Pearly Gates

Notice of Appointment. The Office of Admissions has reviewed your file. It was found adequate. Report to the Pearly Gates at 6:00 for window duty. Bring nothing. A stamp will be issued. Lodgings have been arranged on a cloud in the Lower Tiers. Rent is due nightly. The Office thanks you in advance. Heaven has a queue. Everyone who died today is standing in it, papers in hand, waiting for the angel at the admissions desk. That angel is you. Your job is to work the window. St. Peter issues the rules of admission by memo each morning, and the rules change every morning: yesterday's stay in force, today's stack on top, and nobody will explain them to you twice. Ring the bell, read the soul's Vita, check it against the Writ of Passage, the Testimony of the Choir, the Scroll of Penance and whatever the Office sees fit to add next week, and slam down a stamp. Green ADMITTED opens the gates in golden light. Red DENIED, the soul is sent straight down to purgatory. Among the honest dead are demons in disguise. Their seals are forged, their names are doctored, the face on the photographic plate belongs to somebody else, and when the papers are perfect the disguise itself flickers for a heartbeat. Catch one, and there is a bounty. Let one through, and it is an infernal breach on your record. Every error has a name, and the Office keeps count.