Visible Wear

There’s yet another new entry over at Visibly Worn. Check it out!

“Let’s see, Daniel Bolls… Yes, it says here he died in his sleep last night. Tender old age of ninety-four. Not bad, not bad at all. Ah, here he comes now.”

I stepped back to take in the full effect of the glorious device. McAfee, the sixty-two year old proprietor of the machine, smiled and stepped back as well.

“You know Mr. Kensington, despite my having been proprietor of this node of the soul machine for thirty years now, I’m still awed by the show it puts on,” McAfee said.

I nodded, only half paying attention to him, my attention momentarily fixed on the brilliant orbs beginning their journey in the machine. The sound of my photographer’s camera clicking behind me snapped me back to my original purpose there.

“So then, as you explained earlier Mr. McAfee, this device is connected to a soul collector which basically plucks disembodied souls from the air, processes them for experiences and memories, and then wipes them clean for a fresh start in their new life,” I said, partially reading from my notes.

“Yes, that’s right,” McAfee replied, his eyes tracing the orbs of light passing through the machine’s spaghetti network of crystalline tubes.

“And one of those orbs of light we’re witnessing right now is the late Dan Bolls of 1516 Hawks Lane, correct?” I asked.

“Right. According to my schedule it should be the topmost ‘orb’, as you put it.” McAfee replied.

“Explain to me again how you know which soul belongs to who?”

“Whom,” McAfee replied. I quietly added the ‘m’ to my notes as he continued. “The soul collectors are limited in range, which is why we have so many collection nodes around the world. When a person dies their soul gives off a very unique resonance, identifying that individual much like a fingerprint. We essentially tag that frequency, look up who died at that time, and pair the two pieces of information in our database.”

“What happens with the information in the database?” I asked.

“Ah, you see, when we process the souls we collect we extract all sorts of information from them. Experiences that the person had been through, things they had seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted, and even things that they had liked or disliked in their prior existence. This information is of tremendous interest to numerous groups, most of whom subscribe to the anonymous version of the database.”

“Any examples of the subscribing groups?”

“Oh, government agencies, brain trusts, advertising groups, nothing unexpected.”

“Can you give me any specific names of any of these groups?” I asked, knowing McAfee’s coming response.

“No, I’m afraid not. We have to protect our client’s identities. Company policy. You understand, right?”

“Sure,” I replied. “Doesn’t hurt to ask though.”

“Certainly. You wouldn’t be a very effective member of the press without asking those sorts of questions.”

“Do the unique resonance signatures tied into individual records means that you could track a soul through its different lives?” I asked.

“Yes, indeed it does,” McAfee replied. “The means to do that isn’t very intact yet, however. Our reliance on death records to tie soul resonance information in to the soul’s previous owner rather limits our tracking abilities. Plus, we also pick up the resonances from animals and we have no way of knowing who or what exactly they were.”

“Are they the same? The human and animal souls. That is, can a soul be a human or an animal at different points?”

“Again, I’m afraid we don’t have very good data to make any official statements on that, but from what little data we do have on the matter it does seem likely.”

The sound of increased camera clicking drew my attention back to the soul machine and I saw the orbs were just starting to exit. It seemed reminiscent of a dandelion giving off its seeds which would then drift lazily off in search of a new beginning. That’s what these souls were like, dandelion seeds searching for a new place to root themselves, drifting off into the ether to start all over again.

“Where do the souls go, once they’ve been through the soul machine?” I asked, trying to keep track of which orb had been Daniel Bolls.

“Ho ho, that remains yet one of the great unknowns, Mr. Kensington. Where the souls go after our brief layover is nobody’s business but their own.”

I filled in the rest of my notes and glanced up at the orbs again just in time to see them phase out of view.

New entry over at, um, that other place, I never bother updating. *Cough*