The word of the day is ka:
The name given by the ancient Egyptians to a spiritual part of a human being or a god which survived after death and could reside in a statue of the dead person. (OED)
"There's agony in its scanning eye, its tiny
filtering teeth set in that gaping mouth, caught perversely
wide, a universal fellatio, opened to make it look more
than a shark enough; and even science will realize
that it's undead, its "ka" and "ba" fixed and lost
in equal measure, the flow of fluid not even providing
an optical illusion, no "weighing of the heart" beyond
the heartlessness of curiosity, eschatology of display."
- John Kinsella, "Megamouth Shark", 7 March 2011 The New Yorker
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