Falmon Entries

A pinch of soul descends to the middle world through the portal of forgetting. There it meets base material ascending and forms a body of spirit-quickened matter. Before exploding out of the starting gate, it must answer the two questions. It must answer the question of its destiny and it must answer the question of its fate, and the rediscovery of these forgotten answers becomes the purpose of that body's life. This portal examination being not always an affair resembling those academic boards where the well prepared aspirant engages experienced mentors in truth-seeking dialectic. Being sometimes even something of a negotiation, with the nobler spirits, as with a star athlete or entertainment headliner, where management's desperate to engage. There being, however, nothing in the way of agents or entourages.

Grandpa's soul could have definitely used a sharp agent.

The soul which had quickened his father's mortals, Jesse's soul, the soul which formed half Great Grandpa Jesse's living body, was a body which had found and joyously fulfilled its destiny, though that destiny consisted precisely in the mere role of ne'er-do-well itinerant tree chopper. But which role that body exuberated as Bottom or even on very good days as Falstaff. And that same Great Grandpa Jesse's living body had discovered and embraced its fate, even when that turned out to be being crushed beyond recognition, or even discovery, by a massive cedar tree which, during one of his recurrent unemployment spells, Jesse had attempted to poach. Despite this pulverization of its mortals, Jesse's soul had ascended triumphant, eager for another incarnation, eager for another spin of the celestial roulette. Ready to play in any available continuation. But the soul of his son, Grandpa Falmon's soul, initially possessing the same recommendations, met its fate with no eagerness. Refused to ascend and instead became a lost soul.

Soul, in its higher manifestations, is of course something eternal and indivisible, something to which entities of the middle plane may look for an inkling of the transcendent. But the growing need for individual bits to quicken the lemming-like increase in the creatures called human necessitated a consequent increase in the number of souls pinched off the primordial dough and quickly pulled into thin spirit-tortilla-wrappers to enervate such as the Falmon ilk. In the lottery of incarnation, not every body received a noble ancient soul dripping with experience. In the lottery of incarnation, souls drafted for Falmon ilk had only played junior varsity.

So Grandpa's soul, upon being shown the projected score for the team he'd drawn, had just blithely shrugged. Basically he'd taken the first offer. Tendered the same old easy answers, content to have Grandpa's body suffer the same old destiny. Content to have it suffer that same old fateful demise. But without enthusiasm. It had been quite a fresh pinch, green to sport in any form, and wanting mostly to avoid creating any bother.