Around Our World

I've been everywhere, but I am still lost

They called him "Atlas," though his real name was Alon.

It started in middle school, one of those half-jokes that stuck. He never went anywhere. Never left the city, barely even the borough. But he had this thing that solely belonged to him where he'd ask people where they were from and collect stories as if they were postcards. Mental souvenirs from countries he'd never see. The other realities he imagined himself in.

Why? Because Atlas had grown up as a quiet witness to the world's motion. As a child, he sat at the edges of birthday parties, content to observe joy from a safe, unlit corner. When someone's voice cracked mid-presentation, or when a classmate's hands shook during a pop quiz, he'd always be the first one to notice the things others missed. He'd close his eyes and picture the world spinning underneath him, vast and vivid, and wonder what it felt to belong in all of it or none of it at once.

In that silence, he found a kind of shelter, a fleeting feeling of safety that came from never stepping too far, from keeping life at arm's length. From wondering about the lives that everyone else had, he unknowingly tried to put himself in theirs.

Though, those were never his to begin with. So, he didn't speak much, but he saw everything. All the good, and all the evil. Eventually, it became too hard to ignore. For Atlas, home wasn't a place. It was a wound. He grew up in a house where silence was perfect for survival. Where love, if it existed at all, showed up late and left early.

His mother drifted through days in a haze of wine and whispers, her words slurring more often than they soothed. His father, when present, carried anger as oxygen. Loud hands, louder threats. The kind of man whose footsteps down the hallway could make your breath stop mid-sentence.

There was no warmth in that home, only weather, the unpredictable, stormy ones. Meals became arguments. Nights were battles. Mornings were tiptoes and apologies that never made it out the room.

And so, from an early age, Atlas learned to disappear. He became a ghost in his own childhood, observing from corners, memorizing the patterns of the chaos, shrinking himself to stay out of reach. He envied the children on his street who were called in for dinner like it was a ceremony. Who got bedtime stories instead of slammed doors. Who laughed out loud without fear of being noticed.

He didn't want luxury. He only wanted to be heard. To be asked how he was and to believe the answer mattered. To be held. To be cared for. To be loved and receive love without any condition. That was his search for meaning.

But it never came. And when Atlas was eighteen, he finally snapped. Just a bag. A jog. Then, a bus. He left, not out of anger, but out of necessity. He wasn't running towards anything; he was just running somewhere. Somewhere away from the silence. Away from the pain.

Since then, he'd been searching. I heard he's traveled to more countries and states, trying to find something. Something to fill the space. Culture. Politics. Love. Philosophy? I have no idea. Maybe he wanted to live the lives he never got to. The infinite realities he used to imagine. Maybe all the above. No more just watching. More living instead of behind glass windows.

I don't know where Atlas is today. But, I do wonder if he ever found his home. Or even if there existed one that was truly his to begin with.