Last Rites

The Alchemist reasoned that if it were possible to capture (in some glass contraption) the very last breath then it was likely that said vessel would also ensnare the escaping soul. An ambitious hypothesis but, if true it would afford he and his colleagues the opportunity to study, to describe and to measure the most elusive portion of our humanity.

There was no question that if with specimen caught they were able to achieve their various tests, some fundamental assumptions would be challenged. There was no question that the Alchemist must be shielded from the scrutiny of the church and its representative. Already, a good friend, he imagined "like-minded", had accused him of heresy upon hearing his plans and had needed to be talked down: "It was just a hypothetical. Absurd speculation."

In reality, the group, five highly respected members of the faculty at the already old and gold encrusted university, were making encouraging progress having managed both the shape and the construction of the glass tube. In secretive late night meetings lit by black oil and honey mead these very best of the monkey brains would grunt and grin, commiserating on the next ideas that would guide the tribe "forward."

One night, motivated by hard cider and its subsequent guilt, one of the professors approved of the plot to capture a soul but noted the challenge of doing so when, invariably, at the end of a life, there was always some priest about muttering in Latin "making a nuisance of themselves."

Laughter rolled through the sated bellies of the gathering; this was something that the Alchemist had not considered. He thought for a moment looking around at his bemused associates. They had all, as was customary, had ecclesiastical training and, as academics, considered Latin their natural tongue.

"Couldn't," he began, "one of us impersonate a priest and, as part of extreme unction, convince the person in question to exhale into the bottle?" He had increased the wages. This was no longer a matter of toying with the mechanisms of life and death but would now be a conscious act interrupting or ending an individual's salvation.

A critic emerged quickly in the room, "You would be responsible for the fate of their soul."
 

"Not," the Alchemist did not hesitate in his defense, "Not if the elect is so certainly destined for hell that we are merely delaying his journey." There were nods, a grinning wisdom.

One of the group stood and lifted his glass. "The damned," he toasted.

"The damned," came the collective reply.