beautifully then, but I knew my time with them had come to an end. What I could only perform in flashes, they could do indefinitely.
Now that moment has finally arrived for you, too.
Lay down that tarnished marble, Atlas. At last your duty is done…
