Vesna McMaster - Soul

Energy cannot be created or destroyed – they say.

To casual observation, this seems like a blatant lie.

Energy-destroying factors multiply like bacteria, eating motion, volition, ambition, gumption, and any number of desirable ‘itions’.

Supposing the physicists are correct, this begs the question – where is that energy going? If it can only be transformed, not destroyed, what is being energised as languidity increases on the other end? Does the traffic light glow brighter as the traffic stops before it? Do to-do lists increase proportionate to the inability of their owners to complete them? This last at least may have some validity.

Get a scientist to balance out the give-and-take, the push-me-pull-you of existence; between living, dying, and Wednesdays with neither the dread of Monday nor the euphoria of Friday. Harmonise the Chi of a fridge-searchingly hungry ten-thirty and the side-pushing overeating regret of ten forty-five. Mitigate the umber smirch of experience with the shine of expectation. All that energy must go somewhere: invisible accounts where ambition is deposited, unfinished tasks accumulate interest, and the exhausted soul leaves a faint gravitational trace, visible only by the shadow it casts.