1922-2007

Mary leaned close to hear his words. She would be glad for the rest of her life that she had not missed them.
"I'll tell you what the human soul is, Mary," he whispered, his eyes closed. "Animals don't have one. It's the part of you that knows when your brain isn't working right. I always knew, Mary. There wasn't anything I could do about it, but I always knew."

-Kurt Vonnegut, Galapagos

We worried about Paul Slazinger. I speculated as to what his helpless soul must have felt like when it realized that his meat had thrown itself down on a hand grenade which was about to go off.
"Why didn't it kill him?" she said.
"Unforgivably sloppy workmanship at the hand grenade factory," I said.
"His meat did that, and your meat made the picture in the potato barn," she said.
"Sounds right," I said. "My soul didn't know what kind of picture to paint, but my meat sure did."
She cleared her throat. "Well, then," she said, "isn't it time for your soul, which has been ashamed of your meat for so long, to thank your meat for finally doing something wonderful?"
I thought that over. "That sounds right, too," I said.
"You have to actually do it," she said.
"How?" I said.
"Hold your hand in front of your eye," she said, "and look at those strange and clever animals with love and gratitude, and tell them out loud: 'Thank you, Meat.'"
So I did.
I held my hands in front of my eyes, and said out loud and with all my heart: "Thank you, Meat."
Oh, happy Meat. Oh, happy Soul. Oh, happy Rabo Karabekian.

-Kurt Vonnegut, Bluebeard