The Natural End

I saw the first soul when I was a child.  My parents were so overwhelmed by the news that they didn’t even bother asking my teachers if they could take me out of school for a week.  Of course, their near hysteria was not uncommon since so many people believed as well. 
         
      They booked the first flight available to Washington, D.C.  It was the closest major city and the proximity of government labs and the Smithsonian was enough reason to house it there.  I remember waking up at four in the morning in our hotel room, my mother helping to dress me in a starched mini-suit while my father stood at a table.  His hands were perspiring onto the wood surface, but he seemed calm. We left the hotel room shortly thereafter. 
         
      The sun was not out yet and a charcoal pall fell on the city’s monuments.  I noticed that the streets were populated; several others were walking in the same direction as us.  Everyone was casting anxious glances at each other, and my father pulled me close to his leg when a stranger ran past.  A line had already formed outside of the museum as the street-cart vendors trolled back and forth, hawking their enticing smells with short, abrupt shouts.  If my mother had not told me that we were 358th in line, I would have been excited with the murmuring, carnival atmosphere. 
         
        The doors finally opened at seven in the morning. Dowdy museum employees made sure no one needed medical attention.  Although I was young, I recognized my parents’ foresight: there were thousands standing, sitting, and sleeping behind us.  The Smithsonian employees shouted an endless loop of instructions:
         “You will have about twenty-five seconds once you get inside the viewing room.  At no point are you allowed to stop walking or go past the ropes. Cameras of any kind are not permitted.  Failure to comply with any of these rules will result in severe fines.  Have your tickets ready.  You will not be admitted without it.  You will have about…” 
         “Keep your hands to yourself, do you understand?” my father told me in a preemptive admonishment. 
         
        A few hours later we entered the old building.  I could hear frequent gasps and exaltations coming from ahead.  I placed my right hand in my mother’s hand, and my left one slid along the felt, purple rope.  The oak room was fairly tiny, in addition to the stuffiness of the room’s very air.  And there it lay, propped up by small hooks in a glass case: a thick tangle that connected in irregular strands like someone had poured milk on an ill-conceived spider web.  It did not pulse, flash, screech, smell, wail, or move; the people around me did.          
         
          How the first soul appeared was well documented.  A group of friends were having a barbeque at one of their houses.  They were celebrating a reunion of sorts, old friends made distant by schools, jobs, and life in general.  Sam Keeley was rocking in a chair not meant for rocking and precariously drinking beer and eating hot dogs.  His friends described him as a relentless enthusiast, a good person who had been able to put the needs of others before his own, often despite himself. 

          Sam started scratching his left knee cap, and a scab had come off.  A white nub, barely visible, stuck out of the wound so Sam pulled at it.  He tugged and half an inch of the filament emerged.  Sam began crying.  All of his friends turned to him and asked what was wrong, to which he responded that he saw how much his family cared for him.  They laughed nervously upon realizing he wasn’t even paying attention to them but focused intently on the glowing pale substance protruding from his knee.  He pulled on it more, and his face twisted into an unnatural grimace.  They asked him again what was happening.  He said he saw his faults, his sins, and so many moments where he succumbed to petty weakness.  He had to pull more.  His friends gathered around him but saw nothing in the increasing pile of white webbing; they could only watch him as he related the things he perceived.  He beheld his triumphs, friends, failures, goals, first crushes, and forgotten wonders along this continuous strand.  But when Sam had drawn out the string to over two feet in length, it gave a halt.  He had reached its natural end and, peering closely, exclaimed, “I didn’t expect that to be there.”  The soul had been removed, and Sam fell over dead.

        Unsurprisingly, all of them completely panicked and called for the paramedics.  Just a few seconds after they heard the chirruping siren rushing down cul-de-sac, a partier met the scrambling men at the door.
“Where is he, what’s his condition?” they asked without stopping to break stride.
“He’s, uh, I don’t, he’s out back.  I think he’s dead,” a dear friend stammered while tears welled up in her eyes.

