The man lay on the dirty ground, bare, gritting his teeth as he tried to shove down the pain. His skin was red, bruised, as if it had been worn through to reveal the flesh. But it had not. If there was one thing Sisyphus knew, it was that he'd never able to escape his fate by death. You could get him onto his knees, but you could never keep him down. Yet again he'd gotten seconds away from the top, and somehow, in the same way it always has, the burden slipped out of his grasp. His legs outright gave up at that point. It wasn't that he was tired; he'd stopped feeling the pure exhaustion. He wasn't sure when he'd done that; he hadn't realized it immediately. His limbs simply shut down at that last step. Like a dog told to sit.

His leg was chained to the boulder, and so it had dragged and tumbled him all the way back down to the base. Funny enough, the trip always felt longer on the way down, even though it was multitudes slower to wrestle the boulder uphill. Despite the fall being the moment where he can relax and breathe for a second, it never felt that way. The exhaustion had stopped, but the sheer pain hadn't faded a bit. It did nothing but grow, a vine around his heart, feeding off of the blood.

Of course, it never lasted. Eventually, the scrapes stitched themselves back up, and his breathing stabilized. And then it was time to start the ascent. Again.

 

***

 

The boulder's texture could be described as nothing but plain, with a plain orange-brown shade. Still a little jagged, but it had admittedly mellowed after all this time rolling. Sisyphus didn't know exactly how long that time had been. He felt like it had been years, many years, but he wanted to believe otherwise. He wanted to believe millennia. Maybe the end of the world would be closer. But ultimately, he chose not to dwell on that part, on that wait, for his own sake.

And there was the chain. The chain that bound him to the boulder. It wasn't quite of this world. It had an off blue color, sometimes even looking like it was glowing. It didn't have any fixed spot on surface of the boulder; if it did, Sisyphus could barely push for a few seconds before it would pull his leg off the ground. Rather, it slid around on the surface, so it was always just close enough. The chain more so connected to the boulder's soul, not its form.

The mountain was rocky, devoid of any grass or greens. Much like the boulder, the ground wasn't smooth, but at least it didn't stab at his feet. Obviously, it felt endless, but as far as mountains went, it was a peanut. There were many other mountains, that would laugh at it, before patting it on the head. That was one thing that annoyed him to no end; at some point, long ago, he'd asked, begged the gods to give him back some memories of his previous life. As a tiny souvenir to keep him from going crazy. Amazingly, they had obliged. He could see blurry pictures of some things; him and his family having dinner together, laughing. The color of his wife's long, lush hair. But not her face. And the one thing he’d been given to remember in the most detail had been his travels. His hikes, trekking to the edges of the world. The walking, and the walking after that. Still alone, it was always done alone. They’d done nothing but make his pain feel greater. In many ways, it had been better to not remember.

He looked around, and saw that the expanse had darkened. He didn't have to sleep, or eat, or drink. He thought he could remember, a time when that wasn't so. How could you sleep while holding the boulder in place? How could you push it if you were starving? Those days had been a low point for him. To not even be able to push it upwards for a few seconds. But those days were gone, and he had grown strong. He still hadn't come to terms with this fate, but now he at least held a little hope in his heart. A hope that, somehow, against reason, he could beat the curse and reach the top. He had believe that. For Zeus's sake, the boulder slipped away from him whenever he reached the top, no matter how much strength he had. Clearly reason wasn't a part of his life anymore. If he didn't have that, he had nothing.

The moonlight landed on the side of the boulder that faced him, illuminating it a serene blue. He envisioned the moon, brilliant against the void above. He didn't dare look away. He'd done so before. A lot of times. And it never helped him, reading the freedom on its lips. Besides, he'd done it enough times to see an imperfect copy in his mind's eye. One that wasn't beckoning him. He envisioned it and wondered how the Goddess Selene felt, seeing him every night like this on her path through the skies. Perhaps she felt bad, and wanted to free him, but couldn't stop on her way to come down and help him. Perhaps she wanted to see him suffer, and grimaced looking at him. Perhaps she was conflicted. Perhaps she hadn't ever even noticed him. Sisyphus didn't know which one of those he wanted to be true.

