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I couldn't believe there was a sign. A sign that said "Welcome to Heaven," no less. No pearly gates, though. I was disappointed. I passed under that sign and read another. "ID cards necessary. Please proceed to Lobby."
I checked in, and the lady looked at me very strangely when I told her my profession.
"Aren't you a writer?" she asked, very seriously.
"Uh-yes. This is my day job."
"Well, who cares about that?" She issued me a nice little card, with my name, deathdate, and a little picture. It was just like the AAA office, but with clouds. Underneath all of these it said "writer" in big block caps. She motioned me to St. Peter, who was standing at the turnstile and checking our cards. He grinned at me as I came up.
"A writer, huh? Sucks for you."
He motioned me down a hallway (I wondered idly how there was a hallway with all these clouds about) where I found another woman sitting behind a desk. She was sitting by a door that had "WRITERS" on it, again in that block print. It looked like there was a separate heaven for writers. Well, cool.
"Are you people angels?" I asked, as I walked up.
She gave me a long, cold look. Hmm. Maybe she getting tired of smart comments from writers. Especially those satirists. I hate the satirists.
"Here is your portfolio. This way." As if there was any other way to go.
I went through the door, only to be confronted by an enormous waiting area. It was filling up with writers. Along one side there were doors, lots of them. This looked awfully familiar.
Oh, yeah. It looked like the waiting area for those simulation rides at Disney! They show a movie on one of the screens, and then when the movie ends, the door opens, and we all get to parade into our entertainment.
I wondered if they'd give those warnings at the beginning about the heart problems and nervous system disorders. Hmm. Probably not.
I looked at the portfolio she'd given me, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with it now, when I heard someone exclaim, near me, "This is my work! This is my book!"
I opened it to see who was yelling, and realized in surprise that it wasn't his book at all. It was my stories and poems. Er, could he not read the name under it?
Someone else said, "You idiot! It's my book!"
Oh, duh. It's all individualized. A girl near me pointed that out.
The room dissolved into a general murmur of anticipation.
I thought I saw Salman Rushdie in a corner, but I must have been dreaming.
I was re-reading some of my works-wow, they sucked-when the doors simultaneously opened. At the sight everyone fell silent.
"God?" said a woman, tentatively.
A flurry of motion, and suddenly a winged usher was at each of the doors. "Please sort yourselves alphabetically," they said. "The Great Usher will see you now."
The Great Usher, huh?
I went to my assigned door and stood in line. The usher checked my card, flapped his (her?) wings impatiently, and gave me a name tag. S/he then sent me through the door, where I waited in yet another line, leading up to a huge set of double doors. Gold. Maybe these were the pearly gates. All of the writers were trickling into this main line, with our nametags on (assumably so the Usher knew who we were.)
The doors opened.
I was a little surprised. I always thought the Great Usher was serious, commanding, and (well, let's be honest) a guy. Instead I got a bubbly, perky little girl-child, who couldn't have been over fifteen, checking our identification cards and flipping through our portfolios.
I looked ahead of me, at the sheer length of the line, and sighed. It's not like I had to go anywhere-this was heaven, after all-but really, with this many people and only one perky, talkative Usher between us, this could be a while.
I found I was a little hungry. Didn't know you could be hungry in heaven, but before I could register the thought, a winged usher handed me a little box.
Popcorn. Wonderful. Were we going to see a movie?
Finally, the line shortened, and I was next in line, after a young woman from Los Angeles. She gave her portfolio and ID card to the Great Usher, somewhat nervously. The Usher looked over her work.
"Like, wow! A fellow Valley Girl!"
Oh, my God. Literally.
"Okay, well you seem to be like leaning towards a kinda happy tone in your writings, so I'm gonna send you to the happy door, okay?"
"The happy door? What is going on?" The girl asked.
"Well we're like watching a movie now! So there's like different seating sections you know. Here I'll point them out for you!" The Great Usher turned and showed the girl the many doors in the next room. "There's the Non-Fiction Seating, Blithe Seating, Angst Seating, Journalist Seating, Realist Seating, Modernist Seating, Emotional Poets (she went on for a little while. Someone behind me counted and it came out to 102 different categories) and our new and improved Black Literature Seating!"
Wow. Heaven-newly desegregated.
"So if you'd please just move along to the Blithe Seating-or as I like to call it, the happy door!-we'll be able to finish up here."
She waved the young girl through. "Hello! My name is Danielle Acton. What's yours?"
"Uh-"
"Wonderful!" She scanned my identification card. "Well, this looks in order. Now let me see that portfolio." She looked at the first piece, something I'd written when I was thirteen on how I hated the world.
"How…interesting. Well, I can see you belong in Angst Seating. So move along, please-"
"That's not really a piece representative of my work."
Everyone in the room fell silent. The winged ushers moved towards me threateningly.
"I don't mean any disrespect!" I stammered. "But I'm not really angst-y at all-look, some of my pieces are really humorous."
"Oh, like, okay. The Humorist Seating for you, then!"
There was a relieved giggle, and everyone began to speak again.
