THE WAY TO PARADISE

You've lived a good life, so what's wrong with expecting an eternity in Paradise?

The Pearly Gates were shut. A chain hung loosely between them, and a golden padlock made them look impassable. On the other side Mitch could see fields of fluffy clouds, happy souls carrying glistening harps and singing (in the sweetest imaginable voices) madrigals and songs of eternal love and perfect peace. Mitch was impressed, but the gates were shut.

"Name?" asked Saint Peter, a vellum scroll in one hand and a pair of god-fearing reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.

"Mitch," replied the man/spirit/soul who was waiting on the wrong side of the gates.

"You're not here," murmured Saint Peter after an age of peering at his scroll.

"I must be," complained Mitch. "Look again: this is the place I always intended to end up, to spend my eternity. I even learned how to knit and play the harp specially."

St Peter shook his head.

"There's no sign of you on any of the Heavenly lists," he said, peering over those reading glasses and scowling. "You must have done something pretty wrong not to be on any of them!"

"I've been practically perfect!" protested Mitch. "I've lived the kind of life that was almost unbearable with its goodness! I never hurt anyone, never stole anything, never tortured a dumb beast or even ate meat! I married a sweet young woman, we had two perfect children (we would have had the national average of two point four, but that's impossible without trying to drag up almost half a child), and I went to church at least twice a week all my adult life!"

"Yet you're not on any of the lists," murmured St Peter. "I can't let you in. I'd be punished for it, and, I tell you, the Lord can be pretty harsh with his punishment! You wouldn't want that to happen to me, would you? Celestial floggings can be painful affairs and I don't fancy one. No: you can't come in unless you manage to get on one of the lists."

"This is all very unreasonable!" snarled Mitch. "And it's cold this side of the gates, you know. Look at me: I'm naked and shivering!"

"So I see, goosebumps all over, and I'm sorry, but there's not one thing I can do. Now be a good fellow and bugger off. There's a queue forming."

"Where shall I go, then?"

"There's always downstairs. They say there's always plenty of room down there. And it's never cold. Oh no, never!"

"You mean Hell? I'm to go to Hell?"

"Goodness me, no! Haven't I told you? You're not on any of the lists! Look around here: see all the folks milling around, seraphic smiles, lovely music, never a cross word between any of them, everyone's always right all the time! It's perfection! No, if you want Heaven you'd best try those wrought iron gates over there: the ones with the sulphurous smokes seeping through..."

"You mean, the entrance to Hell?"

"Get you over there and find out! Ring the bell and you'll get in! If we reject souls over here the arch-demon over there always lets them in! And you won't feel cold, not down there, not where the fires blaze for all eternity! It's why they call it Heaven. Now step aside: I've got to process all the rest of the souls in the queue before dinner. “Next!"

There was nothing for it. Mitch had to make his way to the wrought iron gates that led to the lower world.

"Sod it!" he muttered irritably.

When he got there a little round being with a forked fail and a jolly grin welcomed him with open arms.

"Welcome, my friend, to Heaven!" he said. "For one nasty moment I thought you might be going through those glittering gates and into Hell, but you saw sense! A word of warning, though: try to settle in slowly or you might find the constant round of orgies and parties a trifle exhausting. Take your time and everything will be all right."

"Heaven?" asked Mitch, confused.

"Of course, as opposed to Hell where they do nothing but sing madrigals and play the harp all day long, when they're not fawning at the feet of their lord, of course. But then, they've got nothing else to do. There's no sex over there -willies fall off the moment you get in there - so there's no fun, nothing to make eternity worthwhile!"

"Crikey," whispered Mitch, and he wandered through the wrought iron gates and straight into the arms of Nefertiti the exceedingly beautiful and fantastically underdressed ex-Egyptian queen.

"Hello, big boy," she whispered as she squeezed his genitals with one gentle hand. “Slip into something provocative and we'll take it from there...”

Reviews

[roarke]

heh.... slip into something provocative? but, he was already naked, hahahahaa. fun stuff, Peter you are a master of the twist. In reading a few of your stories now, I catch a bit of Kurt Vonnegut in your writing.

[Peter Rogerson]

If there were to be a physical afterlife I think I know which one I'd opt for, so let's commit a few sins here and now and aim to get there ... simple sins, of course, nothing really horrible!!!!