Some more time passed, and remembering where he was, what he was doing, he begrudgingly left his mind. The sky was still dark, but clearly it wasn't the same night. Just before, when he'd noticed moonlight, the ground was completely clean. Nothing grew on the hill, but the weather still always came, and now the ground had patches of snow everywhere. He must have been thinking about it for a long, long time. A long, long, l

 

 

 

His thoughts cut off abruptly. There it was. The peak of the mountain. Even now, he hadn't named it. He hadn't named the boulder. He didn't know what he should call them, so they were as they were. He breathed a sigh, preparing for the fall this time. He still hoped he would reach that top one day, but he felt it couldn't be on this roll. In the past, he'd even tried climbing the mountain from every angle he could, for the tiny chance that it had one side which wasn't quite as steep. One side where if you walked up perfectly, you could go on. There hadn't. The tiny, flat plateau at the tippy top was now about a dozen long steps away. He stepped onto the point, the trigger, where it always falls away.

 

 

 

He'd almost instinctively stopped pushing. He'd found that if he still tried after he fell, it only ended up worse. His muscles instinctively knew that they needed to let go at that moment. Yet he was still standing. He was no longer moving, for he was still in the stance to fall, but he firmly held the boulder in front of him. For an instant, everything disappeared to him. The world around him. His body. His thoughts. It was a nothing beyond nothing. As soon as it had happened, he came back to himself and began rolling it again. Before he realized it, he had just two, three steps left until he'd reach onto the plateau. But the boulder was in front of him, not behind. And the weight bearing against him lessened.

 

 

 

At that moment, he accidentally almost risked it all. He forgot everything that he'd done on this mountain, he forgot who he was, and why he was. His mind was that of a child's. He let go of the boulder, and ran past it, to stand upon the plateau. The innermost part of his mind, realizing what he’d done, let out a sound. Scream, shriek, shout, none of these could describe it enough. So primal, so, oh so utterly terrified, it could have torn the fabric of the heavens to shreds, had it come from a mouth. Yet, miraculously, it did not roll him back. The boulder had landed into a small concave on the top, where it fit in perfectly. It wasn't gonna fall. It wasn't falling right now. It hadn't fallen this time. Why this time? Maybe he shouldn't ask that.

Sisyphus felt himself with his hands, to make sure this wasn't some dream, a fantasy, an illusion. Maybe that was how he'd stopped needing food, or water, or rest. He was already dead and dreaming. But he wasn't dead, and certainly not dreaming. Feeling around, he found out he wasn't smiling, either. He forced his lips into a smile with his fingers, and the lips felt like old bones, being crushed into millions of pieces. But it was the sweetest feeling in this world. He stayed like that for some more time. Eventually, he stopped just standing there, and went over to a little box, a bit further across the plateau. The chain from the now still boulder almost prevented Sisyphus from reaching whatever was in it. He had to essentially crawl to be able to reach it, but he did get the lid open, and reached in. Though before he touched it even, he knew what it had to be. His fingers closed around a thin sort of stick, with some little teeth on it. The key to the chain. It was glowing the same shade of blue as the chain itself, and in the key, in the moment, Sisyphus saw more beauty than that of the entire world. The chain had no keyhole anywhere on it, but that wasn't a problem. Within mere seconds, both the key and the chain melted away, turning to dust, and blowing away with the wind. And when he got up, his foot breathed for this first time in... he still didn't know how much time it was, but he realized that this wasn't the same foot. That foot hadn't walked enough to reach the darkest depths of the world. He reached down to touch the skin.

It felt like it was burning. After suffocating for so, so long, it didn't know how to handle anything else at all. But he kept massaging it, and slowly the ache softened. A wild animal, tamed.

And now, Sisyphus asked himself a question he couldn't have asked sooner. What came next?

 

 

 

What did come next.

Sisyphus figured the best place to start was the door, at the base of the mount. But that was far away, and now was not the moment for more walking. No, he could not wait a second longer. Standing at the edge of the small platform, he held his arms out to his sides, and threw himself back down.

The second he touched the stone, he almost regretted it. Something told him immortality had not left him just yet, but it still hurt. It hurt a whole lot. But without the boulder jerking him down at breakneck pace, it wasn't as bad. And for once, for once, this fall was not a sign of failure. He had not a single care, for at that moment, each scrape was a reminder of his bliss. This trip was one of the fastest he'd ever had; as soon as it had started, he was already slowing down on the flat ground. And it had been worth the quick moment of pain. When he stopped rolling, his gaze was left with the mountain in the center of his view, with the sun gently illuminating it from behind. His eyes burned. Sisyphus got up again, and turned away from the mountain.

