Part 2
Any of her faces is in itself quite ordinary. Usually unnoticeable or even glaringly boring. Blonde hair blue jeans. Red hair short skirt. Brunette with a suit and tie. Brunette again with crimson lips and six inch heels. Sometimes ordinary in the sense that they contribute to the great diversity unique to this country. Pink hair, green soft violet. And plenty of metal studs.
On their own, none would attract more attention than the appraising looks that accompany attractive women or the brief flare of attention for the bizarre that is quickly stamped out by the political correctness of the 21st century.
But then, that is their purpose.
But then, none of them is really her.
There are many kinds of blindness. Most are harmless, comforting even, but all are impairments. Her faces play upon blindness by overwhelming the eyes. Most eyes are so filled by the vibrant hair or impossibility lovely features that they cannot possibly see the face. Their eyes, filled with an image of perfection, slide right over her eyes, filled with so many secrets and betrayals.
Who could see through the grace of her movements to the strength beneath?
'Atlas' I'd dubbed her. I heard a few of the names she took... Jones... Tippin. And if I ever learned the name on her birth certificate, she would still be Atlas to me. This mind of mine is old and doesn't adjust so well to change anymore. I could no more call her by her name then she could remove the weight of the world from her shoulders.
Who could look past the lithe body to the shape inside her skin?
Diamonds glitter prettily, stars fallen to earth. But if you look closely, more closely than the naked eye can see, diamonds are the peek of patterned efficiency. They have a structure that can be created only by thousands of years and heat and pressure that must be something like the depths of hell.
Diamonds also have the remarkable ability to cut their way through just about anything.
Who could dismiss the snug veneer of her careless guise and find himself in the presence of ... hope?
Someone no longer dazzled by the jeweled masks and swirling colors of the world.
Me.
I had seen all of her faces, her roles. I knew Kate or Amy or Michelle would board a plane, survive an ordeal, then cease to exist. So I concerned myself with the faces she made for herself. Whoever she was.
I really saw her for the first time a few years ago. She had a bounce to her step and a fire in her eyes then. The lines on her face came from excitement then and her secrets didn't weight her motions. I'd probably seen her half a dozen times before that but by then she'd been by enough to take notice and had adopted the air of an adrenaline junkie.
The fire is still there in her eyes but no longer fueled by excitement and the bounce has long deflated.
In the interval that followed I watched her pass with the frivolous attention I paid to the men that talk to their wrists. Another interval followed marked only by her absence. I only hoped she wasn't lying in a grave marked with someone else's name.
Perhaps the reality was worse.
Even I hardly recognized her when she resurfaced and I had nothing to do with the blinding pink of her hair. Her new mask was snappy and rebellious while her eyes...
I'd seen eye like that before. At the back of every pilot and passenger's mind is the knowledge that the plane might go down. And a few terrifying times their eyes look like hers... because they just didn't care.
I almost stopped her then. My assurance that she wasn't what she appeared would be enough for the airline. Bu then, as the desk clerk cleared her passport I saw a spark return. It was a spark of triumph. A spark of life that would feed upon revenge.
More??
Any of her faces is in itself quite ordinary. Usually unnoticeable or even glaringly boring. Blonde hair blue jeans. Red hair short skirt. Brunette with a suit and tie. Brunette again with crimson lips and six inch heels. Sometimes ordinary in the sense that they contribute to the great diversity unique to this country. Pink hair, green soft violet. And plenty of metal studs.
On their own, none would attract more attention than the appraising looks that accompany attractive women or the brief flare of attention for the bizarre that is quickly stamped out by the political correctness of the 21st century.
But then, that is their purpose.
But then, none of them is really her.
There are many kinds of blindness. Most are harmless, comforting even, but all are impairments. Her faces play upon blindness by overwhelming the eyes. Most eyes are so filled by the vibrant hair or impossibility lovely features that they cannot possibly see the face. Their eyes, filled with an image of perfection, slide right over her eyes, filled with so many secrets and betrayals.
Who could see through the grace of her movements to the strength beneath?
'Atlas' I'd dubbed her. I heard a few of the names she took... Jones... Tippin. And if I ever learned the name on her birth certificate, she would still be Atlas to me. This mind of mine is old and doesn't adjust so well to change anymore. I could no more call her by her name then she could remove the weight of the world from her shoulders.
Who could look past the lithe body to the shape inside her skin?
Diamonds glitter prettily, stars fallen to earth. But if you look closely, more closely than the naked eye can see, diamonds are the peek of patterned efficiency. They have a structure that can be created only by thousands of years and heat and pressure that must be something like the depths of hell.
Diamonds also have the remarkable ability to cut their way through just about anything.
Who could dismiss the snug veneer of her careless guise and find himself in the presence of ... hope?
Someone no longer dazzled by the jeweled masks and swirling colors of the world.
Me.
I had seen all of her faces, her roles. I knew Kate or Amy or Michelle would board a plane, survive an ordeal, then cease to exist. So I concerned myself with the faces she made for herself. Whoever she was.
I really saw her for the first time a few years ago. She had a bounce to her step and a fire in her eyes then. The lines on her face came from excitement then and her secrets didn't weight her motions. I'd probably seen her half a dozen times before that but by then she'd been by enough to take notice and had adopted the air of an adrenaline junkie.
The fire is still there in her eyes but no longer fueled by excitement and the bounce has long deflated.
In the interval that followed I watched her pass with the frivolous attention I paid to the men that talk to their wrists. Another interval followed marked only by her absence. I only hoped she wasn't lying in a grave marked with someone else's name.
Perhaps the reality was worse.
Even I hardly recognized her when she resurfaced and I had nothing to do with the blinding pink of her hair. Her new mask was snappy and rebellious while her eyes...
I'd seen eye like that before. At the back of every pilot and passenger's mind is the knowledge that the plane might go down. And a few terrifying times their eyes look like hers... because they just didn't care.
I almost stopped her then. My assurance that she wasn't what she appeared would be enough for the airline. Bu then, as the desk clerk cleared her passport I saw a spark return. It was a spark of triumph. A spark of life that would feed upon revenge.
More??