21 grams

There, an old man laid perfectly still on the white sheets.

Today was the day.

It was a simple hospital room . White walls , white ceiling , white floor. White table , glass vase . two orange carnations to break the monotony. Waft of antiseptic trying to mask the smell . The smell of death . Looming in the room , the smell was very evident .

Then again , the old man has remained in that unconsciousness stage , for almost 6 months now. Touch . light, sound and other elements no longer trigger any sensations on him. Except for the blinding white light and a constant hum in his ear nothing can he feel. . Not even memories. Eighty years of living should have at least have some , one would think . But strangely he can not recollect anything from the bygone days .

Yet he knew he was still not dead , there was something , something existing in him. Something hung heavy . He could actually feel the burden of it on the whole of his being.

But in his perfect stillness , he could feel the amassed guilt and grief adding mass to his soul .
How much would it weigh , he was thinking.
May be a ton . Surely about that much
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“Thank you for agreeing to this. This is essential for proving my cause” the man in the white coat tells his audience.
All the old man’s children have gathered in the small room.

“What we will do is , we will weigh your father’s weight now , and once we switch off. I mean once passes away , we will record the weight again “

Doctor Duncun was never good with words , or saying the right thing .

Lucy would have known what exactly to say this. She would have been very exited to find out how much it weighed .

He wondered what the final reading would be

Here was a man of almost 80 years . He has spent his youth in a tough neighborhood, built his life from nothing. Six children and two wives later , surely there must be some regrets hanging heavy on his soul. His soul. Duncun contemplated on how his mind was getting used to believing the existence of it as an absolute certainty.
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“It is time now” , the nurse told in a solemn tone.

The troughs and the peaks on the heart rate monitor, settled for an amicable compromise of a straight line.

Doctor Duncan with his spectacles on his head, checked the reading of the scale .
And wrote 21g at bottom of the page and circled it as if to ring-fence it from escaping.


PS:
How much does the soul weigh ? that was the question .
After 3 days of reading and searching ,I was itching to be put out as a post.

While appreciating the disbelief of the actual existence of soul or it having a significant mass noticeable on scales , I found it interesting to find that some people have actually tried to do test same .

A doctor named Duncun Mcdoughal has tried to weigh a terminally ill patient before and after the heart ceases to beat. Despite the profound flows in his experiment, in method, assumption , sample size and other areas , even after a century later some people still refer to the results.

Just imagine with all your guilt, moral flows , grief and other negativities hanging so heavy on your soul , the measurement came to a mere 21 grams.