There it was. A small, gray door frame. There wasn't anything behind it. If you came at it from the other side, you'd see nothing in it. There had been times, when he'd tried just walking away. Ignoring the mountain, ignoring the door, but he never, never found a thing out there. It didn't even have a door that could be closed. It lead into a hallway, which lead back home. Back to another world. That had been the one thing stopping him from going through; the boulder wasn't even close to fitting in. In the past, he'd tried to chip off the boulder with his bare hands, so it would be small enough to fit through. But whenever he looked at the door after trimming the boulder, the doorway shrunk, and Sisyphus could no longer fit through either. And by when his eyes went back to the boulder, it would always have rebuilt itself, and when he looked at the door again, it was back to normal too. And even if he always kept his eyes upon both of them, they just changed right before his eyes. But now, now the boulder didn't hold him back. The door frame felt bigger, inviting him.

He took his time going through it. It was long, winding. The walls, and floor, and ceiling, were all this dull gray. The air in here felt breezy. Wind blew in from the light up ahead, bracing him. He stopped for a moment, pondering. Every single thing that had happened. Yet again, he was left wanting. But he could put it together later. He stepped into the light.

 

***

 

Sisyphus was on a rocky cliff, staring ahead into Athens. Just this cliff beneath him, on its own, was already such, such a beautiful sight. It was a light gray, more of a marble-like shade. It was hard, but smooth. Compared to the mountain, it was like a gigantic pillow. There was a chasm ahead of him. He thought he could make out a river at the bottom of the cliff. Deep blue. He'd missed colour. On the other side of the pit, there was another cliff, identical to the one he stood upon, but there was a large temple situated on it. It was a little worn, but the countless tall, gleaming pillars holding it were majestic. If this was something made by humans, he began to recoil at the thought of the constructions of the gods. The sky above him was full of clouds, but they did not sacrifice the light even a bit. Behind him was a deep green forest, with branches that swooped low, obscuring the door he'd come from. Looking back at it now, he saw straight through it. There was no way back.

Sisyphus savoured the moment, but not for too long. He had too many things to do. Like a child in a candy store, he needed everything. There was a pathway to the left, which looked to arch downward towards the river. His heart compelled him there the most. He took off onto it at a brisk jog, and in but a few moments, he had reached the shore. It was full of pebbles, with a thin layer of sand beneath those. The way they gave way when he stepped across them felt odd. He felt uneasy, with the ground shifting beneath him like that. But they did not slow him, and he ran straight into the water.

He gasped. It was cold, but not in the way a winter night is cold. It was wonderful. His movement felt soft, and lazy, as if his body was being smothered by pillows from every direction. As he looked down, Sisyphus watched the dirt and grime washing off of him into the stream. The sight was almost repulsive. He'd forgotten just how filthy he really was. It had become as banal as his skin itself. He kind of felt bad for staining the water with his presence. That thought was quickly fleeting, however, as he brought his hands up to his mouth to drink. When he did, his throat felt like it was gonna fall apart, simply from the glory of that small gulp he managed to get. It was sweeter than any ambrosia. He reached for more, and wished he hadn't. On the second handful, it was now filled with the dirt, the sweat. He spat it back out, and echoed the regret from a second ago. It left him looking down at the surface of the stream. His shoulders were now just barely above water, and he got a good, long look at his face. Had it always been so ragged? And emotionless, yet at the same time terrified? And when had he gotten all those scars? He thought they always healed. The ones on his arms and legs did. He brought his hand up to feel his face, and it felt like touching a statue.

A bit solemn, he kept walking deeper into the stream. And deeper. But his unease washed away. It felt nice to properly wash himself off. It was hard, of course, considering the state he was in, but when he'd done all he could, he took a deep breath, and—

And he was choking. He'd gone under. He’d been so mesmerized, he hadn’t even registered it. He didn't remember how to swim, and hadn't even considered that when throwing himself in. He flailed as hard as he could, and tried pulling himself closer to the shore, but he couldn't do it. This was it. He'd come so, so far, just to drown. He felt he was screaming, which did nothing but hurt his throat even more as water continued to rush into his lungs. But against all of the visions he had in his head, of himself at the bottom of the riverbed, his fingers did land on something. He couldn't see it, he'd closed his eyes in a feeble attempt to block the hurt out. It felt like a branch. He clung on to it with all of his might, and managed to pull himself up above. However, when he felt the grasp was the one pulling him, he risked opening his eyes for a split second, and realized that it was not a tree, but something white, slightly yellowed. He wasn't sure what it was, but since it was dragging him to shore, Sisyphus decided to trust it and wait until his eyes cleared to see.

