author's note: hey! this is the shorter end of the flashback and this is where the thing about Atlas is described so if you wanna read this one but also get a vague idea of everything else mentioned in the last chapter this is the one to read!
okay, note over, enjoy :)
(Still) Last Sunday
I kick off my shoes and go straight to the basement. It's a relief to take off the restrainative waistcoat and the pants. I slump down on the futon and unbutton my shirt, staring up at Mary.
"It was pretty bad today." I start, not expecting to sound so broken. "Could have been worse, though. Could have been sober."
Mary doesn't say anything. It's not like I imagine her talking back to me. I do this for myself, to give myself an opportunity to talk. I don't talk to people much. At school, I just listen and observe. My new school has a lot to observe. Most of the students live downtown, so there's a lot of variations in personal style. The walls are peppered with art made by students and lots of posters advertising school events and clubs. The foyer has a sunroof that illuminates a clothed variation of the statue of Atlas. It's beautiful, really. On the first day, I sat down against a wall in the foyer just staring at him until I got kicked out and sent into the cafeteria by an office staff.
An idea pops into my head as I remember Atlas. I get up and put on my dry paint-ridden painting shirt and pull out a canvas from underneath my desk and set it on my easel. I take a palette and my acrylic paint set from the closet and set it up. I sketch out a face with a pencil on the canvas.
My vision is a portrait of a young version of Atlas with Rembrandt lightning (my absolute favourite). His eyes more youthful than they're usually depicted in art, yet heavy. Too heavy for a young man. The lit half of his face has an outline of the continents as the other half disappears into the darkness. I want to stress the pressure on him. Of course, nearly every depiction literally pictures the world on his shoulders, but he's constantly portrayed as a powerful, resilient man. There has to be a trace vulnerability in there somewhere, and it's all going to go into my creation.
I move quickly. I can clean up the edges later. All I want is to get this idea down and give Atlas the beginnings of life. I pay extra attention to his eyes and accentuate the highlight and it gives him a stronger sense of innocence, maybe fear. I don't know how long I'm working on this, but it completely consumes me. Before I know it, the light in the room becomes yellow as the light from my window fades to a dark evening sky. I'm about halfway done Atlas' face when the door to the basement opens.
"Marco, come upstairs." Mom calls me. She gives no explanation.
"Okay, just- give me a sec." I force out, broken up, still focused on the painting.
I'm painting the shadows on his face. I give him a prominent, grecian nose and a pair of deep blue eyes. I'll have to hide this one from my mom (as much as I'd love to have this one on my wall) for a few reasons:
One (1): she gives me the silent treatment whenever she notices I paint an exceptionally handsome man.
Two (2): she doesn't approve of my obsession with Greek mythology and ancient Greece as a whole because to her, it's too close to false religion and she doesn't approve of the queerness of ancient Greece.
Three (3): it all started with the Percy Jackson movie at Gabriel's house (Katherine and Gabriel's older sister, Ramona, rented it from Blockbuster) when I was seven years old and she doesn't approve of the violence, medusa's head in the fridge, or the hydra (or my obvious and ever-outstanding crush on Logan Lerman).
I give Atlas pink lips and think about rose petals as I shape them before I hear stomping coming towards the basement door again.
"Marco! NOW!" Mom basically screams. That's my cue to go.
I rinse my paintbrush in the dirty water and set it down on a piece of paper towel on my desk. I say bye to Atlas and assure him that I'll come back when I can, feeling as if I'm leaving my lover, or my own heart and soul. I get upstairs and see mom, Katherine, and Paula seated in the living room. They have JW Broadcasting open on the TV. I hold back a sigh.
"Paula found a way to download the videos and put them on a USB. Isn't that awesome?" Mom asks, grinning.
"Yeah, that's super cool." I agree. Mom is smiling at me but giving me a death glare at the same time. She knows I was drunk at the meeting and I guess this is my punishment. At least I didn't have a session.
Paula starts the broadcast, which is another device created by the Watchtower And Bible Tract Society to keep people in. It's a monthly thing. I haven't watched enough of them through and through to completely know what's going on (they're relatively new, they came out around the time that I started mentally fading out of the religion), but I know it's bullshit. The set-up is sort of like a news anchor set-up. There's a desk and one of the members of The Governing Body sitting there with a Bible or something, being the host. There's a bunch of segments where watchers are supposed to follow along with their Bible, JW success stories (so many of them if not all of them are obviously made up), and a bunch of other bullshit I can't explain because I've been actively avoiding watching these with mom and my sisters.
I go into the kitchen. I pop a few painkillers so that I can fall asleep during the broadcast before going back into the living room. Mom sees this and doesn't say anything, in her usual aspect. You know, a part of the reason I started doing drugs (and so shamelessly around her) was to see how she would react. Guess what I found out:
She doesn't give a shit about me.
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city of achilles {bxb}
Roman d'amourTRIGGER WARNING: Marco Mendoza, a 17-year-old with vitiligo, has been bullied out of his high school for his senior year. Being raised a Jehovah's Witness and undergoing conversion therapy, he keeps to himself. His struggles with identity, faith, an...
