Souls Alive

A Little Story about The Purpose of Life, Chickens, Dragons, and Dark Chocolate

By

Jennifer Angelina Petro

Chapter One: The Ending

My parents were dead before I was born, and so was I.  Hate to break it to you, but it’s the same for you too, dear reader.  It’s the same for all of us.  Thing is, it’s a fact that’s hard to remember.  Once we infuse ourselves into a body, we’re already so delighted over the sparkling journey, that our so-called-past-becomes a distant, nearly fully unconscious memory.  I say, “so-called past,” because, as the chickens tell us—there is no true beginning or end.  The debate as to which who came first, is like arguing over which is better—dark chocolate Oreos or dark chocolate nonpareils—silly.

At any rate, let’s get back to me.  As I mentioned a paragraph ago, my parents were dead before I was born, and so was I.  Hate to break it to you, but it’s the same for—-oh, sorry, said that already.  I’m trying to focus, please be patient with me.  It’s not easy to be a ghost and keep your focus.  Think of it—everything is radiantly timeless and sugary like cotton candy, and so it’s hard to remain focused on whatever is in front of you—not to mention the fact that you can pass your hands through everything you touch and that’s pretty cool, but nevertheless annoying.

I should probably define what a ghost actually is.  It’s not what most people think.  According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (which remains my favorite website after all these centuries) in the original Old English, the word, “ghost,” was, “gast,” which meant, among other things, “breath; angel, demon; person, human being.”  The fact that the word has devolved over the centuries to simply mean the spirit of a dead person, is a travesty.  Most words today are devolutions of much richer, more wondrous meanings, and, as time goes by (which is really a very profane expression, since time doesn’t “go-by,” but more on that later—which is another word related to time that also baffles me), the human mind became less able to hold all these various meanings in one mind (which is, as you guessed it–the idea of “one mind”–a silly idea as well) and thus the intricate complexities of all words distill down to definitions that any old human intellect can tackle.

It’s entirely possible you might be thinking that I’m attempting to avoid relating the actual story I started out to tell—the one about my parents and I being dead before we were born—and you wouldn’t be completely wrong.  You see, it is a challenging story for me to both recall and to tell.  It brings to surface, like an underground lake suddenly seeping across the land, many painful experiences that must, of necessity, be brought to light.  Not the least of which involves a hungry (but vastly misunderstood) dragon, the challenging descriptions of incarnating, and the hot-button-topic-of gender identity—sure to rankle the feathers of many small-minded fundamentalists.

All that said, let’s jump into the vegetarian meat of the story:  My parents were dead before I was born, and so was I.  Now, as I eluded to earlier—any word that is used in reference to time— “before,” “earlier, “after,” and so on, are really misnomers, and highly inaccurate and misleading.  For the sake of you, dear reader, we will stick to the conventional, human terms for time.  This is not to say you are incapable of grasping such concepts, it is more to say—your heart can, your soul can, your spirit can—but your mind—well, your mind will get all tangled in philosophical debating and you wouldn’t be able to enjoy the yarn I am spinning—or, at very least, about to spin.  The broader, more cosmic definitions of “time” are going to be left for another, non-existent day.

Take a breath, dear reader, cause here we go.

Chapter Two: The Beginning