“Name and Place” is an exactly fifty-word microfiction piece that reflects on the (absurd) duality of how humans have treated our bodies as entirely separate entities from our souls. It was inspired by two entries in the classic Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, and is intended to highlight how this separate (and unequal) treatment of the human body vs. the human soul has not only endured but become second-nature through modern times. Now that I have officially explained the piece in more words than the story itself, you can go here to read it yourself.
This piece appears in 50 Give or Take, a microfiction project published by Vine Leaves Press, which delivers a new microfiction piece to subscribers’ inboxes daily.