Invisible Atlas

For as long as he could remember, Atlas had felt invisible. But today, by some strange twist of fate, he actually is. Gone, vanished, non-existent, as if he’s been wiped from the face of the planet.

His friends thought booking a photoshoot and posing in silly positions would be funny. Elyssa brought up the idea.

“I neeeeed some new pictures for my Instagram,” she’d declared.

Francesca shot her a look of exasperation, but they all knew she was just being dramatic. They knew she’d be on board for a photoshoot because who didn’t love an excuse to dress up? 

“What? My page is drying up,” Elyssa whined. “I’ve lost at least 15 followers since my last post two weeks ago.”

“You’re chronically online, El.”

“Shut it.”

“Rude.”

“Whatever guys, It’ll be fun,” Atlas said, trying to diffuse Fran’s insult.

His friends didn't look his way. Elyssa coughed. Atlas turned on his phone, pretending to text someone.

It wasn’t until Don basically repeated exactly what he’d said that Fran and El agreed and hugged it out.

Atlas felt like a fourth wheel. But not on an SUV, which needs all four wheels to drive smoothly. No, he was like a fourth wheel on one of those trike motorcycles. Francesca was the lead wheel, with Dom and Elyssa trailing behind her every word. And Atlas… Atlas was the wheel on the stupid little side seat used for dogs in cartoons. The one that always flew off without the driver noticing. Yeah, that was Atlas.

So, he wasn’t surprised when they showed up at the studio, shot some silly poses, and no one noticed that Atlas looked like he’d been photoshopped out.

Atlas had literally become invisible. Even the photographer didn’t notice him. As she scrolled through all the photos she’d taken, no one batted an eye when Atlas wasn’t in any… even though he’d posed in every single one.

He pinched his arm, thinking maybe he was dreaming or that he had died. But his fingers left a red, painful welt. So, he couldn’t be dreaming, and dead people didn’t feel pain, right?

“WHAT THE FU—” he yelled.

Dom looked up, annoyed, as if a fly was buzzing around his head, but didn’t turn to face Atlas. No one did. How had they not heard him yelling?

He walked to stand in front of them, waving his arms frantically. Again, nothing.

He pulled down his pants, flashing two white moons. Still, more nothing.

He made a failed attempt at a handstand. A whole lot more, nothing.

“Okay, screw you guys,” Atlas spit out, turning for the door. He didn’t even care that something supernatural was happening. What scared and hurt him the most, was that this proved, without a shadow of a doubt (because even his shadow wasn’t in the pictures), that his friends never cared about him. Ouch.

He unlocked his car and started pounding his fists on the steering wheel out of frustration. Maybe a smidge of anguish, too. He’d been the one to carpool his friends to the studio, but now he didn’t give a rat’s ass. Leaving them stranded made him feel a little better.

There wasn’t anything he could do to fix this other than move on. And move on, he would, speeding right down Main Street, getting as far away as possible from his so-called “friends.”

Atlas felt like George Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life—except that movie had a happy ending: George saw what the world would be like if he’d never existed. It was a sad world without him, and he realized that his loved ones needed him around.

But no one needed Atlas. No one at all.

“I’m not going to dwell on this,” he said out loud to reassure himself. “I’ll just get home, go to sleep, and everything will be normal tomorrow morning.”

…

The following morning, everything was still very not normal.

Like every Gen-Z on the planet, the first thing Atlas did when he woke was roll over and turn on his phone. As usual, he had almost no notifications.

There was a thread in his friend group’s chat on iMessage. It was the photos from yesterday. And just like yesterday, he was still invisible. He was shocked that his friends hadn’t made a new chat without him in it to send the pictures.

FRAN: Guysssss we look so sexy in these!!

DOM: Damn *fire emoji*

FRAN: Am I good to post this one on my Insta story?

ELYSSA: Ew no.

FRAN: What do you mean ew?

ELYSSA: I mean, EWWWW, my nose looks so big in that one. Delete. Delete.

FRAN: Too late… I posted.

The text thread continued a little longer, probably with more bickering between Francesca and Elyssa, but Atlas’s heart hurt too much to keep reading. He chucked his phone across the room and immediately regretted it. He ran to check if the screen had cracked. It didn't, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t like he had anyone to text anyway.

He remembered how, in eighth grade, his English teacher assigned the class a writing assignment. Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly? Write a point, proof, and explanation essay to support your answer.   

Atlas had said he’d rather be invisible. His point was that he already felt that way. His proof was that he had no friends. He was stumped on explaining why he felt invisible and had no friends. The truth was, he didn’t know how to make friends. His tactic was always: wait until someone nice enough would adopt him into their friend group. That was what Dom had done for him. Atlas thought they’d grown close since they met three years ago in Intro to Economics at university.

Clearly, he was wrong.

For all the time he’d spent wishing he was invisible and feeling like it, too, actually being invisible sucked massively.

“What am I supposed to do now?” He wondered out loud.

Pacing his bedroom, Atlas pondered what his options were.

Atlas could curl up in bed and never leave again, rotting like the untouched bananas on his kitchen counter. No, that wouldn’t do. He’d eventually die without food or water, and that sounded like an excruciating way to go.

Text in the group chat and beg his friends to notice him, to make things go back to how they used to be? That wouldn’t do either; they were never really his friends. Plus, he didn’t have some magical potion that would return him to visibility.

He decided to do what he always did when he was stressed: get a sandwich.

He hoped that Subs on the Go would be able to see him. He really wanted their famous tuna melt. It was his comfort food. Atlas could just walk behind the counter and make it himself if worse came to worse. He’d eaten it enough times to know exactly how it was made and with what ingredients and spices.

So, that was what Atlas did. He went and got himself a sandwich.

Atlas purposefully bumped into as many people as possible on his way there. As he suspected, no one turned back to yell at whoever had violated their personal space bubble. They merely glanced side to side with bewildered expressions.

At Subs on the Go, Atlas tried to order, but the cashier only stood there smacking gum in her mouth. She picked at her nails, and Atlas admired the blue polish that adorned them. “I like your nail colour,” he said, not caring much when she went on picking. If this was how things would be from now on, there wasn’t much he could do. May as well make the most of it.

He strutted behind the counter and got to work making his sandwich. Bread and cheese flying through the air in invisible hands didn’t faze any employees. Atlas realized that anything he touched also disappeared. He snatched a paper bag from under the counter and filled it with extra sandwich bread and toppings to make more at home. This was wonderful. This was a wonderful life, indeed.

Exiting the shop, he shouted out. “I love tuna melts, and I’m proud of it! I don’t care if you, or you, or you,” he said, pointing to all the customers in line, “think they’re disgusting. Tuna melts warm my heart!” Atlas pumped his fists in the air like they did in the movies. Maybe he’d even walk around with a boombox above his head later. Why not?

Atlas skipped back to his apartment, sandwich bag swinging in his hand.

He no longer felt like he was holding the world's weight above his head. No longer trying to please others. No longer staying quiet for fear of being judged when he had something to say. 

Ironically, being invisible released Atlas from the prison of invisibility. Maybe he would get sick of it soon, but at that moment, he felt truly happy for the first time in forever.