"But wait-"
And everyone fell silent again. Holy shit, was there a switch somewhere?
"I mean, I'm not entirely Humorist, either. I'm not entirely anything. Don't you have a 'Random,' or something?"
"You must belong in a category." Her eyes were beginning to spit fire.
"I don't think I do-"
"Do you know what we do with writers who don't belong in a category?"
"Uh-"
"We damn them to HELL! Is that what you want?"
"I don't think it's possible that any good writer can fit into some category! Everyone branches out!"
"Are you making a choice?"
"I-uh-"
I couldn't think of anything to say. Is it immoral to disagree with the Great Usher?
She pulled a lever. Like in the cartoons, a trapdoor opened up beneath me, and I fell.

I somehow landed, I guess, because I was woken up by Hemingway.
Fitzgerald, holding a martini, no less, was leading someone else out of the room.
"Welcome to hell!" Hemingway said, cheerfully.
"Are you the devil?" Okay, I think I was a little groggy. Didn't matter. Hemingway was sloshed, anyway.
"No, Shakespeare is. This way."
Ayn Rand was sitting at a table by the door. She asked me for my identification card.
"Uh-"
Hemingway took it from my hand. I'd convulsively been clutching it. She wrote down my name and made a little mark on the card. On the back she wrote, Who is John Galt?
I looked at the card, confused, when she gave it back. Hemingway pushed me along. "Don't ask," he advised. "She's been doing that for years."
He motioned to the wet bar, where (assumably) Fitzgerald had gotten his martini. "What kinda drink would you like? And don't say you don't drink."
I don't drink, but I had to say something. "Ah-Long Island Iced Tea, please."
"Wonderful. Since I found you first, I get to be your mentor. We'll do the tour of celebrities later. Let me show you your room…"
A little dorm, in a hallway, with a typewriter and a bed.
"Dead people can write?" I was in ecstasy. Finally, a chance to write as much as I wanted.
Hemingway grinned at me. "Only those of us in hell. And, uh, don't worry about the typewriter-a lot of the recently dead have been mongering for laptops. The devil's getting them delivered on Christmas, so it'll be a nice little treat for all of us."
"I'm not Christian."
"Yeah, but neither is he."
"So, uh, if that place was heaven…and this place is hell…"
"Just call yourself Lucifer."
"I'm damned for eternity, then? I can't ever go up there?"
"Yep."
We grinned at each other.
"So now that I'm dead, was it the Lady or the Tiger?"
"That's the most common question of the recently dead, did you know?"
And I did find out, but I can't tell you. Classified dead people information.

Description
I couldn't believe there was a sign. A sign that said "Welcome to Heaven," no less. No pearly gates, though. I was disappointed. I passed under that sign and read another. "ID cards necessary. Please proceed to Lobby."
I checked in, and the lady looked at me very strangely when I told her my profession.
"Aren't you a writer?" she asked, very seriously.
"Uh-yes. This is my day job."
"Well, who cares about that?" She issued me a nice little card, with my name, deathdate, and a little picture. It was just like the AAA office, but with clouds. Underneath all of these it said "writer" in big block caps. She motioned me to St. Peter, who was standing at the turnstile and checking our cards. He grinned at me as I came up.
"A writer, huh? Sucks for you."
He motioned me down a hallway (I wondered idly how there was a hallway with all these clouds about) where I found another woman sitting behind a desk. She was sitting by a door that had "WRITERS" on it, again in that block print. It looked like there was a separate heaven for writers. Well, cool.
"Are you people angels?" I asked, as I walked up.
She gave me a long, cold look. Hmm. Maybe she getting tired of smart comments from writers. Especially those satirists. I hate the satirists.
"Here is your portfolio. This way." As if there was any other way to go.
I went through the door, only to be confronted by an enormous waiting area. It was filling up with writers. Along one side there were doors, lots of them. This looked awfully familiar.
Oh, yeah. It looked like the waiting area for those simulation rides at Disney! They show a movie on one of the screens, and then when the movie ends, the door opens, and we all get to parade into our entertainment.
I wondered if they'd give those warnings at the beginning about the heart problems and nervous system disorders. Hmm. Probably not.
I looked at the portfolio she'd given me, wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with it now, when I heard someone exclaim, near me, "This is my work! This is my book!"
I opened it to see who was yelling, and realized in surprise that it wasn't his book at all. It was my stories and poems. Er, could he not read the name under it?
Someone else said, "You idiot! It's my book!"
Oh, duh. It's all individualized. A girl near me pointed that out.
The room dissolved into a general murmur of anticipation.
I thought I saw Salman Rushdie in a corner, but I must have been dreaming.
I was re-reading some of my works-wow, they sucked-when the doors simultaneously opened. At the sight everyone fell silent.
"God?" said a woman, tentatively.
A flurry of motion, and suddenly a winged usher was at each of the doors. "Please sort yourselves alphabetically," they said. "The Great Usher will see you now."
The Great Usher, huh?