When he finally felt the ground beneath him, and the powerful tide had stopped pulling, he laid on the ground, and retched the water out of his lungs, groaning miserably, until it was he felt that he could breathe again. He looked up, and saw a lady. A human. Sisyphus was stunned. She was a short and stocky, but clearly young. She had long blonde hair, with a slight curl to it, and she wore a red cloth dress, which was now soaked from rescuing him. The look on her face as she looked down at him was somewhere between confusion, disbelief, and horror.

She was beautiful.

She knelt down beside him, and began speaking to him. Sisyphus was about to ease her concerns when he realized he didn't understand a single word of what she had said. He heard the sounds very clearly, but he couldn't even begin to guess what they meant. He'd forgotten the language. He'd always thought that he'd done a good job of keeping his mind sharp all these years, but it seemed that his thoughts had transcended beyond simple words, long ago. He tried to say something, anything, hoping sheer reflex would help him get something out, but nothing came out of his mouth. He could not speak anymore. He was trapped in his own mind.

He wanted to show, signal to the lady that he could not talk, or even understand, but he didn't even know how to begin with that. He just sort of clutched at his throat, and she seemed to get the gist. Saying something else, she held out her hand towards him, shaky as it was, and waited. The panic in her eyes had faded away, giving way to something comforting. They were warm, becoming of a mother. Sisyphus stood there, dumb, for a second. Why was she holding out her hand? What did it mean? Sisyphus almost wished he had drowned in the river, so he didn't have to sit there like a dumb fool. After a bit, she grabbed his hand in her own, and began walking away from the shore, taking him along. It was just like in the water. He followed her, and she lead him to beautiful safety. So, he walked on, right at her side, slightly lagging behind. Her hands were soft.

 

***

 

Times passed, again. He reckoned it had been a few days, as the sun and moon had exchanged a handful of times. The lady took him into her home, and took care of him. He still couldn't figure out her name. He'd tried to learn the language, to grasp at any word at all, but just couldn't. A worn man doesn't learn like a child does, and neither is he treated with the same patience. Neither had he found his voice, so he'd been expressing himself with his hands. He struggled with putting out more complex thoughts and messages, but he could explain the simple things. Such as the hunger. He hated that; he'd gotten to taste food again. And it was wonderful, but over the years on the mountain, he'd learned to push hunger aside. He'd stopped feeling the void within. But now that he'd eaten again, that void had woken up, ravenous, and he couldn't ignore it, and so he had to eat. In a sense, it was amazing to feel that kind of normalcy, but it felt oh so restrictive. Thankfully, the lady always provided. She'd turned out to be just a common folk, living in a small, remote, wooden cabin. Aside from Sisyphus, she lived here on her own, though there were one or two men who came as guests, very frequently. Sisyphus hadn't gotten to observe them very much. They were scared of him. He'd catch them giving him these skeptic, sometimes disgusted looks. Whenever they noticed he'd noticed, they'd quickly turn away, not wanting to provoke him in some way. The lady wasn't that scared anymore, though. She was curious, even fascinated more than anything else. He'd tried to show her in other ways, he'd painted pictures of what he felt, but she didn't understand what he meant through it. He'd tried exploring around, finding some way he could take care of himself and get off her back, but he hadn't found anything at all. He was still just here. Being taken care of in some poor lady’s house, in her hopes of getting... something out of him. This arrangement they had, it had worked. So far.

But right now, as he sat in the corner, painting another picture that he hoped would help her finally understand, and finally see, he occasionally glanced up to see her looking at him, with eyes. Eyes that were sad.