        They burst through the patio doors with a controlled chaos, the heavy bags anchoring the lumbering, speedy lurches of the medics.
“Get away from him, give us room,” they shouted.  Leaning over the body, the older medic felt the neck for a pulse and, not finding one, proceeded to administer CPR.  Sam’s body didn’t respond.  The medic tried defibrillation, but Sam’s body merely jumped and nothing more.  Sam’s friends wept, and his best friend picked up the soul off the ground; he placed it on the top of the body with grieving reverence.
“What’s that?” the younger paramedic asked. 
“Well,” he sobbed and hiccupped, “I guess it’s his soul.”
The medics looked at one another; they radioed dispatch to send the police.

      The officers that arrived on scene could not make sense of the suburban tragedy.  Four people in their mid twenties crying in a convulsing corner, an elderly paramedic pacing on the deck’s uneven planks, and a young paramedic and another partier squatting on their heels to solemnly observe the body.  An officer asked some preliminary questions but found no reason to suspect foul play.  The only problem was the perfectly matching accounts of how Sam died.  Phil, the friend leaning over the body, picked up the soul and showed it to the cops.  They pawed the indeterminate mass with their clubs, whispering and shuddering at the possibility of the reality before them.
“Well, whatever it is, just leave it on his person.  The autopsy will…”
“It’s not leaving my sight,” Phil said. “I won’t let some random-”
“You decide what you want to do with it,” the policeman sighed wearily.  “There’s no need for us here anymore; I’m sorry about,” he looked away, and they left.

      Phil was a chemist or at least associated with a university; I honestly don’t recall the specifics.  But I do know that Phil got the webbing analyzed in a lab, and it frightened most of the tenured professors.  They had nearly three feet of a material composed of unknown elements: it did not melt or freeze, and upon examination by electron microscopes, it was shown to be comprised of an astounding network of tubes.  The mass was not solid but, rather, so dense that it appeared as such.  After quick discussions, the university issued a public statement announcing they had encountered an unidentifiable substance which, due to the manner in which it had been obtained, lead them to believe it was the first documented soul.

      Naturally, this roiled most every kind of institution.  Other universities and institutes thought the scientific machinery must have been faulty, churches decried it as a hoax or moral outrage, and the government had no comment (at that time).  With each denial Phil felt the same indignation, the same fury since they were denying outright the existence of Sam’s soul.  He made rounds on the Ivy League circuit as well as the prestigious technical schools; all results were conclusively inconclusive, and this provided enough reason for the government to get involved.  Initially, Phil (the soul’s unofficial caretaker by then) vehemently opposed anything that might demean or sensationalize Sam’s death.  After receiving numerous reassurances of the soul’s “proper handling”, Phil relented to allowing the public access to Sam’s soul.  He figured it would be a tribute to Sam and a benefit to all humanity. 

        The soul was placed in the Smithsonian once the government’s scientists verified for themselves the unearthly nature of the delicate web.  My parents took me to see it during the second week there, before the media went haywire about the situation.  In the middle of the tenth week, early in the morning, a visitor had strapped himself with a small amount of plastic explosives and detonated while inside the showing room.  Twenty nine people died; nothing remained of the soul.  Many news sources immediately labeled this a terrorist attack, but when people stopped to think about exactly what was being terrorized, the situation didn’t really correspond with its labeling.  The major outcries about the bombing were why there were no metal detectors (answered by the oft repeated phrase, “We did not believe there was any reason to…”) and to figure out the bomber’s identity.  From the patchwork of video surveillance, he was highly American, and he wore a sad face. 

          I’m telling you all of this now because I’m sure you’ve seen the news, your mother and I thought it would be best to explain the situation before you heard crazy stories from your classmates.  A second soul has turned up, this time near Kansas City.  An old woman was in a hospital, and she was very sick with cancer.  Her doctor was performing a check-up when she began scratching at her knee.  She saw the white nub.  Soon, she was unweaving all of her life’s marvels, telling the doctor of her carefree escapades long since forgotten.  She gained color in her face, blushing at her shames and successes.  The doctor instantly went about recording all she had to say, describing her visions not as an ordered timeline but more like complete lifeline.  When the natural end had been reached, she gave a last tug and looked at the tail part.  She smiled in resigned relief, calmly said, “I should have guessed,” and lay back dead on her bed.  This is the real story, and anyone who tells you differently is telling you a lie.

        Your mother has talked with your teacher, and he’s ok with you being out of school for a little while.  I don’t know exactly what I learned from it, but I know that I was a better person for having seen it.  There will be lots of policeman there this time so nothing will happen to us.  Is this ok with you?