My doctor had ordered some tests. When I handed him the results, he frowned at them for a few seconds, and then said with an air of calm authority, "Your soul is eroding."
"My soul is what?", I asked.
"Eroding", he said, "Going clear down the drain."
"So what's the remedy?", I asked in dismay.
"Nothing. You have to just wait it out. Once your soul is gone completely, you can try to get hold of a new one and start afresh."
"How long does it take for it to erode completely?"
"Technically, it could take anything from a couple of months to five years. But my experience says that in most cases it is gone within one year or so."
"And then, how do I get hold of a new soul?"
"Well, that's the difficult part. There is no definite clinical method. I know many patients who never got another soul, and lived forever in a kind of stupor. But I know of at least three cases where there have been successes. Would you like to hear about them?"
"Of course."
"The famous case is that of Michael Jackson. He caught the disease quite early. But when he changed his skin color, an emotional soul that was passing by took pity on his ghastly white face, and lent itself to him. So you could try a color change too, maybe you will get lucky."
"Not possible. I am quite attached to my skin color, and besides I have no intention of hurting my parents."
"Then the second case was that of Saul Bellow, the writer. He used to be a fine chap with progressive ideas, but then he caught this disease. He made a deal with the devil to get his soul back. That's when he turned conservative."
"Aww, I don't know about all that political crap. Besides, how will I find the devil anyway? Tell me about the third case."
"Well, that", said the doctor, coughing uncomfortably, "is the case of my mother. She, it seems, er, lost her soul when she conceived me. It's possible that her soul passed into the little embryo that was forming inside her. She lived quite haplessly all these years. Recently I gave her a small part of my soul, and she says she feels a bit like her old self now."
"So, you are saying, it is possible to borrow someone's soul?"
"Or steal," he said, shrugging."You have a girlfriend?"