 

***

 

The rattling of the wheels annoyed Sisyphus. Everything annoyed him, if he was honest. The thought of the lady annoyed him. After weeks, and weeks, of being taken care of, he still couldn't give her anything new. Another confused hand signal. Another picture of a brown mountain. Another picture of the moon. Naturally, she'd grown frustrated. She didn’t have endless time, she didn’t have endless food. He should have expected this to happen sooner of later, but it still hurt, when she had dumped him out onto the street. Somehow, though, he had managed to find something to keep him alive. The first night out there, as he lay on the corner, succumbing to his renewed starvation, a man had found him there, and had taken him off to somewhere. After a bit of strange, meaningless gesturing, the man gave Sisyphus a large wagon, and eventually, Sisyphus figured it out. All he had to do was and drag it from place to place. Transport. A slave. This was what he'd climbed for all those years to do. He carried the cart from one place, where people offloaded whatever was in it. Then Sisyphus went back and just got more things. Over. And Over. And again. And again. And more. And more. Sometimes, the cart would be bigger, or it would be smaller, or the path would change, or the destination would change. But that didn't make it any less maddening. Whenever he reached the end of a trip, something deep, deep in him thought that the wagon would roll away, rapidly, and he'd have to chase after it. And push it back up the mo—

But the wagons gave no resistance. When the job was done, it was done. The work felt hollow.

That was another thing. He'd gotten back to thinking about the mountain, and found himself missing it. At least there, he had a hope to cling to. The hope of getting out of there. Here, what did he have? The hope of sleeping away another night in the grass, barely fed enough to not go hungry? Another day, for people to look at him, and be glad they weren't where he was? Another day, to rot amongst humanity. It felt so, oh so painfully hopeless. He wished he could go back, and at that moment, he dropped to his knees and begin banging his head against the dirty ground. He couldn't go back to the mountain. The door had closed. Even if he could go back there, he wouldn't be bound there, forced to do anything.

But... maybe he could pretend he was. Maybe he didn't need it to be real, as long as it felt so much better. Maybe he could just find another, bigger mountain, and another, bigger boulder. Maybe he could let the boulder slip on purpose, again and again, and go back to how everything was supposed to be. Everyone on the street was staring at him, taking steps away. Yet others gawked, or perhaps even came to him to try to help. They didn't care if he saw them, and he didn't care that they saw him. But as he got up, all of them recoiled, taking steps back from the dangerous, jagged maniac. Sisyphus undid the leash with which he carried the cart, and ran off away, away, leaving behind the muddy streets and the cloudy brown sky.

 

***

 

When Sisyphus bashed his head against the tree again, it hurt, but not more than he already hurt. He'd tried what he said he was gonna do; he'd found a mountain, and a boulder, and tried rolling it again. It wasn't the same. He hadn't been forced to bleed upon this mountain. He didn't know every single little intricacy of it, and honestly, he was scared of what he didn't know. When he let the boulder slip, he couldn't ignore the fact that he'd given up on it, and that he had not actually been bested. And nothing forced him to do these things. It felt like life was nothing anymore. He felt like a child, pretending to be something, but like a child, he got bored of the playing pretend. He hated that.

He began running, again. He didn't know where to. He just ran. Away. He needed to find where the world ended. Not after long, he had stopped seeing, his vision going black. In his imagination, he kept running, past the trees, into darker and darker places. But eventually, the lines in his imagination crossed together, became an incoherent mess, and when he came back to reality, he found himself face-to-face with stone. He'd tripped over in his fury. He got up and looked around. He was on a cliff. The same cliff which he'd stepped on, when he first left the mountain. The same river flowed beneath. And the same marble temple sat across the pit. He remembered how he'd marveled at it when he'd first seen it. Now, he failed to see it as anything except for what it was. More stone.

He was about to begin running again when his heart stopped. Turning to his right, he gazed towards the trees, where the doorway to the mountain had been. The doorway never had disappeared, but before, the way though it had, leaving Sisyphus stranded here. Far from his home.

But this time, the door was back. Of pale gray wood.

He scrambled towards it, to get through now, before it would ever go away again. He fumbled with the doorknob, trying to remember how such a thing worked, and opened it. Yes, it was the same gray, voided hallway as before. He ran through it, and emerged.

It was the mountain. Again.

He'd returned home.

And like clockwork, as he stared up at it, he felt the door behind him fade away into nothing. Maybe he really could pretend, like he'd wanted to. All he had to do now was find the boulder. It had to be at the top, right? That's where he'd left it. He ran frantically, again, towards the top, though he didn't keep the pace for long, as he settled down into a comfortable, wandering speed. He felt at his face, and this time, he was already smiling. It was going to be okay.

