An Inhuman Condition

In the old days they used to believe. Give ten men an ember of glowing fire, and they would shower you with fresh meat, skins, pottery, whatever. In those days they could believe the hell out of something.

They used to believe that when God created being he used one vase to hold all the souls of man. When a child was born, God poured soul into it from the vase. When a man fell in battle against beast, sickness or time, his essence was cremated, and his soul returned to the vase to be poured anew.

The first people were very protective of the vase. They labored intensely to maintain their numbers. If they had too many babies, they believed the vase could not pour essence into them, and some would be born soulless and evil. If they had too few babies, a plague could decimate their human forms and leave them trapped in the vase forever. And so it was for centuries that they lived unwritten in time always birthing, burning, recycling themselves. When a person died just before a birth, it was thought that the soul remained near the top and had not yet mixed with the others, so they gave this new child the name of his fallen ancestor. And so it was that these spiritual accountants lived their lives among the world.

That is how it was until one day a woman birthed two children after the death of an important leader, Obel. The village stood shocked as they decided the fates of the new infants. Some urged that one child should be killed as a devilish doppelganger. Others warned that both should be killed to send Obel’s soul back to the vase and preserve his integrity.

Instead one child was named Obel and the other was named Kai’nobel, one who is not Obel. As the children grew, Obel was cherished and prepared for the day he would become father of the world. Kai, however, was treated with hostility and accused of being soulless and ungodly.

When the two became adults, Obel took his place as leader and maintained the glory of his people. Kai grew bitter and jealous. He resented the beliefs of his people and blamed his brother for being arbitrarily chosen as special. “I should be Obel,” he thought. “Or I should at least be given the decency of my own name. It is an insult to be known as an abomination.”

Kai took audience with his brother at a village celebration. With the world’s eyes on him, Kai voiced his outrage. “I should be Obel,” he exclaimed. “I should have what you have; you’ve stolen my existence.” Obel looked sympathetically at his brother and said: “Kai, I understand your grievance. It does seem that only chance has decided our fate. I have heard what people call you, and I know what they are thinking. They say you are soulless and that I am the true Obel, but brother, this is not what I believe. I believe we share Obel’s legacy – that we are each a part of Obel’s soul.

This enraged Kai. “How dare you seek to placate me?” he demanded. “I know that I am the true Obel, and you are in fact the devilish one birthed to bring us into chaos.” Obel’s face filled with sadness, and he sadly muttered: “maybe I was wrong brother; maybe they are right about you.” Kai stormed from camp and into the woods.

On the next day, Kai returned to spread his message to the people. He quoted Obel’s blasphemy and swore he was their true leader. Soon Kai had convinced enough people to follow him and start a new village. The human world was split in half.

Obel saw this as a great loss. He urged the faithful to have children and retain the balance in the vase. Kai’s people did the same, and both villages grew faster than they could control. The population climbed until there was no hope of coming back down. The humans continued to breed and so it would be for the rest of man’s existence. The people spread across all the lands. The old vase was forgotten, and none would remember the names of Kai and Obel or what once was.

The children of the Earth lost their belief in the vase, their connection to divinity. Most importantly they should have clung to the notion that when there weren’t enough whole souls one is split to two, halves halved, quarters quartered and so forth through time.