Free A Fate Worse Than Death by Jonathan Gould

them.”
    “And that’s your job?” Suddenly I didn’t feel like I’d ever had it so tough.
    “What is this supposed to be?” Peter exclaimed, glaring at the sheet in front of his face. Then he looked up at me again. “Sorry, what did you say?”
    “I asked if all that biographical detailing and decision-making was your job.”
    “Not exactly.” Peter picked up a pen and began scribbling furiously on the paper.
    “Not exactly?”
    “I don’t actually find any of the biographical details myself. We have a team of researchers that does that. I also don’t decide who is to go up and who is to go down. We have a committee that is responsible for all those decisions. Mine is purely a managerial role. I have to make sure everything everyone else does runs smoothly, and that the appropriate procedures are being adhered to, and that every last form is correctly filled. And, as you can see, there are an awful lot of forms that need to be filled.” As Peter spoke, he alternated between scrawling over the paper and waving the pen in descriptive circles through the air.
    “Can I detect from your tone that you are not enamoured of these appropriate procedures?”
    Peter sighed and put down the pen. “Look, there’s no way we could manage without the procedures. It’s just that, well, this job isn’t what it used to be.”
    “What did it used to be? Welcome to Heaven parties every day? People bringing you flowers and chocolate when they arrived at the Gates?”
    “Maybe not quite,” Peter said with a dry laugh, “but it used to be a whole lot easier. There was a time when I used to manage all of this on my own. Back then, I could make decisions myself, and there was no need for any paperwork. I made a point of greeting every person individually as they arrived at the Gates. Never had any trouble remembering anybody’s name. And in the evening there was always the chance to curl up in front of the fire and enjoy a good detective yarn.”
    “Sounds like a good life. Why ruin it with procedures?”
    Peter picked up the pen again. “Population explosion. The more people there are being born, the more people there are dying. Eventually, there were far too many people arriving at the Gates for me to deal with each one personally. If you think the queue is bad now, you should have seen it twenty years ago. It was taking almost six months for anyone to get through.”
    “A fellow could die and go to Heaven in the time it took him to die and go to Heaven,” I said, rather cleverly I thought.
    Peter wasn’t paying the slightest attention. “What have you done now, you idiot?” he cried, his eyes red with exasperation. “I’ve told you a hundred times, surname first, then given names.” He ripped up a couple of sheets of paper and tossed them onto the floor before looking back at me. “I’m sorry. What were we talking about?”
    “Procedures.”
    “Of course, the procedures. Eventually, we reached a point where the people in the queue got so impatient they rioted outside the Gates. Some of them actually tried to enter Heaven by force. It got so violent, half the people involved ended up being sent down below. Can you imagine that? Sent down for misdeeds you committed after your death.”
    “That’s why I made sure to get all my misdeeds out of the way before I died,” I said. “So what happened after that?”
    “I can’t follow any of this. He’s going to have to start again from scratch.” Peter cleared a place on the left side of the desk and dumped the pile of papers down. Then he picked up another pile from the middle of the desk and began thumbing through that. In the midst of all this activity, he did his best to answer the question.
    “Obviously something had to be done. There was a crisis meeting of the Heavenly Council. We had to figure out how to speed up the passage of people through the Gates. We had to streamline our operation, to make it . . . what was that expression . . .  best