Day 20 of my 2023 drabble-a-day challenge! Here is today’s drabble…

No Deal

"So did you go through with it?"

"Yeah."

"Really? Crossroads at midnight, the whole thing?"

"Yeah."

"And? What happened? Did he show up?"

"Yeah."

"No way! Did you try to make him the offer, like you said?"

"Yeah."

"Come on, Billy! Tell me the story! Are you the greatest guitarist in the world now?"

"He turned me down."

"He what?"

"He wouldn't take the deal. Said I was too late."

"What?"

"My family always said that my dad sold my soul for a crate of whisky when I was three years old. I thought it was a metaphor. It wasn't."

Today I learned about the 21 grams experiment, in which a doctor set out to weigh people at the point of death and determine the weight of the soul. (Spoilers: modern-day scientists don’t have much truck with his methodology, or his results.)

But it made me wonder: how would you know whether you had a soul or not?