The Road To Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass

George's wait--a few moments or a million years, it's difficult to tell the difference--comes to an end as his number is called. The angel at his window looks over his paperwork perfunctorily before giving his folder the rubber stamp.

"You'll need to wait in Limbo. We'll alert you when a final decision has been made."

"How long's that going to take?"

His angel just shrugged. "You do know this is the most exclusive club in the entire universe. Only the best people get in."

"But I was really good."

"Being good isn't enough. Like I said, we're exclusive."

Understaffed

“I’m sorry, Number Six,” Death said to his probationary assistant, “but I’m going to have to let you go. Even though business is booming, and I need all the help I can get, you’ve just made too many mistakes. You’ve ended the lives of three people who were not supposed to die...just this week!”

“Bu...but,” Six stammered. “It wasn’t my fault. The paperwork was mixed up on one and the GPS wasn’t working on the others. Plus, all the overtime and...”

“Enough!” Death barked. “No excuses! There is just no place in this organization for a Dim Reaper!” From Guest Contributor Lee Hammerschmidt

Lee is a Visual Artist/Writer/Troubadour who lives in Oregon. He is the author of the short story collections, A Hole Of My Own and It’s Noir O’clock Somewhere. Check out his hit parade on YouTube!

Forgoing Responsibility

In the manner of all bloated bureaucracies, responsibility for the mistake was passed from desk to desk like a 12-year-old orphan moves through foster homes. Everyone knew it was a fireable offense and so the smart tactic was to duck under the nearest mound of paperwork whenever the department head glanced over. Eventually some new crisis would strike a floor or two above, and they'd all breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Of course that left Brenda on the hook again. As PR manager, it was her job to explain how a toaster oven had murdered a family of five.

Arthur

On the thirty-fourth floor of the Alan Alanwich Tower, Arthur sat between cabinets of yellowing paperwork. Had he been near a window, he still would not have noticed as the Tower crested the troposphere.

While the calculus of rocket trajectories was not terribly different from the calculus of financial modeling, the transition resulted in a couple of irregularities, putting Arthur behind schedule. Arthur always felt nauseous when he fell behind schedule.

As stage two of the tower detached, dropping the accounting department and mail-room back towards Earth, Arthur sighed. He would miss the company picnics. He had always enjoyed those.