Today I received an email.

It was from a web site I subscribe to so it survived my SPAM filters. This site happens to be social in nature and rather popular so it caught my attention quickly. Who doesn't crave their next notification? I opened it without hesitation.

Upon first glance, the contents appeared to be a birthday reminder for a friend of mine. Great! This should be something fun to do. I opened up a new tab and pulled up my bookmarks on a mission now to wish them well on their special day.

It takes a moment, but eventually my brain catches up to my hands. Before I can finish logging in, I remember that this particular friend of mine passed away more than a year ago. 

Oh.

I sat back after this, stunned. I hadn't thought of my friend in almost a year, until now. A glut of memories came tumbling down over me soon after and a good five minutes were spent in silence.

We talk about souls quite a lot these days. Supernatural things intrinsic to living creatures that persist beyond the physical body's end. But really, we talk about the human soul the most. We're an egotistical bunch like that, humans.

Regardless of whether or not there's a puff of magical blue smoke inside me, there is certainly a very unique imprint of myself on the internet. There are mountains of information just about me gathered both from observation via advertisement tracking and its ilk and willingly through social web sites and all manner of other internet service. What happens to that when I die?

Well, it appears that, for now, I have my answer.

After that long while, I leaned forward to finish logging into the web site. I then navigated from page to page until I was looking at the profile of my late friend. What a shame.

This was a person. Someone unique and special. I remember them, aided by the ghostly echoes of what remains of them in the ether.

A digital soul; an imprint without consciousness.