Not So Pearly Gates

Well, this is marvelous I must say, sitting here, consigned to the 2nd circle of hell with some minor demon chewing on one of my kidneys. I lead a good life, die with the minimum of fuss and manage to make it to the pearly gates, even met St Peter, nice bloke, takes his job a bit seriously but I suppose with his responsibilities it wouldn't do to be playing practical jokes.

I was assigned my cloud, harp, wings and handbook, pointed in the right direction and set loose in heaven. Finding my cloud was a bit difficult, they all look the same but after asking around a bit I located it. It was a nice cloud too, fluffy in all the right places. I settled in and read the handbook, not much to it really, lots of thees and thous but the gist of it was 'don't mess with the mortals'. Shame really, I would love to have put the scare on a couple of people, ah well.

Anyway, I decided to have a look around and meet the neighbours and who do I bump into? None other than that little twit who used to steal my lunch at school, Joe Green. Well, I couldn't help it, that little monster stole my lunch for two whole years and before I knew what I had done I'd smacked him a good 'un in the jaw. Things like that stay with you all your life (and death). To be fair I did pick him up afterwards and straighten his wings for him but how was I to know he was the head of the 'department of punishment for angels who didn't follow the handbook'!?

The upshot of this was that they held a tribunal and reexamined my life and what do you know, they found that I had cheated on my english exam when I was a kid. Talk about unfair, I mean since when is cheating worse than stealing??? Even Gabriel looked at me as if I was something nasty stuck on his wings. They didn't even let me have a defense lawyer, that disappointed me a lot, let me tell you, I thought heaven would be a bit more democratic.

When it came down to sentencing, Joe Green smug bastard that he is, asked for the maximum penalty, expulsion from heaven. And they did, I couldn't believe it, I was speechless. Before I know it I'm down here in hell. I was brought before Lucifer, who for some reason wanted to look into my case himself. My God does that guy think a lot of himself, he's still whining about being kicked out of paradise, you think he'd have gotten over it by now. He told me that according to the rules I have to have my kidneys eaten for 100 years, but after that, if he thinks I'm suitable, he might have a position for me, something about tempting angels, apparently the woman who held the post before has moved on to better things. I wonder what the benefits package is like.