Humanity has always been fascinated with the question of what happens to the soul after death. Reincarnation? Heaven or Hell? Valhalla? The Big Nothing? Is the soul real to begin with? If yes, what are its properties, who made it, or was it made by someone or something at all? Why was it made or created? What is its goal? Is it possible to capture, enslave, influence, or destroy a soul? How would you do it?


    All valid questions and at least the gravity of the issue made it possible, throughout the millennia, for a very large number of people who were allergic to physical labor but in need of a comfortable lifestyle to find respectable occupations. They found nice lifestyles without the need to strain their muscles. All without being born as a noble or having to rally a host in defense of King and Country or other Nobles. Or just to wage some "war" against their best friend in the next castle over to occupy the minds of the soldiers. Or just because he got bored. Or because why not.


    Of course, this is understandable. It''s much, much, MUCH easier to sit in a (for the given time) top-of-the-line apartment and theorize about what a soul is and do while getting at least three warm meals a day, than doing heavy agricultural things outside and starving. Or die fighting some random folks coming to conquer the country. Or die invading another country. No judgment here.


    The other result of this study was a huge number of Humans who, because of the physical interactions stemming from the scientific debate between opposing schools of philosophic thought, got to know the answer to The Question firsthand. Unfortunately for the general populace and fortunately for the people with work allergies, those in the know after the interaction rarely went back to their folks telling them what the deal is. From the point of view of those basing their whole existence on not doing heavy work but thinking things, this was indeed very fortunate. Who would want to lose their comfortable job because of a scientific breakthrough and retrain himself into an excrement displacer? Of course, no one would. I don''t like shoveling shit either.


    Or maybe the information did come back, but the protocols are locked behind so much concrete and steel you could build the Atlantic Wall three times over. NOT losing the comfy job? Check. NOT making waves and NOT getting burned on the stakes? Check. Moving on. When is the third Dinner ready? Yes, we absolutely need that fortress with those catacombs, your mighty Majesty, Sir! It''s essential for our research of the soul, Random Higher Authority, Sir. Of course, we need at least three warm meals a day! Brain work is hard work, your Benevolent Overlordship! No, we won''t pay for it ourselves, that''s why we have peasants!


    So the mystery of the Soul remained just as that for the Earth-Humans: a mystery. (And a comfy job for folks, but that''s beside the point.) Everyone has the right to believe what they want, has the opportunity to get killed off by folks with different beliefs, and gets the chance to kill off folks with different beliefs.


    As for our Main Character, he was never interested in the whole issue. If the time came, he would know for sure, and till then it was no use to getting stressed out for no apparent reason. You get in when you got it. Ferenc – or as everyone called him, Prof – lived in an absolutely average Central European country. Yes, Central European, since – in contrast to Westerners – everyone East of the Oder-Leitha-Line knew Eastern Europe is the Ukraine and Russia, thank you very much, and not the Balkans either. Please stop insulting the folks. Thank you.


    He lived in an average country''s absolutely average town, as a member of the (slowly dying out) absolutely average Middle Class, having an absolutely average job, hobbies, needs, and wants. He drove an absolutely average car – used, imported from the wealthy West, but paid for in cash since he didn''t believe in consuming on loans – and still lived with his parents in their absolutely average home despite being thirty-five.


    Of course, still living with the parents was quite average for an average Central European, getting paid shit for the same work as in the West, assuming you didn''t want your grandkids to inherit some colossal debt, but I digress. And, since his parents were retired, it was beneficial for everyone to share the bills. Ferenc, or rather Prof – short for Professor, the name having something to do with someone having an accident opening a beer bottle while drunk and some hastily applied first aid (and being a wise-ass about it. Not the accident but the first aid) – had an absolutely average girlfriend – at least as long as she didn''t dump him for a guy driving a not so fucking average (meaning: less boring, more trendy and slightly newer) Mercedes – bought on credit – to relocate to Germany and making a career of washing dishes. For some strange reason, even that felt average.


    Prof didn''t have any non-average hobbies. Instead of jumping out of airplanes with only a few square meters of textile, he watched movies. Instead of being a street racer – in fact, his average car was out-accelerated once by a rusty minivan – he did some reading (books about history and fantasy novels). Instead of going to the shooting range (which was almost impossible to begin with, since the country he lived in didn''t allow citizens to own, use or look at guns), he met his average friends once a week to drink some beers, rant about the political situation, talk about the newest movies, music, and novels. And stuff.


    Instead of having a Black Belt in some martial arts, he played Role Playing Games with his friends. Sometimes. When they could put together a party which was able to play more than once a year. Instead of hunting deer to extinction on his way home from work or on weekends – also an impossibility in his country, mostly because of the hard stance on firearms there – he bought his food in the closest supermarket. To make it clear: Instead of being some highly trained Spec Ops Guy, a handyman, or an avid gamer with experience in everything else, he was the average wage slave toiling about day in and day out.


    It was probably impossible to get any more average. If you can endure an absolutely average life like that without slitting your veins or going shooting up folks, you are either named Al Bundy or live in Central Europe. Bob Hope, Mr. Johnny Cash, and Steve Jobs all left the building. At least Kevin Bacon and someone named after some kind of alcohol was still around somewhere. Go figure.


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    A whole novel could be written about his amazing days at the office, how awesomely he pushed files from one side of the desk to another, how excellently he talked to customers, and how exciting it was to commute to his working place or back home. But, most likely, no one would care, since most want to read about heroic exploits in a whole new world and not the everyday grind at the office. That one could be (and is) experienced by everyone, after all.


