Hi, Death here. You probably know me from my work in the Crusades numbers 1 through 8. I want to talk to you today in order to clear up some misconceptions you probably have. Now, a lot of people come up to me and say, "Death, what's the afterlife like? Do we really have souls?"

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to discuss the afterlife. Union rules. So as much as I'd like to, I can't tell you about that. But as for whether or not you have a soul, there is a lot of information that you seem to be missing that I think it important I provide to you. Quite simply, the answer is yes, you do indeed have a soul. A big whopping juicy soul full of uniquely you spiritual energy that's just spritzing out all over the place. Sounds good, even though it is a little unsanitary.

I know that right now, a lot of you are feeling pretty good about yourselves and thinking, "Hey, if I have a soul and everyone else has a soul, then in some cosmic intangible way, we must all be equal and everything will turn out all right after all." As usual you are completely wrong. Sure, everyone has a soul, but that doesn't make you all equal.  See, that's pretty much what the function of the soul is, to differentiate your quality like a stamp on USDA approved beef. Each person's soul is like a barcode and tracking device all combined. That's how I find you when I come for you and the same with Satan and God. We get a list of people we need to track down every day and crank up the old soul-tracking devices. Really, it's a lot like one of those nature shows where the bears are tagged and then released back into the wild. Except you're the bear.

But that isn't my point. My point is that even though everyone has a soul, that doesn't make you equal. See, there's nothing much to do with all eternity if you're the embodiment of an abstract idea or if you're a deity so you make your entertainment where you can. Basically, what I'm trying to tell you as gently as I possibly can is that your souls are a commodity. Like trading cards. I don't know who first came up with the idea, God or the Devil, but it was sheer genius and we've been following the system for ever since. The idea is to get the best collection of trading cards that you can. Sure, a lot of cards/souls in your collection is nice, but factors like quality and importance matter a lot too. To further the trading card analogy, think of baseball players. It's fine for you to own an entire set of this year's cards, but wouldn't you rather just have a single Babe Ruth rookie card? That's what I thought. Souls work the same way.

So the breakdown of soul values goes something like this: pretty people are worth more. Sorry, but it's the truth;  given the choice between a pretty person's soul and the soul of a hideous loser, we'll take pretty every time. I know some of you out there were hoping that looks wouldn't matter after you were dead, but that's the way it goes. It's your fault for being ugly in the first place. Second, famous people are likewise worth more than the rest of you. Not just movie stars, but everyone famous ever. God has a really great collection of famous scientists going and Satan's working on his historic dictators set. Both of those are really cool, the mint condition Alexander the Great is my favorite. Although the classics are always in style, the big fad right now is movie stars from throughout this century. We call them Moviemon (gotta catch em all!) and we have them battle each other in a specially constructed arena. They don't seem to have very many powers right now, but we're hoping that some of them will movievolve soon into bigger, more powerful versions of themselves. Right now, my Moviemon, Marlene Dietrich is the champ of the female Moviemon division. Satan keeps saying that when Liza Minelli dies she's going to kick some ass, but I think Marlene will have movievolved by then.

In any case, I just thought you should know about what your souls and what goes on with them. Thanks for your time.

Oh, and if you see Val Kilmer anytime, could you kill him for me? I kind of want to get him in my collection.
 
 
 

The index would like to swap your soul for some Nilla wafers