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The empty shell of a man is not a phrase by which many really know how it means. Oh sure, many have used it vainly in bane attempts to extract empathy from others. They can explain what it means. But only a few really know what and how it is. Only a few have felt the cold apathy grating loudly on ones insides, reverberating in echoes upon echoes throughout ones body like fingernails constantly scraping against a chalkboard placed within the heart of a giant cathedral.
Much like the cliché of the structure of a house not being what a home is, a man is not a man because of what he is, but who he is. Namely, a man (or a woman) is who he is because of his soul. Whether a good man, a bad man, or just a lukewarm man, these are all dependent on their corresponding souls of good, bad, or tepidness. Like the house which is not a home without the family within to make it such, a man without a soul is that same empty structure. A house is recognizable to others and familiar in the sense that it has home like qualities, but in the end, that house is nothing of a home until settled and loved by a family. The same holds true with a man. A man is nothing without the soul settled within, without the love it receives and gives. Essentially, a soul is love. It is an abstraction which breathes life into even inanimate objects such as houses. Many of us have heard of houses having their own souls, much like the dark souls of houses which fill the horror genre.
There are two types of soulless people. And by soulless, they are therefore empty shells. There are those who can feel the emptiness within and cringe at the hollowness of their own unrecognizable voices, and there are those who don’t know they are so. The distinction is made when one again considers what a soul to be, and that is love. A man who has known love and felt it before, only to be heartbroken and have the capacity to ever feel it again are those of who mostly have ever used the said saying. They are those who agonize over their lost and are truly the empty shells, and usually it is they who don’t last long on this earth after they lose this necessary faculty of loving and being capable of receiving the same. Much like a house which remains vacant of residents who maintain its upkeep, not too much time will expire before it deteriorates from within or some external force tears it down. The same bares true for this type of soulless man.
The other sort is completely different and intriguing. For this category is of a man or woman who has never had the capacity of love and never will. And because they have not this faculty, they do not know what they are missing, it is this category which knows not of their emptiness and live life dreamlessly and indifferent. They are not affected and plagued by the same ineptness as the previous type, because they do not know what they are missing. Again, like it is said, it is better to have loved than to never have loved at all. Because they have not loved, cannot love, they truly are the empty. It is these characters who you and I should fear. Though, if left alone to their worthless existence these few may verse freely through life unnoticed and insignificant, it is these characters who have the capacity to do a great (whether it is horrible or good) many deeds. What the soulless are capable of, especially with a nudge in the right direction, are limitless and can profoundly affect the outcome of any development whether great or small.
It was my job to help with that nudge, to find and guide the very few shells into those positions of greatness. Much like game of chess, it was my job to seek those talented enough to participate in the game. When I found them they were mere pawns, but after I was done, they themselves were kings. And it is one of these talents I found scurrying the streets one day, much by accident, that became the king of kings. And it is on this day which this story begins.