The Question

As he walked along the path that the cool summer evening he felt an unrest growing deep within his soul. He searched his thoughts of the day to find the source of this feeling and then he realized he was not alone. He looked around but no one was in sight, but he could not shake the feeling that someone or something was close to him.
And then he recognized it was an old friend, a thought, or more specifically, a question that he had considered so many times in the past. They had spent so much time together over the years that he had given him the name, The Question. It had been a couple of months since they had conversed and he wasn’t sure he was glad that his old friend had come back at this moment to disturb the quietness of the evening. But then, The Question never minded coming at the most inopportune time and normally stayed past a reasonable hour.
He thought about the first time they met. He was sitting in his living room watching a video when he first heard The Question. And while he remembered the event very clearly, he never had an idea that they would become such close companions on this journey.
So, he began to turn The Question over in his mind, much the same as he had so many times before. He knew he did not have a good response for The Question and yet he could not escape the struggle he faced with a simple, ‘I do not know!’
He thought of that day a few months ago he had come to the realization that he had been turning The Question over in his mind for so long it had been worn smooth, like a stone in a rock tumbler. There were no longer any edges, corners or crevices in The Question where he could get a hold. It seemed that whenever he tried to grasp it firmly it would slowly slip between his fingers and begin again to pierce his soul with the agility of an enemy very familiar with all his defenses.
And so he continued walking down the path, knowing that The Question would leave, but also that he would be back.

Wanderer101