After some blissful walking, something caught his eye. A small flower, growing out of a crack in the ground. Now that he looked, there were little, barely perceptible flower buds, and blades of grass, growing out of the stone all over. The mountain had never seen any other life besides Sisyphus. He didn't know how to feel about it.

Shortly after, he decided he didn't like it. It wasn't how things were meant to be. He'd been far more capable of deep thinking on this climb than it had ever been. Walking up the mountain without the boulder, while not the goal, was far easier, Sisyphus had to admit.

After some time, perhaps a day or two, he'd reached the top. And…

No.

And the boulder was gone. The little indent where it had been sitting was empty.

Okay. Okay. The boulder's still somewhere near. Just not there. Sisyphus kept searching.

He took about five steps downhill, and did a circle around the perimeter of the mount at that level. To check that the boulder hadn't gotten caught on, some ridge around here. Of course, he knew that hadn’t happened, the thing was far too heavy to stop anywhere on the slope. But reason was no longer part of his life. And then he did another circle around. And then a dozen more. Just to make sure. It wasn't at this level. Then he took five more steps downhill, and checked this layer. And then he checked it some more. The boulder wasn't at this level. So Sisyphus kept going. Five steps downhill. Search for the boulder at this height. Not find it. Five more steps.

He did this for some time. The sun and moon switched places. Many times. Many, many times. He hadn't even bothered trying to keep track of them. That would subtract from what was important.

The grass had grown taller. Before it was tiny, and grew in patches. Now it coated the ground, and reached a little above his bare toes. The flowers were sickeningly vibrant. But he kept going.

He kept searching. After even more time, he reached the base of the mountain. He'd scoured every single rock, every inch of the mountain. No boulder anywhere. The grass tickled around his hip now. That was fine. There was still the flat expanse, all around the mountain, reaching out towards infinity. If the boulder had rolled all the way downhill, it clearly wouldn't have stopped there. It clearly would have continued rolling further out. So Sisyphus kept searching. Just now instead of doing laps on the mountain, they were around, on the ground at the bottom of the mountain.

Eventually, he went so far out he couldn't see the mountain anymore. Partially because he'd gotten so far away. Partially because the grass now reached far over his head. Now that he couldn't see through the grass, he had to be even more thorough searching. But he still searched. He continued, for as long as he could. Eventually, the grass grew so tall, so thick, Sisyphus couldn't push it out of the way anymore. It blocked him from moving. He'd tried climbing over it to keep going, but he couldn't scale it like that. He clawed at it, hoping to eventually tear it down, just for the possibility that the boulder was right there, right behind it. But that didn't help. Eventually his nails had sanded down to nothing.

There was nothing he could do.

He had failed.

His limbs gave out, and he fell limp, although unable to fall to the ground. Stuck between the thick leaves of grass. His head, equally limp, fell backwards, and stared up at the daylit sky.

 

***

 

Selene, goddess of the moon, rose in the sky and observed the man in the grass, his head just barely visible through.

Sisyphus.

Selene had liked him, back when he'd lived. She’d seen him as a little child, and how he’d dreamt of such a bright, and perfect future. She still couldn’t help but feel bad for him even today.

He was down there, in that field, for one crime, and that had been cheating death. And really, she didn’t think it had been a good thing, but she did sympathize for him. It was only natural, right? Selene knew that she feared it. But, a sin against the gods was not something that was easily forgotten, she supposed.

She'd even been the one who had come forward with the idea to free him of his old punishment, by accident. Came up with it on a whim and mentioned it in passing to Zeus, and before she could take it back, he loved the idea, and then there was no stopping him from letting it play out. He'd ordered her to observe Sisyphus’s nights and made sure everything went according to ‘the plan.’ And it had. It had gone so, so much better than Zeus ever could have hoped.

He'd spent a thousand years pushing that boulder.

He'd spent three thousand searching for it.

She felt bad, she felt dumb, for not having tried to help him yet. She had been cowardly.

And she still wanted to help him, she really did.

But what was there to do anymore?

She knew, that truly, on the deepest level, his mind was forever shattered.

She frowned, and moved on with her nightly rounds.