…and Atlas cried when he felt the full-blown sting of all the good and evil of this earth cramming itself into his infinite mind. So much was said in anger, even fear, that Atlas became very sad, and to such a degree that he wished not to hold up the earth anymore upon his shoulders. Merely thinking this was sufficient to draw down from heaven an angel, sent to observe Atlas’ plight and to give her opinion as to whether the god had served enough of a punishment in his banishment from the world, along with the other Titans.
The angel said to Atlas, “Why are you crying now, all of a sudden? You have been in this state of punishment for an eternity already. What makes you all of a sudden wish to leave?”
Atlas replied, “I have reached my breaking point, with so much bad going on around the world I support; so many murders, robberies, and general unkindnesses are rampant there. When I was punished, the gods didn’t count on my absorbing all of these effects from the world I have been given to uphold. Please, dear angel: tell me, please, how I might change my eternity. I have already suffered an eternity already – is this not enough punishment for one suffering man?”
The angel, in response to Atlas’ suffering, made a gesture of peace with her hands, one hand palm up, the other perpendicular to her body.
“I can see, and you must, too, that there is a double-edged sword in the matter at hand. Either you release hold of the earth, and be free to roam the stretches and expanses of heaven, or else you support the world for the rest of eternity and be miserable. You would then have to let the world go (in the first instance), and who knows where it would skitter to in the firmament then.”
“You want me, good angel, to accept the price of condemnable eternity, and to stay where I have been put?”
“Not so,” said the angel, “I come from a merciful God, who forgives transgressions, and whose only purpose in this world is to oversee his many children. What he desired most of all is for everything to be reconciled in and with this universe of his creation. The old ways, the stuff of myth, are still with humanity, as well they ought to be, for the brain of any human holds, with its trillions of possible connections, in its store a space for myth, and also for God. You are right in your intuitions. An eternity already has passed since your punishment was inflicted upon you. That in my eyes and in God’s is punishment enough for the sake of myth.”
At this, Atlas turned his neck and head as best he could, with valiant effort, and looked at the angel.
“So,” he said, “you are releasing me back into the Universe? But when will all the foibles and farces of humankind cease – for anyone supporting this earth will be similarly bombarded by the negative energy that the world is constantly spewing at the upholder of the earth?”
The angel said, in dulcimer tones, “We must build a new pedestal to take your place, of all the gold and the silver that this world has come to be possessed of, chalice-shaped, to hold up the world in your stead. You must help us in this, however, in gathering the gold and silver, because we are spirits only, while you are physical man. You must do what we cannot. Tearing gold from mankind’s hands will be an arduous task.”
The assignment seemed to Atlas a fair one, and, with the angel looking on, he slowly slid his body into the ether, with the angel’s wings acting as a fan to keep the world afloat on the sea of space. At once, a glance from the angel sent Atlas down to earth, shrunk from his inhuman size, landing him in the middle of the Amazon, where he reenacted the rush for gold of the Conquistadors of long ago.
In that river he found not enough gold to make a chalice of. He cried out to the angel, “Where can I go, then, to find the gold that you require?”
In dulcimer tones that no one but he could hear, the angel said to him, “I did not say that this would be an easy task, wrenching gold from men’s hands, and neither did I say that finding it would be without toil. You are now fully human, as God has ordained, and must learn to live as one who is living. The task of gathering all the earth’s gold is no small task, as well God knows. And he has ordained for you that you must collect all the gold there is upon the earth and transport it to make the chalice. Remain with God, Atlas, and your pains will cease. I will hold up the earth for as long as need be until men and women cease killing each other over gold and silver and other forms of payment. Yours is the task, though, to gather all the gold that resides in the hands of mankind, a task that may well take an eternity.”
At the angel’s speech Atlas became again sad. Now mortal in the world that he had supported for so long, he knew the task ahead of him to be impossible. As he began to despair, he felt the angel’s wings let go of the earth, and for some seconds he awaited the plunge of the earth into the sea. This did not come, and it was then that he knew that he was truly alone. For, if he could not see the angel and feel her presence, he saw little point in believing that he was in the hands of God. And so, Atlas, as primordial man, found himself alone on the earth that he had so recently supported, and began, as the angel had instructed, to gather all the gold that he could find. Even as he did so, he became aware of himself as physical man rather than as punished god, and for the first time in his existence felt the pangs of hunger and thirst.
Had Atlas looked up to the sky, he might have found some solace there in amongst the angels and God, but the angel had instructed him to look downwards for gold. And so, Atlas never raised his eyes to the ether and to the celestial spheres, and so could not see their countenances in his time of need. When he had progressed on his task for but a little while, he began to cry giant tears, the tears of one who has seen all along what it is that men and women often do to each other. Now part of that kingdom under the skies, Atlas set out on his long path and journey, despairing, not yet recognizing that the earth is supported by God and gravity, and that, in a calm new future, there would be no need for the world to be propped up either by the hands of one of the gods of old, and that faith and nature would see to it that the world known to so many would be supported within the framework of time and space just as gently as if it were being cradled by the loving hand that supports all things, ancient myths and new ones, what kept it rotating as it orbited the sun, drawing us not any nearer, and having passed the state in our existences in which the sun was a god, to be more fully rewarded by the knowledge that what we have before us at all times is the capacity not to give up hope, no matter that it was the proper time for one of the gods of old to question his the shape of his existence, and, thereby, to release the world fully from the grasp of old myths in favor of the greatest mystery and the greatest love of all.
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