ADONIS!

He left a little of himself in everyone he met, for he was that kind of spirit—an open, unshackled book, read by whoever cared to glance at the Adonis that he was. Magnanimous in character and rich in spirit, he had something to give, even when he hadn’t meant it; benevolence was a subconscious trait he couldn’t help.

A smile here, a chuckle there, because he had sprung almost suddenly into a two-step dance he had watched on a television show. He remembers his mother, a likable woman who seemed to have more friends than she needed. Whenever she moved with him to the market, she spent hours on end talking, smiling, and laughing with people she didn’t know; every one of her interactions was filled with mirth and warmth.

The compliments were endless: he shared his mother’s energy, and after laughing, the attention quickly turned to him. “Oh! What a beautiful child!” “What a bubbly child!” “People must stop you many times just to look at his eyes.” “He is as good-looking as he has good manners.” “Look at the perfectly shaped face!” When he left those expeditions with his mother that were longer than necessary, his cheeks were pained because of the relentless pinching; he was like an artifact everyone wanted to touch because it seemed unreal to have been that beautiful.

But he braved all of that; it was a labor of love, because maybe the rest felt better when they caressed his bubbly cheeks. A small sacrifice, if it helped one go along their way happily. He was rich without having money. But that was then.

He doesn’t remember when, but that stopped in spectacular fashion; he woke up one morning and stopped feeling a certain way, he stopped seeing certain things, and in between those transitions. Not much had changed except time; Mother was still beautiful, at least in his eyes, even though she hated moving out, saying the sun wasn’t too kind on the skin of people her age. She stayed in the squalid room and avoided light as much as she could.

She was well-learned and had in her locker a carefully crafted argument that could put anyone off, so she stayed away most of the time and only told him to visit when he couldn’t avoid it. But he now looks at the halcyon days with curious longing, wondering when everything changed. He could guess when they did; the most plausible reason was that he didn’t carry the energy with him; he only sucked from his mother’s, and when it stopped flowing for her, it stopped flowing for him too, because the source had spectacularly dried up.

He remembers when the cold, rainy night didn’t leave them the same. That night that his father left or disappeared, never to be traced again, had triggered everything for her. He remembers clearly when the energy dipped, because after a frantic episode of a few weeks after the disappearance, she gave in slowly to the negative. She didn’t like conversations anymore, because they became a burden; she stopped moving out, and when she did, it was at odd hours when very few were out.

The man she loved, who was no longer in sight for no plausible reason, the man for whom she lived, the man who could be dead. He had gone with everything—her happiness; he left her nothing of note, and life became a laborious venture. Her son, the Adonis who shared her energy, was abandoned; it had rained on his parade, and he had no idea how to bring the spark back.

His prayer is now simple; he repeatedly mumbles it under his breath: “Which God would bring father back, even just for a day?” Mother would go out of bed in the morning after hearing a knock on the door. And then she would open the door to see the man she loved immensely; he would embrace her like he did for all those years, they would dance on the floor to 90’s classics, and he would carry her; he would explain everything and make things right with her. It would bring the spark back, and he would live again, happy as he once did. But those are now just prayers—prayers and wishful thinking.