I am in hell.
Actually, I'm in heaven; rather, at heaven, outside at the gates, but this is my personal envisionment of hell. I have to do all the paperwork for these wretched souls coming in. That entails going over every little detail of their worthless ex-lives; all their dirty fantasies, every filthy, salacious detail of every unsavory act in seventy years of existence. Stuff like this I can do without.
There are just too many people in the world, which in turn leads to too many dead people. I'm behind schedule as it is, and I know there's an ever-growing line of them stretching off into the distance. After dropping their useless carcasses they're just little wisps of smoke and whatnot. Yeah, that's real convenient for me, considering that there's fog and clouds all over the place. "For atmosphere," my bosses say. Sure, atmosphere. I'll give you atmosphere when I shove this quill pen up your holy rectums.
And that's another thing: the technology around here hasn't changed, ever. They're all a bunch of ultra-conservative, fundamentalist schmucks; my superiors, that is. What's worse, most of them are hypocrites. They'll walk around talking about perfect utopia and equality, but when the chance arrives to move up the hierarchy here they'll revert to all kinds of cut-throat tactics. The ones who don't are just whiny bleeding-heart communist scum. It's just business as usual, and that's slow. It's all robes and sandals around here. Oh no, we couldn't get some decent footwear. We couldn't join the rest of creation in expanding technology; a few computer terminals here and there, and my job would be a lot easier.
Instead, I'm stuck standing here reliving the disgusting lives of complete strangers, taking notes by hand, while everyone inside the gates laughs and has a good time. I have to send these notes to be reviewed by Leon over in the Revisions department. I don't know why it's called Revisions, since I'm the one sitting here listening to people's life stories. No, I'm in Processing, where I don't actually process anything. Plus I have to wait a random amount of time for the errand boy to show up to deliver these notebooks to Leon to be given the whole Final Judgment bit. Every once in a while I'll catch that punk errand boy sleeping on the job, on those rare occasions when I get a coffee break. There's no caffeine, of course; they give me some tripe about the body being a temple.
One of the worst things about it is that I don't even know when the next break is. There are no clocks here, no concept of time whatsoever. They tell me there's no need for it here. Oh, sure, maybe for them there isn't. They have nice comfortable office jobs, and are too busy being eternally blissful. It's too much for a grunt like me to ask to know when I get to rest, huh? I wonder if it doesn't actually take seventy years to hear each of these stories.
Another one floats up to my desk, and it's a few minutes before I realize it's there.
"Step up to the mirror, please." I've said it so many times the words have lost all meaning, but I have to seem perfectly serene and understanding or I'll be demoted. The little cloud of person floats over to the only other thing nearby, what appears to be a stone well filled to the brim. On my more cynical days I call it the celestial toilet. It might as well be, for all the crap I see in it. An image of the former person appears in the reflection, and the life review begins. I dip the horribly inadequate quill pen in the bottomless ink well, and open a book of blank paper in front of me. What number was this one again? I can't remember. Ah hell, I'll let Processing figure it out; it's whatever the last one was plus one.
In my moment of indecision I miss making note of a particularly graphic display of sadism in the mirror at age two. Well, it's too late to stop and write it down now. None will be the wiser, and Leon has already complained to me many times about my notes being out of chronological order. Okay, childhood, public school, college, work force, family, death. I have the routine memorized. At least my wrists never get tired, and if this pen dripped or made blotches on the paper I'd snap like a cheap store brand pretzel. It's by heavenly grace alone by holding this job that I don't just write down "serial child molester" and be done with it.
Killed by a jealous lover. Got it, o lecherous one. Done. Off to the waiting room with you. Someone will tell you the results, whenever that errand boy decides he should do his job for once. Next. Step up to the mirror, please. A few angelic giggles drift out of the gate behind me. What's so funny?
If we weren't already dead, I'd kill myself, and take a bunch of these lunatics with me.