    The only thing that happened to Prof that wasn’t absolutely average, happened on an absolutely average winter day while walking to work. No, he was not driving, since gas cost a lot and he needed to keep the car for a few more years. Ehmmm… decades.


    And so the tale began. Once upon a time, there was an absolutely average raven, who after getting hold of an absolutely average ring landed on an absolutely average high-voltage line. It is somewhat questionable if a high voltage line could be called average, but most assuredly it was. It had cables and lattice poles and was located in an average country''s average countryside, without any fancy decoration, personality, or relevance. The Evil Sorcerer A.G. Bell – or was it Edison, Jedlik, Tesla, Siemens, or Westinghouse? Let''s call it the Evil Cabal – cast an Evil Spell of Lightning onto the line that fried the Raven, still holding the pilfered ring in its beak real good. Charcoal good.


    The carcass, missing a lot of complex cultural significance fell to the street – and not killing Prof, not making Prof get killed by a speeding truck, and not making Prof get killed while saving a random bystander from said truck. Instead, the Raven''s carcass crashed into the windshield of an average retired public servant’s average car. Not killing him – even an average car protects its passengers from randomly falling charcoaled ravens. What killed the driver was the fright. Well, it was mostly the semi-trailer in the opposite lane he steered his car into because of the sudden fright and losing control of his vehicle.


    Contrary to expectations, the crash didn''t directly cause Prof''s death for the story to be allowed to continue. It would be convenient, but absolutely average and boring – a fitting end to an average guy, but what happened was the only thing in Prof''s life, that wasn''t average.


    In the end, the crash didn''t kill Prof in any way. He was not hit by debris, he was not flattened by the trailer getting loose, and neither was he killed by the high voltage line falling onto his head because the semi flattened the pole. Which did happen – flattening the pole, to be precise.


    What did kill Prof was the cat. And the ice. And some rebar laying around.


    How could a cat, some ice, and rebar cause death? How did the charcoaled raven, public servant, semi, and the high-voltage line factor into an average guy''s death? How can all these be combined to make the most non-average death possible?


    Let''s clear up the uncertainty and the questions in chronological order. The raven was fried on the other side of Prof''s town a few hours before he was booted from the club of the living, and so did the initial accident. As in any normal country, even in Central Europe, an accident that flattens the pole of a high-voltage line, the Disaster Relief (and the Electrical Company) was called into immediate action. Leaving an unsecured power line lying around in wreckage isn’t safe, it is said.


    The two companies did do some prompt relieving. Though they mostly relieved the town of electricity by cutting the main electrical grid to fix the completely separate High Voltage Line. Naturally, cutting the grid also meant, the town was left without public lighting early on a Winter morning. As everyone, who doesn''t live somewhere in the Tropics would know, early mornings in Winter tend to be dark and cold – the first leads to limited visibility, and the second to the formation of ice on… well, basically on everything.


    That still doesn''t explain, what cat, ice, and rebar had to do with Prof''s (not-average death), though.


    No, it’s not cat-flavored ice cream on rebar. That would be gross! Even Central Europe has standards! Said standards mean, that if Public Service A does some public work, it''s not their job to clear the debris after the work is done, but Public Service B''s. It is possible, however, that Public Service A just doesn''t care or work hours are over for the day. As it is commonly known, no one is willing to work for free, so, Boss, fuck you very much, the bar is open, let''s get wasted!


    The split responsibility (and don''t give a fuck-attitude) means... sometimes… that the debris (let''s assume, that includes rebar for whatever reason) is left on-site for a few… days… weeks… months… years… It could be called an undefined time frame between one day and eternity.


    What ice with the whole issue had, is probably self-explanatory. It was Winter, after all. It was cold. No one cleans up fallen precipitation – it’s on common ground, so it’s the Job Of Someone Else, and it’s cold outside.


    Some folks probably already have crafted an explanation, something like “because some overzealous folks cut the lighting and some under-zealous folks didn’t clean up after their work was done, and some carefree citizens with an over-abundance of… me-time… didn’t clear the side-walk of ice, the Evil Overleveled Cat scared our poor Main Character into slipping and impaling himself on rebar”.


    However, that would be wrong. Not the part about slipping and impaling, that is the correct core of the event, like every good conspiracy has. Actually, Prof liked cats, and they are not Evil, to begin with. Mostly. Mostly they are just opportunistic and have barely domesticated their Humans. Well, and the only "overleveled" cats are called lions, tigers, and saber-tooth… Teeth… Smilodons. None of those live in Central Europe anymore, though.


    In reality, as Prof was walking along an un-cleared sidewalk (in the dark and cold), he noticed an Innocent Cat (kitten, more likely) mewing next to some indistinct pile and wanted to pet it. The kitten, not the pile. Two things were going through Prof''s head at this moment. The first being, that his ex-girlfriend would probably never encounter an indistinct pile on the roadside in the dark and cold while building her dish-washing career in Germany. Those folks were, for some reason, allergic to random piles on the roadside, to un-cleared sidewalks and lighting-less streets – and would pester someone in time to clear it up, shovel it free, heat it up, and light it out properly. Immediately. Or at least put up warning signs. The someone doing the stuff most probably being an unrespected Central European guy.


    The other thing was rebar.


    And so Prof got to know the answer to the question plaguing Humanity for a couple of thousands of years.