“Can you help me?”  “Are you positive of what you lost?”  “Yes.”  “You’ve lost your soul?”  “Yes.”  “Where?”  “I’m not sure. I awoke one day hollow.”  “Continue.”  There was a pathway beyond the wildflower meadows. My brother told me the noises from there were the product of trickery. Auditory hallucinations sent from devils and pagan worshippers. On a night not entirely unforeseen, my mother took her final breath in bed. I held a dying candle at her side. The embers cast a dreadful shadow upon the wall as if her soul was a silhouette. Dysentery had robbed her of her humanity.   The smell tormented the house for days after. I suppose that was her way of saying she wasn’t ready. It left a silence in my home, which was filled with the sound of my…

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