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Seeking the Grail Seeker

nce there was a knight who set out to find the Grail.

He had read the old stories. He knew the signs to follow: the veiled symbols, the strange dreams, the sudden silence in the middle of song. He sharpened his eyes to see what others missed, and set his feet to the long road.

He passed through forests that whispered and deserts that burned. He crossed thresholds carved in stone and knelt in ruins where old prayers still hung in the dust. But always the Grail remained just beyond the next horizon.

So he walked faster. Trained harder. Slept less.

When doubt crept in, he chased it off like a stray dog. When exhaustion pressed, he pressed back harder. He was the seeker. The chosen. The one who would not stop until he was found worthy.

Years passed this way.

Then one night, in a nameless valley between nowhere and nowhere, his strength gave out. The wind was warm. The stars had no message. He built no fire, made no camp. He simply sat on a flat stone and let the stillness take him.

And there, beside him, someone sat down.

A figure in plain robes. No glow. No crown. No ceremony.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” the figure said gently.

The man blinked. “Who are you?”

“I am what you’ve been seeking.”

“That’s not possible. You don’t look like — ”

The figure smiled. “No one ever recognizes me the first time.”

The knight looked down at his hands. Calloused. Empty.

“All these years,” he said, “and I never found you.”

“You were always moving. I could only follow. Waiting for you to stop.”

They sat in silence for a long time. And in that silence, something softened. Not broken — just… softened.

“You mean,” he said at last, “the Grail has been following me?”

"Yes..." The figure shrugged slightly.

“Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say: we’ve been circling each other.”

—William Zeitler
2025 June 30