'This town has taken the youth of me', he thinks sadly to himself as he looks out through the window and takes a deep breath. The grey haze that rule outside has put a spell on the entire town. It even effects the birds that usually fly in circles and chirps around the rooftops. Now all they do is sit and stare. Sometimes they turn to get a more comfortable position on the roof. But for most of the time they look like stuffed birds in a museum. He has just woken up and he feel his bones trying to re-adjust to the upright positon. He didn't sleep too well this past night but better than for quite some time. As he looks out on the grey world while leaning against the window case, he thinks about his soul. The word soul. Why it has intrigued the mankind for so long. He thinks he knows why now. He is actually pretty sure he knows the answer. After being awake and not able to sleep for weeks you get time to think. A lot of time to think. And so he has. 'Where is life in this town?', he says outloud for only the dustflies to hear, as he turns from the window and puts on a bit of tea for the breakfast. The same disgusting tea he has had every morning for the last 6 months. He stops and pours it out into the sink. A vague smile slowly hints on his face. For most, the meaning of the soul is that you are born with one and that you die leaving it behind to linger in the air. To either go up to heaven or reincarnate as a baby again, or if you're unlucky, a worm. But what he has discovered while thinking during these long nights of loneliness is that the soul is built of layers. You are born without a single layer. And you are really not having a soul. You are alive and you scream, oh you scream, but you don't really have a soul yet. It comes along the way, so to speak. For every experience you get a new layer on your soul. Wether it is a bad one or a good one, a wrong one or a right one. For each experience you still get a new layer on you. A layer you decide what you want to do with. It can never go away but it can either linger around you as the rings on Saturn and keep reminding you of the badness that came with it. Or you can take it into your lounge of layers and treasure it and mature with it. Grow to know that even if the badness was there it did add a piece to your soul. It made you a richer person. He reads the paper at his table and instead of that cup of tea, he has made himself a bowl of cereal. Even though they are old and the milk is soon expiring he feels a force rushing through him. He has decided to try, no, to really do take each layer that comes into his life and value them all. He wants to show whomever that you can't only be a religious person that sees everything in black and white, nor a contradicting atheist. Slowly he leaves the table and glance for a second through the window, even though he doesn't want to. Still as grey and he has to fight hard for not sitting down again. He enters the bathroom and turns on the light. The mirror man cheers him as every morning with messed up hair and an empty look. He strips out of his pyjama shorts and enters the shower. He waits 15 seconds for the water to get warm as he does every morning and he walks under the water that rushes down to escape into the drain and pipes in the building. Again he feels a nice sensation and that smile is hinting again. He hardly notices but his mind is thinking endlessly now. The meaning of life, he has come to the conclusion in the nights, is to be open to all these layers. To please the different apetites when they come and say hello. All the layers are meaningful. He knows he has to learn again to appreciate the sweet taste of a fresh apple, just as he has to appreciate the sound of the haunting wind again. Just as he did once in his life. Everyone can see the beauty in a rose and smell the beauty. It's to feel the beauty that is the important thing. You have to throw yourself into the so called big Ocean of Life without any hesitation. To experience everything that happens. To experience everything that happens without being scared and to think about if it is right or wrong. To not feel scared but only strong. He has also discovered in his soul searching that humans has this way to always try and be something more than they are not. It's nothing wrong with dreaming, but the true answer is that you have to live each day in your own way and to cheerish your own life. Only then will that dream come true. In the end they always do if you live the dream instead of dream the life. He feels strong now. Stronger than he has felt for years. He dries himself up with the towel. Dress himself in his usual clothes. But he has never looked this way before in these clothes. He feels a bit silly having this big smile on his face but he decides that it has come because it was missing so he leaves it on his face. He can't even remove it if he wanted to. He closes the kitchen lamp. On the fridge door there is a fruit alphabet he got once. He can't even recall from whom. He decides he is going to find out when he comes home. As he pass it on his way out he leans down and form a sentence: 'Soon I grow older, but God knows I haven't lived yet'. As he leaves the apartment for another day the sun is slowly breaking through the clouds. Life is. And he lives. Finally.