Ahhh I sighed…sweet relief from the pain. Living with cancer sucked and the constant chemo treatment, well let’s just say left me feeling empty. I had followed the bright light and am on my way to those pearly gates but wait this isn’t the gates I suspected why is there a set of stairs with no hand railing going down.

I stood frozen and scared. I know I had done everything a good person does. I mean I didn’t attend church regularly and made fun of the pope, but I was a good person. I was the person that helped the old lady across the street and took in the stray dog. I would never hurt a fly; well, I guess that isn’t true I had swatted a few but that wasn’t a reason to go to hell. 

Then I felt the push that sent me down the stairs and to what was a rod iron gate and person standing there looking a lot like someone I had seen in Dantes Inferno. “Welcome to the gates of hell my friend, just one?”, he said with an evil chuckle that made me tremble. I looked around bewildered and said, “Hello sir it’s nice to meet you, but there must be some mistake.” He shook his head and looked through his list written in red ink, or I hoped it was ink checking the names.

He shook his head and looked at me with a grin and said, “It seems your name is John Bishom, is that correct?”. I told it was and asked to see how it was spelled because a lot of people used a s and h instead of a c and h. I sighed with relief and told him, “It is the wrong Bichom sir…my name is spelled with a c and h. He looked puzzles and told me to take a seat and that he needed to talk to management about this and pointed over to a couple of chairs with two tv up on the wall.

I sat down feeling that this would soon be over when they figured out, I wasn’t supposed to be here and go to those pearly gates where I belonged. I stared up at the televisions on the wall and both turned on one labeled ‘Hell’ and the other labeled ‘Heaven’. I watched both mesmerized by the one labeled hell because they were running what appeared to be ads promoting the place. There was a free bar, sex every night, rock n roll music from some of my favorite bands, and…my dog was here. He looked up at the screen and spoke to me, “Hey John you got come down here it is a blast…oh yeah sorry for shitting in your shoes.”, then he ran off with some guy’s slippers tearing them up as he zigs zagged.

I was amazed at how much fun he was having but I thought about the brimstone and fire and looked at heavens tv and saw old people sitting around playing solitaire with elevator music in the background. The screen flickered and went to another location and showed a single water bottle that people were taking turns getting cups filled. Everyone was soft spoken and holding…cats? I couldn’t believe that it could really be that boring, and to do that for eternity would be worse than hell, than I heard the man at the gate return.

He looked at me with an apologetic face and said, “Sorry buddy you were right. I hate these clerical errors, but you were supposed to go to…heaven.” He walked back towards his desk by the gate and started to make changes. I walked over to him and shrugged my shoulders and asked, I couldn’t believe I was saying this “Can I stay here instead. I mean I’m already here and I really don’t want to cause any trouble.”

He smiled at me and said, “It is rather unregular, but I know how boring the other place can be. Let me get some papers for you to sign and make it happen.” I smiled and said, “Thank you.”. He got the papers together for me and I signed as the doors opened and the last words I heard were “Enjoy your stay forever.” before I walked into the fiery gates of hell.