Game of Souls

At the beginning of the Game….

All players receive a quota of souls with which to play.

The total number of souls available to the game is fixed.  However, not all souls are equal.  Like coins, some are copper, some silver, some gold.  The players do not care if a coin is good or bad: they care only for its value in the game, and that is not determined by any notion of ethics.  The players have no ethics.  They have only Rules.

Some players spend their quota early and gain no more: they must leave the game and watch from the sidelines.

Some become wealthy, their soul-jars heavy with the weight of human spirits.  Of course it is better to collect gold than silver, better silver than copper, and so some souls are sought after and highly prized, while others can be spent more or less at will.

Towards the end of a game, few players remain, and they are powerful and cunning.  They make their moves carefully.  There are not many souls left now, relatively speaking, and the competition for them is fierce.

Who will win?  What will happen when the game is finished?

And who is playing with whom?

To find out…you’ll have to wait for my next novel.  Meanwhile, if you’re feeling overwhelmed by harsh reality, you could hop over to Cameron’s blog, where the Inner Optimist cheers up the Inner Cynic, one day at a time.  OR you could visit The Kindness Blog, which demonstrates that problems involving prams don’t necessarily end when your children go to school.   OR you could reveal to the Accidental Cootchie Mama (what IS cootchie?) the place you absolutely have to see before you die.  Personally I will be annoyed if I die before I get to see the Aurora Borealis (but I could always watch it on a supersize TV screen I guess).