dead
On a scale of one to ten, how much is this soul-ectomy going to hurt?
Do you ever think about what it will be like to be dead?
Not what it’s like to be dying. That’s something you experience second-hand. Do you ever think about being dead? The millisecond moments after you pass from the space described as dying to the space described as dead. The immeasurable amount of time between life and whatever comes after. Do you wonder how that moment will feel?
They say apparently-comforting things like “he’s not in pain anymore” and “she’s gone to a better place.” How are they so sure? How do they know? Where did they get this information? Is there a book on this sort of thing? Did they write it? Who is this all-knowing they anyway and how does this they know so much? (Note to self: Figure out who they is).
Another they did some research about souls. They discovered that if you were weighed right before you were dead, and right after, you would’ve lost weight. (How do you sign up for something like that? Note to self: Look into being weighed before/after you’re dead). Your soul is something materially substantial, beyond that spiritual mumbo-jumbo about how your soul is your true being. Your soul has physical weight.
What do you think it feels like to have your soul taken from your body? Maybe they is right; maybe it isn’t painful. Maybe your soul simply steps out of your carcass and passes peacefully into whatever comes next – a transition no more taxing than sitting down on your grandfather’s porch swing. It’s gentle and uncomplicated. It’s precisely as they said it’d be.
Or maybe they is just a little right and it hurts just a little bit - like taking off an old band aid. The kind of hurt that’s minor but necessary, and over before your tongue and breath can form an “ouch”
But what if they is wrong? The biblically concerned they says that your flesh is the part of you that evil has its grip on, the bad stuff. This they also says that the soul is the good stuff in you, that it’s just easily persuaded by flesh to do some not so good things. But the soul, in and of itself, is good. This complicates it, don’t you think? If the moment you’re dead is the moment the good is fully and finally separated from the bad, the moment of your soul-ectomy, maybe they is wrong. (Note to self: Coin the term “soul-ectomy). What if the moment just after your adjective switches from dying to dead is the most excruciating? Maybe those milliseconds feel like hours. Maybe the removal of your soul feels like all the forces of heaven and hades colliding, with your unmoving chest as their single point of impact.
You’ll never know. Until you do.