"The indecisive traveler...yes...that is the best way to define Adonis. He was the indecisive traveler. He didn’t know why he traveled so much...he just knew that he had to. If he spent too much time in a single place, he would start to get agitated and nervous. Quite uncomfortable to say the least. In the beginning, when he first started to travel, Adonis thought he liked to travel. When people would ask him why he traveled so much and why he never stayed for very long, he always had a reason ready at hand, one that would please the questioner and seamed to make sense to him as well. He would casually, and in a matter-of-fact sort of way, that there was so much to see in the world, and so little time, that it was his plan in life to see everything he could. Now, this sounds reasonable enough, and makes sense and first glance, but how many people can live happily without any true friends? Without anyone to care for? This can once again easily be attributed to his being filthy reach and coming from a long life of rich...oh...shall we say ‘snobs’. Not a single day in his life did he work. Not once did he have to wake up at the crack of dawn to make the rush hour traffic, just to make enough money to pay the bills. He didn’t know hunger, or any of the other troubles that comes with living hand to mouth.
‘What he did know, was fear, discomfort, and nervousness. His biggest problem of all was that he was never able to place a name to his pain, to what it was that bothered him so.
‘One of his stories that he loved to retell every time our paths would cross, is of when he was in the small town of New Bellshire. He found the town in the winter of ’57. Shortly after New Years, he was driving through the country side and found this little town which was not on his map. The sign upon entry stated a population of 324 since 1876. Adonis felt instantly comfortable and at home. The entire town consisted of a main street, which happened to be the only paved street, with various old wooden shops running along both sides. At the end of the street was a fork with both streets lined with nice old homes with white picket fences around green lawns. The town looked like something out of a story book.
‘Adonis was able to stay in New Bellshire for about a month before he started to get nervous and have to leave. For him, this was the longest he had stayed in one place since he started his traveling ten years earlier. In that month, he was able to get to know everyone in the town on a first name basis. By the time he left, he knew that town like the back of his hand.
‘He told me of a woman that lived in that town. Now don’t get me wrong, he never said he had any feelings for her, nor that she was anything out of the ordinary, but as you all know, the mere fact that he even mentioned a woman he had met was a definite sign that something had changed in Adonis, and I prayed that it was for the better. The peculiar thing is that he could never remember her name.
‘Adonis was able to return to this town at least once every two years and stay there for greater and greater periods of time, which was till then, an impossibility for him. When ever he would return to a city or town, he would only stay for shorter and shorter periods of time on each return, till he could not even see the city from afar without getting to sick to move. As his closest friend, which was not actually that close, I prayed to God that Adonis could possibly have found a place to settle down and be happy.
‘Two weeks ago, Adonis calls me up and tells me he needs to see me. He says he is back in New Bellshire and would like me to come as soon as possible. I had not seen nor hear from him in over five years, but like the rest of you, I was used to it and took no offense. He gave me directions and as soon as I had settled my affairs, I jumped into my car and drove day and night till I had found the little town with the sign stating a population of 324 with a cross through the 4 and a 5 written next to it, making the population 325.
‘The town was exactly as Adonis had described it to me, like something out of a storybook. I felt peace and serenity seam to radiate out of the walls of the buildings themselves. From what Adonis had told me over the years, not a single thing had changed from the day he first drove into the city. Every person he had met was still there, not a single new face, not a single new structure. The town appeared to had passed unnoticed by father time in his relentless, always forward moving tempest.
‘I got out of my car and walked through the town to get a better look at this lost paradise. I finally had somewhat of an understanding into why he had been able to stay here for so long, but I was still at a loss as to the true reason for his constant traveling. As I neared the end of the main street, I heard a sound which seamed to be very much out of place in this lovely Eden. It was the sound of a man crying in rich, painful sobs. I followed the sound and found a thin man bent over what appeared to be a tomb. In between the sobs, I was able to hear the man speaking to someone, as if pleading this person for something, but as I looked about, there was not a single soul about save for me and him.
‘As I neared the man, I saw that he was indeed quite old and frail. His bones could be seen protruding from beneath his cloths, which appeared to have once been made of a fine tailor, but now were nothing more than worn shrouds hanging onto the impossibly thin frame of this man. I tapped the man gently on the shoulder, afraid he might collapse under the weight of my touch, and asked him if he was addressing me. He turned around and said to me "No my old friend, it was not you I was talking to, I was talking to...to...oh now what is her name...it seams to have slipped my mind again."
‘I stared in shock at what was left of my old friend, Adonis. The true shock was that Adonis had aged at all. In all the years that had known him, he didn’t seam to have aged a single day, and now it appeared as if every year he had been able to cheat out of father time had finally caught up with him, all at once, and with interest.
‘He turned around and looked to the other side of the tomb and proceeded to plead with this woman only he could see. It appeared as if he were begging for his very life. I was able to hear him say repeatedly the phrase "but now I understand...now I know", but to what he was referring I knew not. While he bargained with the wind, I looked at the tomb which he seamed so important to him in his pleading, for he pointed at it repeatedly. It appeared to be an old tomb with the image of a sleeping knight carved onto the top. At the feet of the knight was the phrase Et In Arcadia Ego. Remembering back to my days of law school, recalled that in Latin, that roughly translated to Even In Arcadia Was I. Arcadia, that mythical place of beauty, where nothing seamed to pass on. What this phrase referred to I was clueless.
'As I stood there in lost in thought, I heard Adonis cry out and saw him collapse. I ran to his side and held his frail body in my arms. I saw that his time had indeed come and that there was nothing I nor anyone else could do. I tried to comfort him, but he kept insisting on telling me something. I leaned in close to allow him to whisper into my ear what were to be his last words. He coughed a few times and was finally able to say "My good friend, you’ve always stood by me when I needed you most." He fell into a fit of coughing and I thought to myself, that other than listening to his sometimes totally outrageous stories, I had not really done anything for him.
‘He pulled me closer and continued "Too late did I find the truth...did I finally understand. Don’t run from her my friend, for she will always be there. You can never escape her..." and that was it. That was Adonis’s last words...his legacy to the world.
‘And here we are now, gathered together in honor of this indecisive traveler. May that woman have delivered him safely into the arms of the Lord and may that restless soul of his finally be at peace."