nunoncastors

So, last night, being Wednesday, a group of us went for drinks and tapas and spent a pleasant evening worrying that maybe we are middleclass after all and indulging in our own particular brand of conversation. It’s quite difficult to quantify what we actually talk about or the manner in which we do so. I mean, we’re a bright group, we all paid attention at school and our interests and experiences since then are varied, our frames of reference distinct. Accordingly, our conversation slews about from topic to topic in unusual ways, there’s a lot of surrealism and fantastic scenarios, fictional back stories and claims. We’re childish and puerile yet still manage to meander from an upcoming ski trip to the Picture of Dorian Grey to Duncan not having a soul because he’s ginger.

I don’t know if this is born of being old friends or simply that we are all a little unusual. Most likely, it’s both.

It was while we were on the subject of Duncan being soulless that Kate, Stephen’s girlfriend – and my friend, I suppose. I really need to break the habit of thinking of people in relation to other people. They exist on their own after all –, insisted that she didn’t believe in souls. This, I suppose, is fair enough unless you’re sitting in the sort of company we provide where someone (me) is likely to offer to buy it from you if you don’t believe that it exists.

Five pence exchanged hands, I owned a soul and ultimate power over an individual was mine. MINE I TELL YOU!

The problem is this, I like Kate, she’s nice. So after about five minutes I sold her soul back to her at the original price and did nothing untoward with it at all. It strikes me that I missed a trick, but there you go.

You see, even though most people don’t believe in a soul, after a bit of thought they arrive at the conclusion that, even though it doesn’t exist, it’s probably better to retain ownership of said abstract, just in case it does, it could be important. I mean, your soul, right? Who wouldn’t want to keep hold of that?

Fortunately, I’m not unreasonable and, as I said, sold it back. Which is just as well really, automatic doors don’t work for the soulless. Just ask Duncan.