This free verse piece is inspired by one of my earliest and still my favorite short story, Eternal Quest. I wrote the original version, largely unchanged but for some light editing, when a freshman in college. There are layers to the story--unrequited love, friendship, philosophy, human frailty, and the duality of the human spirit--that were beyond my years and are still central to the core of who I am today.  I am older but not much wiser than my former young, old soul grappling with what it means to be human and to learn inconvenient lessons we prefer to ignore. You can hear me read cold reading of about half of this short story/novelette in one of my podcasts at https://open.spotify.com/episode/6c9kOS2skPxzNJaYtquQKR?si=-DFvQA6gTHW61H5RKWnzuA (a professionally produced version by voice talent Dale Wilcox is also included in the audiobook version of my short story collection, Mindscapes distributed by Audible and Amazon).