Format: Microfiction
Year Completed: 2011
Genre: Fantasy
Description: An old man listens to a cat who tells him how to obtain a purr-fect soul.
Inspiration: An allergy to cats.
Related Work: “Octopus and Bird” & “Cut”

There was an old man sitting in his kitchen. He was eating a hard-boiled egg and thinking about the fact that throughout his life he'd made very little progress with his soul. That morning, in the bathroom, he'd unbuttoned his shirt and opened his chest cavity. There was a hinge on one side of his ribcage; it was crusted with blood and sore. His soul hung there like a fetus clinging to his heart. It should have been more mature and filled his body. The old man had closed his chest and opened the medicine cabinet. He then swallowed his prescriptions with a glass of tap water.

When the old man's wife died, her chest opened and released a glorious golden soul. The old man was the only one at the funeral that saw it. He was seated, staring ahead at the casket when there was a flash of light, blinding and bright. Then, up out of her body, a beautiful soul rose into the air. The old man was left in awe, and it made the man think his wife was in a better place.

That was the day the old man went home and noticed the hinges on his ribs. It was the first time. It took several minutes, but he was able to open his chest then. Amidst his grief, the tiny soul was a difficult sight. The soul was black and shriveled like a prune, wrinkled and pathetic.

The old man had had one companion since his wife's passing. The man lived with a mangy old cat that was black and suffering from obesity. When the man finished taking his medication, he exited the bathroom and nearly stepped on the cat. The cat screamed and scampered out of the man's way. The old man exclaimed, “Move!” and headed toward the corner of his living room. He slumped with some effort into his reading chair. The old man picked up his newspaper, but he was too distracted to read it. He felt that he had somehow missed his spiritual path or worse that he was meant to be spiritually-stunted for some reason or other. Looking at his soul did this to him.

The old man was wealthy and had, at first, thought of selling everything. But he was too old to start over. He'd retired. He couldn't possibly achieve enlightenment and make a second fortune, not at his age. Not to mention the fact that his wife had lived with him all of her adult life and her soul had somehow obtained perfection.

Later that morning, the old man heard a voice in the living room. It said, “So, you want a perfect soul?”