Eau De Vie

Eau de Vie

There once was a young man, a fairly ordinary soul, who I will choose to call Kevin. He lived your average life wandering between jobs, some good, some worse, almost stumbling along his path. Sometimes though, as we all know, it’s when you are stumbling aimlessly that you actually go the right way.

So one beautiful day he decided he would go for a walk in the woods, as he often did, to clear his head and just think away. As he was walking he noticed a faint shimmering off to his right through a thick patch of bushes. This shimmering strangely fascinated him, so he decided to investigate. However, the bushes were too thick and he achieved little other than scratching himself a bit and poking himself in the eye with a stick. That was the final straw, and Kevin vowed to come back the following day (since it was a Sunday and he had little better to do) with some form of hacking device.

The next day he returned to the bushes, and began to slash away the foliage with the rusty machete he had borrowed from a slightly unhinged friend. As the branches fell away, he saw that the shimmering he had spotted was a small puddle of the cleanest, purest water he had ever seen. He couldn’t take his gaze off it, and he moved towards the puddle, awe-struck. He knelt down, cupped a small amount of the water in his hands, and began to drink. As he drank, he felt his troubles wash away; it was as though some enormous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Suddenly, a little green-skinned man dressed in a golden tunic was standing in front of him.

“What you just drank my son, was the water of life. You have now been freed from mortal constraints, and can live forever, if you so choose. I have been guarding this pool for millennia, but now you have found it I can leave, and return to my homeland. This water is my gift to you for freeing me, and anyone can drink it. Please, go and spread the word.”

And with that, the green man with the mischievous eyes was gone.

Kevin returned to his house, still only half believing what had happened. He slept the most contented sleep that night. The next day, he went and gathered up his friends and family, only half-hinting at what he wanted to show them. They were a bit confused by the huge smile on his face as he invited them to come for a walk in the woods with him, but they were intrigued and so they followed him. The group arrived at the puddle, unsure of what would happen. Kevin drank the water, then offered it to them.

But his friends and family only saw muddy puddle water, and refused to drink. He tried and tried to persuade them to have even the tiniest sip, but they simply couldn’t see the water for what it was, so convinced they were that it must be dirty or dangerous.

For many years Kevin tried different ways to get the others to drink, never ageing or becoming ill, never breaking a bone, but still no-one would listen. They thought it was odd that he had looked 25 years old for almost 70 years, but still they could not believe that it was the water that had helped him.

Eventually everyone else on the planet that Kevin loved got old, worn and died. Kevin grew to curse the puddle that had given him such a power, yet couldn’t help anyone he cared about. But then he realised, it wasn’t the puddle’s fault, if people weren’t ready to drink yet they didn’t have to. And so he went out, and made new friends, and played with his great-grandchildren, and soaked up life as we all should do.