Spare a Thought?

The highest degree of evil deed will cause a soul to be reborn as a denizen of hell,
 a lower degree of evil will cause a soul to be reborn as an animal, and
 the lowest degree will cause a soul to be reborn as a hungry ghost.

 As he approached he saw the stream of shoppers
slow slightly and glance down, then, having obeyed one of the
 troublesome evolutionary tics that had hung on to these shoppers 
since they crawled out of the primordial seas, serving no other
 purpose than to irritate those behind them, before continuing down
 the block, leading him to think it was probably dogshit. 
As he passed by, he broke his pace, reached down, and picked the
 mound up firmly by both sides.
 
The understanding is that all people become a regular ghost when they die, and would then slowly weaken and eventually die a second time.
 Hungry ghosts, by contrast, are a much more exceptional case, and would
 only occur in very unfortunate circumstances, such as if a whole family
 were killed or when a family no longer venerated their ancestors.

  
 
      No one really likes dealing with  thoughts of questionable origin. No
one takes a thought from down on the sidewalk and does any good 
with it. 
 
 
Desire, greed, anger and ignorance are all factors in causing a soul to
 be reborn as a hungry ghost because they are motives for people to 
perform evil deeds.[1]
         Shit, he thought, look at these fucking things. I bet they are 
fermenting in this heat. As he inspected them, the voice of a long
 passed mentor came to him.  "You don't turn down free thought.",
 the elder never failed to remind him, always punctuating his koans, 
by tapping the bottom of his cane in the rhythm of his 
speech.

        









 He lived through the crash. Witnessed the value of intelligence drop so low, it had a Chinese accent when it finally rose again. And the drought of sense that endured. "They'll use a flag, to make you go against your logic and your brother." his voice rattled, sadly.

Zej let the memory linger, using what the  Attractor taught about the

quasi-matter of the afterlife. He paused briefly to not only acknowedge, 

but relive the tape of memories roll through his head for long enough to pack away the

 thoughts he'd scavenged. The brittle old man , now a ghost of losses, had the 

sun grace his pale skin only long enough to remind him he missed it,

 and then he had to go.

 These thoughts were too big,even for his head. So big, in fact, if

 they got all the way inside his head, he envisioned them being cut

 out by fake fire fighters on The Learning Channel.

 He put them to some use though.After building a time machine,

and beating Vegas,his curiosity beckoned.

 Whose fuckin brains are these, Would the Arboretum know ? They would know at least the type of head these thoughts fit. He guessed it was some deranged Yakuza lone wolf, Who thought he could beat the house.

No one beats the house, motherfucker.

36 hours later he got woke at the Arboretum. Confused and parched, he grabbed the first attendant who got within reach,  pulled him up close. 

Now his battered meat wouldn't have to strain to say it. The wide eyed attendant was startled, but remained non-plussed as he and Zej came nose to nose.

"Who the FUCK is Ray Torres?" , Zej growled.