How Soul-Globing Works by Dino Alfier

When you die, you find yourself on a sandy beach strewn with sacks, some old, some in tatters, still others weathered almost beyond recognition. All your orifices have been stitched shut. First you encounter the Bookkeeper, who opens the Ledger on your double spread and pores over the left-hand page to total all the times you have hurt others and yourself, what here they call your hurtlings. The Bookkeeper scribbles the total of your hurtlings on the sand and then picks a grain of sand for each of your hurtlings and puts the sand in a sack made of kelp fiber. The Bookkeeper pores over the right-hand page of your double spread in the Ledger and totals all the times you have been kind to others and to yourself, what they call your kindlings. The Bookkeeper pulls out one of your hairs for each one of your kindling and passes each hair to the Roper, who braids them all into a rope. The Bookkeeper takes the rope and ties the sack of sand with it. In comes the Tanner, who reads the number the Bookkeeper has scribbled on the sand. The Tanner picks up an empty sack made of kelp fiber and with a small hook unstitches your mouth, making sure your warm soul does not escape by pinching your lips between thumb and index finger. The Tanner brings the mouth of the sack to your mouth and lets your warm soul flow out of your mouth into the sack, so that your skin flops on the beach like a misshapen hot air balloon deflating. Making sure your warm soul does not flow out of the sack, the Tanner hands the sack to the Bookkeeper, who ties it with the loose end of the rope braided from your hair, so that the sack containing your warm soul is tethered to the sack of sand. The sack containing your warm soul must be tethered, otherwise it would fly away, as a helium balloon that a child has unwittingly let go of, and your warm soul would then be lost forever before it has been globed,as they say here. The Tanner returns to prepare your skin for the Tailor. First, the Tanner soaks your skin in clean water, then treats it with milk of lime to remove the grease, and lastly pickles it in the juice of acacia leaves. Smooth and taut, your skin is now ready for the Tailor. The Tanner whispers the total of your hurtlings in the Tailor’s ear, and the Tailor begins cutting up your skin. The Tailor must cut your skin in such a way that not only the number of pieces of skin equals the total of your hurtlings, but also in such a way that all your skin pieces can be stitched back together so as to make a container for your warm soul that will be perfectly spherical when your soul is pumped into it. Preparing the skin for globing requires great skill, which the Tailor has acquired through eons of practice. In the beginning, the Tailor practiced on the simplest souls, those of pebbles, then on those of rocks, then mountains, mountain ranges, on and on, progressively from lesser to greater souls, and now the Tailor practices on souls such as yours on the way to ever greater souls. The Tailor leaves a little opening on each prepared skin for the warm soul to be pumped into it. When the Tailor has prepared your skin, it is handed back to the Bookkeeper, who carefully unties the sack containing your warm soul and pumps it into your prepared skin through the opening the Tailor has left on it. When the whole of your warm soul is inside the skin, your soul is fully globed, and, as the Bookkeeper holds the globe, pinching the opening shut between thumb and index finger, the Tailor stitches up the globe so as to make it airtight. It is all done. The Bookkeeper lets the globe go, and you do what perfectly round soap bubbles do. Dino Alfier Image: Pixabay.com. – Coloured bubbles floating on a black background