My Soul

Three weeks into my career as a concierge, my soul stopped coming with me to work.  This made things easier on the job, but it’s put a strain on my home life.

If I ever want to do anything after work, I have to go back to the apartment first and convince my soul to come with me.  There have been lots of arguments.

“Why do you need me to come?” my soul will say.  “Clearly I’m just holding you back.”

When my soul first separated from my body in protest, it looked a lot like me, only nobler.  But at some point, my soul turned into a beautiful young woman who stares at me with angry, betrayed blue eyes.

“What am I supposed to think?” she says.  “How can I interpret your actions as anything but a rejection of our relationship?  You work at a luxury hotel…"

(It’s usually at this point that I sit on the bed and try to avoid eye contact)

“You spend all your time and energy serving a hollow world of wealth and status.  A world where concepts like ‘exclusivity’ and ‘preferential treatment’ are invoked as if they were sacred values!”

“It’s just a job,” I often mutter.

“And pretty soon, you will just be the job.  You’ve got an education. You don’t have any children to support.  How can you justify working there?”

A great way to feel truly wretched about yourself is to realize that, while your soul has been pleading with you, you’ve been staring at her legs.

Sometimes she’ll cry, and I’ll try to hug her, and she’ll push me away.  Then I’ll leave our room and play video games, and she’ll stay where she is and play mournfully on a clarinet.  I don’t know where she got the clarinet.

My roommates are a little worried.  My soul never turns the thermostat up, or uses any electricity, but we’re not supposed to have more than three people living here at a time.

Things are also awkward when guests come over.  I have tried to pass my soul off as an old friend from college, as a cousin and, yes, even as my girlfriend.  But she’ll have none it.

“Pleased to meet you,” she’ll say.  “I’m Greg’s soul.  I’ve separated from him because he has no use for me anymore.  I’m thinking about getting my own place.”

My roommate Jessica has started to take her side.  “Can you really not find another job?  I mean - she seems to want to make it work.”

I don’t know why I’ve decided to be so stubborn about this.  I agree that it’s a crummy job with no socially redeeming value.  But job hunting is such a pain, and for some reason I don’t like being bossed around by my soul.

“Maybe if you did some volunteer work at a homeless shelter, or something?”  Jessica suggests.

Meanwhile, the clarinet music grows more sorrowful with each passing day.