I've wandered deserts more barren than my heart, forests greener than the envy I hold towards those who die. When you've lived as long as I, life is not sacred... it's torture, forced to watch the world die around you. Friends, family, animals- even plants and trees decay with every breath I draw.

I've found this world has a familiarity to it, after being forced to watch generations wilt and bloom like spring's tide. Good friends of old born anew, only in different skin. They don't remember.

But I do.

I've befriended the same man some hundreds of times. Once a carpenter, next a soldier or poet. Yet always, underneath, I can tell he is the same. Perhaps this is just the flow of humanity, but I feel something different is at work. I hope so, at least, for if not... I am merely a man broken by loss, crippled by knowledge.

At last, one day- he saw me for what I am; his long lost friend.

At least, for a moment.

"I thought you seemed familiar," he said. My heart sank, light as it was.

"I know the feeling," I replied, drawing breath. By the time I'd exhaled, he was gone once again.