Here we go again

This year, I will complete a novel.  It's important to me.  Here is a first draft of a beginning.  This isn't it yet but it is what it's about, I think.

I never used to believe in souls. Now though, I know they exist. Ghosts too, maybe.  Sure.  Why not?  It’s possible I even believe in God now.  I mean I think there’s something.  Not that it makes my day any easier to believe in something or someone.  Nothing makes my day any easier, really. And Heaven and Hell are still too binary for me.  I can say for sure though, in my life before the accident I never believed in souls.  But that’s before I lost mine. 

I don’t mean that metaphorically.  I don’t mean I did something unforgivable that made me feel like I lost my soul, though that may be true too.  I don’t mean I sold my soul to some devil at some crossroads who made all my dreams come true.  I’m not even sure what my dreams are anymore but I can tell you they are not anywhere near coming true.  What I mean is that my soul left my body.  I’m still here with my memories, my likes and dislikes, my name, my personness. I still have all my thoughts and feelings, my face, all my fingers and toes.  But my soul is gone and I have no reason to think it will ever return.  In its absence, a gray haze envelops every moment.  It’s a life without any living. 

I don’t mean to bring you down.  That’s not what this book is about.  But if you do want to cry, go off and have a good cry.  I’ll be here when you get back.  And we can start.  Go ahead.  I’ll wait.  These words exist right now and will continue to exist tomorrow, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty, eighty, three hundred years from now, until all the copies are burned up or people lose interest.  Come back tomorrow if you can, whenever tomorrow is.  Or five minutes from now.  Take a bath, have some soup, cry a bit and come back.  But don’t wait too long.  Because when you read this, I continue to exist, just a little bit.  I live on in memory, as they say of the dead.  But if you stop now . . . if everybody stops now, well that’s it for me.  No soul, no story, no nothing.  I don’t mean to lay all that on you either.  This isn’t a guilt trip book either.  I want to make you feel better.  I’m going to try to do that.  Okay?