Bob I’m glad your Clone is here. Your Clone is an excellent writer.
He looked on with bright and youthful eyes. He thought about the soul of the old man. Had it transferred, bit by bit, as he had described to Dolcita, to his new body? Or had the old man’s soul gradually lost its grip on the tattered husk, and drifted away?
Was soul a property, like being wet, or hot? Was it a common characteristic that all sentience shared? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t know, despite having gone through the process that Pearl had developed.
He recalled vaguely, the feeling that he had stood at the doorstep of Heaven, being interviewed. He had no way of knowing if that was simply another delusion or dream.
He felt an odd detachment. It seemed wrong somehow not to regret the imminent death of this old servant. But he felt that everything important of his essence had been miraculously salvaged. Reflexively, he stretched his leg. There was no sign of the familiar gimpyness and pain. It had been left safely behind.
Like a survivor at sea being plucked from a pitiful raft, he was thankful that it had sustained him, but relieved that he no longer needed something which had long ceased its usefulness.