The dealer of souls

Posted On November 30, 2018

How a dealer can be so soul-less?

Everything, from the air melted in the wind to the water gurgling in the sink, is removed- closed- sold- closed again and resold by a dealer. In this case, a dealer of souls.

After all these steps, the first purpose is lost; the attention is all on the package. In human hands, souls are nothing more than the simple boxes, cans and containers they happen to occupy.

Most souls are confined inside cases small as matchboxes or cookie jars. Souls can stay so long inside a cookie jar to begin feeling as if they were cookies themselves.

For instance, I consider myself a shoe. As a shoe, I think and walk. If anyone would ever ask me what time is it, I would definitely answer six. Six is the number of my laces, while five is the number of fingers requested to put me in business every day.

A dealer of packaging, then?

See, there are amongst you simple souls, called souls of objects. Enclosed inside boxes or frames, the common souls wait half-asleep. Their value slowly rises, eager to change hands once more with the secret desire to finally disappear.

They’re not bright, don’t appear on any screen, and are weightless. I have been inside a lamp in a fridge and a picture jumping with the frame from a wall. I’m that kind of soul, and I feel more independent than you, free from any dealer of souls.

Oh, and once I was a record of classical music.

Now I’m a pair of shoes and to be honest I enjoy every bit of it. I can study this dealer and increase my memories every day. Staying close to a human completely unnoticed it’s fascinating.

I have to say that frames, lamps and music records don’t have such a fun life. They stay still, and sometimes, a few noses get closer to inspect them, together with a pair of hands.

We talked before about discovered souls, extracted by a dealer as they were gas and inserted in new bodies or new cases. The case is crucial for the human science of trade and, therefore, essential for a dealer of souls.

Why on Earth do people need a dealer of souls?

There are such cases in which being traded is not a choice. It’s the case of the comedian’s soul, the pure one. Suddenly, it was passed to a child from a humble family.

Maybe it was its destiny. This time the soul was sold by a father as the last resource. It all started when the doctor asked the boy to try Y-rays, the animogram.

“This soul is worth a fortune!”

Exclaimed excited the doctor in front of an equally astonished father. The son, completely unaware, was drawing on a small bench outside. Suddenly the father saw a gold mine that opened right under his feet, an answer to his prayers and bills.

How could he possibly explain all this to his own son, to a young man?

He rushed out of the Yellow Hospital. Inside his pocket, there was the name of a famous dealer of souls, eager to pay a fair amount of money for that prodigious soul.

When at home, the father started a monologue with the yellowish picture of his dead wife. This imaginary dialogue lasted the whole night.

“Look at me, my love, tell me what to do.”

As any other monologues recited in front of a photograph, this one as well never received any reply. The father started feeling sad and lost, a widow pathetically crying alone in his room.

When outside started the day, he decided to put aside the photograph and the filial love. He thought maybe it was the ladder to heaven or a gold mine, but something inside him said it would be just the entrance of a dark well. 

Even the monologue changed in front of the photograph.

A Ladder.

“Fundamental, not necessary, the doctor said. Yes, he said that.”

A mine.

“Someone asked for that soul, ready to let it grow and spread its wings. I cannot lose this opportunity.”

A dark well.

A dealer of souls can be persuasive

The sun somehow managed to colour a grey breakfast, a poisoned meal, while the father prepared himself for work. The decision was made, he had to call the dealer of souls and the grandma in the other room silently cried, speaking to the same yellowish photograph.

That same night, illuminated by streetlamps as every other night, many new figures entered the house and, among them, a dealer of souls.

It wasn’t long before the guy got lost in an induced death, his dreams made of concrete and lights with a plastic scent. Everyone was working to extract that soul in the room, which took a long time before being dragged out inside a wooden box.

Another soul, greyish with dark stripes, was used to replace it. The boy in the morning opened his eyes, confused.

“Grandma, what happened?”

He asked, watching his grandma crying at his feet. The woman didn’t answer, keeping her silent weeping.

Then, it’s better to allow another chance for our soul to let it spread its wing elsewhere? We have to survive, no? Nothing really changed, though. His new soul, like his life, started following a path, an anonymous grey-with-dark-stripes destiny.

On his typical day, he would be running on the spot in a gym, banging a few times his fists on a table in frustration and leaving many drawings unfinished inside a drawer.

After a night inside, I’m ready to walk like a real modern man, always in a hurry. Well, the owner of my laces is finally turning on the bed. His warm footprints started from the bed, reaching a weighting scale—a weight almost without a soul, like all the dealers of souls.

Anyways, one thing at a time.

His name is S., and he’s a dealer of souls.

If you’re curious about what will happen next to this dealer of souls, read the next part.

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