I went to my assigned door and stood in line. The usher checked my card, flapped his (her?) wings impatiently, and gave me a name tag. S/he then sent me through the door, where I waited in yet another line, leading up to a huge set of double doors. Gold. Maybe these were the pearly gates. All of the writers were trickling into this main line, with our nametags on (assumably so the Usher knew who we were.)
The doors opened.
I was a little surprised. I always thought the Great Usher was serious, commanding, and (well, let's be honest) a guy. Instead I got a bubbly, perky little girl-child, who couldn't have been over fifteen, checking our identification cards and flipping through our portfolios.
I looked ahead of me, at the sheer length of the line, and sighed. It's not like I had to go anywhere-this was heaven, after all-but really, with this many people and only one perky, talkative Usher between us, this could be a while.
I found I was a little hungry. Didn't know you could be hungry in heaven, but before I could register the thought, a winged usher handed me a little box.
Popcorn. Wonderful. Were we going to see a movie?
Finally, the line shortened, and I was next in line, after a young woman from Los Angeles. She gave her portfolio and ID card to the Great Usher, somewhat nervously. The Usher looked over her work.
"Like, wow! A fellow Valley Girl!"
Oh, my God. Literally.
"Okay, well you seem to be like leaning towards a kinda happy tone in your writings, so I'm gonna send you to the happy door, okay?"
"The happy door? What is going on?" The girl asked.
"Well we're like watching a movie now! So there's like different seating sections you know. Here I'll point them out for you!" The Great Usher turned and showed the girl the many doors in the next room. "There's the Non-Fiction Seating, Blithe Seating, Angst Seating, Journalist Seating, Realist Seating, Modernist Seating, Emotional Poets (she went on for a little while. Someone behind me counted and it came out to 102 different categories) and our new and improved Black Literature Seating!"
Wow. Heaven-newly desegregated.
"So if you'd please just move along to the Blithe Seating-or as I like to call it, the happy door!-we'll be able to finish up here."
She waved the young girl through. "Hello! My name is Danielle Acton. What's yours?"
"Uh-"
"Wonderful!" She scanned my identification card. "Well, this looks in order. Now let me see that portfolio." She looked at the first piece, something I'd written when I was thirteen on how I hated the world.
"How…interesting. Well, I can see you belong in Angst Seating. So move along, please-"
"That's not really a piece representative of my work."
Everyone in the room fell silent. The winged ushers moved towards me threateningly.
"I don't mean any disrespect!" I stammered. "But I'm not really angst-y at all-look, some of my pieces are really humorous."
"Oh, like, okay. The Humorist Seating for you, then!"
There was a relieved giggle, and everyone began to speak again.
"But wait-"
And everyone fell silent again. Holy shit, was there a switch somewhere?
"I mean, I'm not entirely Humorist, either. I'm not entirely anything. Don't you have a 'Random,' or something?"
"You must belong in a category." Her eyes were beginning to spit fire.
"I don't think I do-"
"Do you know what we do with writers who don't belong in a category?"
"Uh-"
"We damn them to HELL! Is that what you want?"
"I don't think it's possible that any good writer can fit into some category! Everyone branches out!"
"Are you making a choice?"
"I-uh-"
I couldn't think of anything to say. Is it immoral to disagree with the Great Usher?
She pulled a lever. Like in the cartoons, a trapdoor opened up beneath me, and I fell.

I somehow landed, I guess, because I was woken up by Hemingway.
Fitzgerald, holding a martini, no less, was leading someone else out of the room.
"Welcome to hell!" Hemingway said, cheerfully.
"Are you the devil?" Okay, I think I was a little groggy. Didn't matter. Hemingway was sloshed, anyway.
"No, Shakespeare is. This way."
Ayn Rand was sitting at a table by the door. She asked me for my identification card.
"Uh-"
Hemingway took it from my hand. I'd convulsively been clutching it. She wrote down my name and made a little mark on the card. On the back she wrote, Who is John Galt?
I looked at the card, confused, when she gave it back. Hemingway pushed me along. "Don't ask," he advised. "She's been doing that for years."
He motioned to the wet bar, where (assumably) Fitzgerald had gotten his martini. "What kinda drink would you like? And don't say you don't drink."
I don't drink, but I had to say something. "Ah-Long Island Iced Tea, please."
"Wonderful. Since I found you first, I get to be your mentor. We'll do the tour of celebrities later. Let me show you your room…"
A little dorm, in a hallway, with a typewriter and a bed.
"Dead people can write?" I was in ecstasy. Finally, a chance to write as much as I wanted.
Hemingway grinned at me. "Only those of us in hell. And, uh, don't worry about the typewriter-a lot of the recently dead have been mongering for laptops. The devil's getting them delivered on Christmas, so it'll be a nice little treat for all of us."
"I'm not Christian."
"Yeah, but neither is he."
"So, uh, if that place was heaven…and this place is hell…"
"Just call yourself Lucifer."
"I'm damned for eternity, then? I can't ever go up there?"
"Yep."
We grinned at each other.
"So now that I'm dead, was it the Lady or the Tiger?"
"That's the most common question of the recently dead, did you know?"
And I did find out, but I can't tell you. Classified dead people information.