Read by Tony Bell (5th story in podcast, at 1h 23m 50s)
Alex wasn't expecting any surprises when he cracked open the chest cavity of Francis Delegare - the final ‘e’ appended to the toe tag in green biro. He'd read the case notes: ninety-seven, keeled over in the street, suspected heart attack. But as he lifted the lungs onto a metal tray his Dictaphone commentary stumbled. Distractedly describing the old man’s calcified heart, his own pulse raced, and his attention was dragged away.
Francis Delegare’s soul was simply magnificent. Twice as large as those that usually passed through Alex’s jaded hands, and gleaming as only the best souls did, even this long after death. Alex felt a tug of envy, and of avarice. Twenty years ago he’d have got a sizeable sum for a soul this huge. That trade had been stamped out before his time as pathologist began. Though you still heard rumours ...
Of course, it didn’t have to be the same soul ... he could swap it, a game of musical souls. There was always at least one body in the stainless steel drawers, often more. If he was careful the music need never end.
But that wouldn’t work either. Dr. Fossick used both labs during the day, a vain attempt to clear the growing backlog.
Voice on autopilot, Alex lowered the glowing organ onto the scales. An unheard of twenty-two ounces! He'd never seen its like. Oh, the souls of men and women in times gone by had been heavier, though no-one knew why. Some doubted the official record. Great men with great souls, as reported by their beneficiaries?
“Soul ... erm, seven - almost eight - ounces,” he lied into the microphone. “Condition ... dull, yellowy-grey, spongy to the touch, flaccid.”
Alex wondered how much a twenty-two ounce soul might fetch. The black market was so shady you never really heard about individual transactions. Or how they did it; the penalty for soul-dealing being so severe, the checks stringent.
One thing was certain: they were earning more than he ever would, still on a junior pathologist's salary even though he was doing the work of three. And it was obvious to him--and to his municipal employers--that it was only because he was willing to accept this sorry state of affairs that he had a job at all.
His commentary stuttered again as he re-checked the file. Time of death: eighteen hours ago. Fresh, as cadavers went. No next of kin for Francis Delegare, the bare-bones form had “Cremation” ticked. They’d wait the regulation three days--the limit where even the very best souls stopped having a detectable glow.
After which, it would be just another pound of flesh--or in Francis’s case, a pound and a half. An organ you could do without even when you were alive, as the war had proven. Both sides had thought removing the soul would make better soldiers, more fearless killers. Until they discovered you could merely pretend to remove the soul and achieve the same effect with rather less chance of medical mishap.
Since they didn't show up on x-rays, only a priest or an autopsy could settle it either way. Despite vast leaps in medical knowledge over the last century, no-one knew what the soul was for, what it did. And despite what the priests claimed there was no reliable evidence it did you any good when you were dead either. Still, no-one wanted to pass into the afterlife without one, and some--the stupendously rich, their empires built on the misfortunes of others--were willing to part with what they couldn't take with them, for an untarnished soul, one that gleamed.
Vestigial remnants of religious beliefs Alex had discarded long ago. He’d readily give his soul for a half-decent meal and a night with Vanessa from reception. But then his soul wouldn’t get any more than that.
Francis’s soul, on the other hand, was a once in a lifetime find, a miracle he must not let slip between his gloved fingers. He imagined a bidding war for this rare prize. Enough for a thousand meals, a thousand Vanessas. And when your job was cutting up stiffs, you needed all the help in the Vanessa department you could get.
He clicked the off button on the recorder. He'd complete the report at home, make up anything he hadn’t finished. He’d done that before. It took more time and effort than it saved, but at least he could do it from the comfort of his flat, a glass of wine in hand, pouring a libation to the recently deceased, pretending he had a life outside work.
Besides, who was interested in the cause of death of a ninety-seven-year-old?
Assuming Alex could contact the right people, assuming he could keep the soul alive, there was still the problem of how he could smuggle it out of the morgue, how he could prevent its absence being discovered at a later date.
He marched over to the frosted double doors and snapped the bolts home. Though unlikely, he didn't want to be disturbed. Only now, with the Dictaphone off, did he let himself contemplate what he had already decided to do.
There was a way. When the music stopped, every cadaver would still contain exactly one soul, though not the one it started with. And he, Alex, would walk out of the morgue with Francis Delegare’s priceless soul where no priest or bag search would ever find it.
He pulled out a tray of freshly-sterilised medical instruments, lined up the scalpels, the bone saw, the rib spreader. He took a deep, burning gulp of medicinal alcohol.
This, he knew, was going to hurt.
(c) Liam Hogan, 2025
Liam Hogan no longer lives in London, & so graces the Liars' stage with increasing irregularity, if 'graces' is the right word. His newly published sci-fi collection A Short History of the Future has already been ripped off by Meta. As has his Arachne Press published fantasy: Happy Ending Not Guaranteed, both available for cold hard cash.
Tony Bell has been an actor for 40 years, notably in Propeller Shakespeare company, touring the globe. His recent one-man show, Man in the Rain, written for his MA in Scriptwriting at UEA, garnered him an Offies nomination for Best Solo Performance in a Play. He also jointly won the Liars’ League Most Valuable Player (Acting) Award in 2024.
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