by LAURIE NEIDERGAARDEN, Alternate Reality News Service Medical Writer
It’s hard not to notice the thrill in seventy-two year-old Martha Angley’s voice when she tells you what it’s like to have the soul of John Lennon. When you point out that, in the five years since the soul was implanted in her brain, she hasn’t written a song, she points out right back that Lennon went through a dry period in the 1970s, and that she’s sure her Double Fantasy will come any day now.
The fact that Lennon’s soul only cost her C$29.95 didn’t give Angley a moment’s pause: “There’s a reason John’s soul was so cheap. It had been left in somebody’s jeans pocket and put through the wash a few times,” she explained, “so, it was damaged – more damaged than his life had made it, I mean.”
Gilles Gillgilley, an Australian haddock farmer who claims to have possessed the soul of John Lennon for eight years, tried to have a bed-in for peace in his barn, but his wife Gillian ended that with a broom and a shotgun. Otherwise, Gillgilley has not felt much difference since he replaced his own soul.
Japanese party girl Avarice McMultion thought it would be a hoot to have John Lennon’s soul. And, she did don thin-rimmed glasses, write incomprehensible poetry, have an affair with an even more incomprehensible performance artist and condemn American foreign policy. However, this was pretty much life as usual for McMultion, so no conclusion can be drawn from her experience.
In all, there are 12 people around the world who claim they have replaced their own souls with that of John Lennon. Which of them is correct?
“Oh, none of them,” chuckled Israel “John” Peninsula, Sotheby’s first soul appraiser. “I have it on good authority that Lennon’s soul is owned by a private collector in Botswana.”
When souls come in for auction, it is Peninsula’s job to authenticate their provenance. “Ideally, you want a copy of the death certificate, a form from the attending physician that the soul had been extracted prior to the person’s death and photographs of the soul at the time of extraction,” Peninsula explained. “Of course, these days, with souls changing hands so freely, the authentication process can be much more complicated.”
Peninsula tells the story of Robert DeNiro’s soul. His will left the soul – shaped liked a large orange cauliflower with a black center – to the Tribeca Film Festival, which displayed it in a jar for several years. When Tribeca went bankrupt, the soul was sold for a considerable sum to a Japanese consortium believed to be a front group for actor Leonardo DiCaprio. This can never be proven, although DiCaprio’s acting did improve substantially after the sale. The trail goes murky after that, with rumours that DeNiro’s soul was purchased by the cloned son of Reverend Sun Myung Moon to goose his speech-making ability, stolen by radical members of the Screen Actor’s Guild for obliquely nefarious purposes or used by an artificial intelligence identified only as “Pinocchio” that wanted to experience what it was like to be human.
Two years ago, Avarice McMultion claimed to have won DeNiro’s soul in a strip Mahjong game. Peninsula was called in to determine if it was DeNiro’s soul, or just a cheap Korean knock-off.
“We did a few lab tests,” Peninsula said, “but, even though we have isolated the part of the brain that contains the soul, we still don’t know much about how it actually functions.”
In the end, he paid an out of work actor to carry the soul for three months, observing the man’s behaviour and acting chops. “There wasn’t really much difference,” Peninsula remarked, “so, I had to call the soul a fake. I got a lot of hate mail from Raging Bull fans, but, really, I can’t allow such things to affect my work.”
The search for Robert DeNiro’s soul continues.
Peninsula, not well known outside of collectors’ circles, briefly received public attention when he authenticated Dick Cheney’s soul. The Cheney soul, which was bought by London’s Natural History Museum is so noxious that, even though it is displayed behind a glass case, viewers have to wear gas masks in its presence. They are also not allowed to view the Cheney soul directly; it is curtained off and can only be viewed through an elaborate set of mirrors.
“It’s just a precaution,” director of the Natural History Museum Ron Cameo assured me. “Cheney’s soul has killed lab rats, but we have no reason to believe it would have that effect on people. Much.”
And, what does the soul authenticator want done with his soul when he dies?
“I want it cremated along with the rest of me,” Peninsula laughed. “You think I want to be subjected to this nonsense?”