Introduction:

As Gods Live
Its hot, for sure, but the humidity is the real killer. It
sounds clich, but the arid, baking heat of Arizonas dry
climate is truly much more tolerable than the wet, muggy
conditions found in the tropics. My skins sticky and I feel
like I need a shower after only a brief walk from the hotel
to my car. Splotches of sweat are visible on the rubber grip
of my camera as I lean down to get a good picture of the
unusual structure in front of me. Shaded from the
brutality of the midday sun by a cluster of rustling palm
trees, a cracked white fountain rises from a plaza of gray
brick. It is guarded by the mounted heads of two bronze
lions, watching in wait as if daring any passerby to
approach.
I snap a few pictures of the fountain, which comes
up to about my waist and would not look out of place as a
birdbath in a suburban garden. Its an octagonal column
of what I believe is marble, though it could just be
concrete. (Masonry was never my strong suit). Theres a
small crack in the rim of the fountains bowl. Water is
slowly dripping from this crack, accompanied by a black
streak, the inevitable result of years of neglect.
Sitting in the grass in front of the fountain is a
gray plaque standing about calf high. Engraved upon it in
a calligraphic font seemingly clutched straight from a
 ~The Water of Life~
medieval illuminated manuscript are the words Fountain
of Youth.
I step back to take a picture of the plaque when a
group of children race up to the fountain. Moments later,
theyre pressing a button on a metal spigot and water
splashes them in the face before they each take a drink.
Their thirst quenched, the children run toward the open
door of a caravan unceremoniously parked but a few yards
away.

Though I knew this going in, seeing a group of children

casually sip from the fountain then vanish into their
mothers van not thirty feet away solidified the obvious:
this was not the real Fountain of Youth. Surely, the great
poets and historians of antiquity did not imagine that the
legendary spring would one day be sitting in the shadow
of Al Lang Stadium--the prestigious home of the Tampa
Bay Rowdies minor league soccer team, and across the
street from a strip of luxury apartments.
The small monument to the Fountain of Youth in
St. Petersburg, Florida is barely an afterthought. Tourists
dont flock to it, and to the untrained eye it looks no more
glorious than any water fountain in any public park or
childrens playground in the world. And its just one of the
dozens or more amalgamations youll find virtually
anywhere, cheap imitations designed to wring a few more
pennies from tourists who are either none the wiser or
simply dont care, destined to be hidden among millions
of vacation photos and internet selfies.
Perhaps it is a testament to the myth of the

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 As Gods Live
Fountain of Youth--the great wellspring whose waters are
said to grant eternal life, cure all ills, or even turn back the
clock depending on the version of the story--and its
endearing legend that it has become such a recognizable
symbol. Like the Holy Grail or the White Whale, the
fountains very name has become less identified with the
spring in which it embodies and more commonly seen as
a metaphor for immortality, both physical and spiritual.
The great historians of the ages forgone probably would
not have predicted that the fountain obsessed over by so
many would be used to describe wrinkle creams and
nutritional supplements in modernity.
It is understandable that the reality of the fountain
has faded into the mists of history. What it claims to do
crosses the line between science and sorcery to most
rational human beings, particularly in an age where every
shred of information ever collected by mankind can be
accessed in seconds with a device most of you carry in
your pocket. We are skeptics, we are cynics, and as such,
the myth of the Fountain of Youth--so unbelievable it is--
has predictably become nothing short of a bedtime story
or a marketing gimmick, a symbol fallen from the graces
of romanticism to the dredges of mundanity.
But how did this happen? Have we become so
skeptical of mystery, so numb to discovery, that the great
fountain is now nothing more than a neat footnote in
history?
Perhaps it is because we know what the fountain
supposedly can grant that we have shrugged it off so
casually. The incredible advancement of healthcare
technology has resulted in a multitude of medicinal

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 ~The Water of Life~
techniques that the ancients would describe, in the words
of Arthur C. Clarke, as indistinguishable from magic. The
great plagues of old--headaches, hair loss, impotence--can
be cured with pills, and our ingenuity has single handedly
wiped out diseases that once eradicated entire
civilizations. Yet there is one disease, one unstoppable
force that both pharmaceutical companies and the
ancients have been battling for eons with very little
progress: time.
Time births aging, and aging is an affliction that
inevitably takes us all. It is a force which many have
dedicated their lives to stopping. Medical science has
come close; recent advancements in gene therapy,
nutrition and cosmetics have managed to bravely fight the
rigors of this great disease, but none have managed to slay
the beast entirely. The very idea of immortality, the
possibility that we could live forever as gods live, has
become a fantasy so farfetched that we have completely
dismissed it as one of the very few things we will never
accomplish.
The Fountain of Youth offers this immortality, so
the stories say. As such, its easy to dismiss its claims, and
its very existence, as nothing short of a fools wish. We
accept it as but a story, told by those yearning to satiate the
deepest, most impossible dream that has at least to this
moment escaped the clutches of humanitys grasp.
But what if there was more to it than that? What if
the Fountain of Youth--romanticized to the point where it
has become a metaphor for that which is impossible--was
real? What if there was a fountain capable of doing what
the myths said it could do? And what if it still existed,

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 As Gods Live
hidden somewhere on the globe?
I have spent the past several months attempting to
answer those questions with an open yet skeptical mind.
What follows documents my research through several
months of digging through history, examining the science,
and following the footsteps of the explorers who came
before us, many of whom met their ends searching for the
Fountain of Youth.
And by the end, youll know where to find it.