The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension Read Online Free PDF Page A

you were trying to prove you are no pushover?”
    “I don’t understand anything.”
    “It doesn’t matter. You’ve got the job! Heavenly Safety Officer. About time we had one.”
    “Does Paradise exist inside this wall?”
    “No, outside. The barrier surrounds the portal that leads from the material cosmos to the spiritual. The gap expands to admit objects of varying sizes. A few are enormous, which explains the large area of the enclosure you are currently standing in.”
    “But this really is Heaven?”
    “Yes. Also known as the Afterlife or Elysium. Or the Celestial Realm. Sometimes the Domain of Bliss. And that’s what it is, if your idea of bliss is thoroughly rotten.”
    “Are you Saint Peter?”
    “No, I’m his replacement. He became disturbed. Stress of a boring task, standing here endlessly, letting in or refusing entry to souls and the occasional new worker.”
    “So who are you?”
    The fat man laughed and took a key from his belt. He opened the grimy gate and stood aside.
    “My name is Herod. Enter and I’ll show you around.”
     
    The moment Tennyson Jones crossed the threshold, he was saturated with a sense of unstable peace, a contentment that seemed about to end with violence at any given moment. It was a hard feeling to stomach. Herod was aware of his agitation, for he anticipated each pang with his own grimace, but he cared to make no other allowances for it. He took his charge by the elbow and led him from the wall. The landscape was still almost featureless. Flat ground with only a few bumps in the distance, too irregular to be termed hills.
    Herod clattered as he walked; he was awkward in his attire, but seemed profoundly at ease with himself, not arrogant or stiff. The calm of a regal but jaded personality. Leaning closer, he announced:
    “It’s my task to give you an official tour, make sure you settle in to your first day of work.”
    “But why do you need a Heavenly Safety Officer? Isn’t everything already perfect up here?”
    “We are in the middle of a crisis. One of the worst problems Heaven has faced. Apocalyptic.”
    “Something to do with the Devil?”
    “Not at all. The children. They are more dangerous than anything from Hell, which doesn’t really exist anyway.”
    “You refer to the massacre of the first born? A shameful act in my opinion. A blot on your reputation.”
    Herod smirked. “All in the past. Forgiven and forgotten. I’m talking about the problem we have now. The giant babies. Massive brats. Colossal infants.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “You will. But we are wasting time. I have transportation here for both of us. Our vehicle is a donkey. The holiest means of motion. Recall who rode it into Jerusalem? It gave this particular beast a seal of approval. Product endorsement. Everything he does, the clothes he wears, the wine he drinks, becomes special.”
    “I don’t see any animals.”
    “I have it here. A bit worse for wear.”
    Reaching into hidden pockets and secret inner folds of his robes, Herod drew out a bone. Then a second. He placed these down and fitted them together. He repeated the procedure. The skeleton was constructed like a reversal of decomposition, a mockery of time. It stood erect and grinned in the manner of many things without lips or choice. Tennyson witnessed this partial rebirth with a disappointment no less wide than the cosmic spaces he had recently traversed.
    “I thought life in Heaven was eternal?”
    Herod nodded. “So it is. But this donkey lost all its flesh in a bizarre accident. The meat is still alive, wherever it is now, and so are the bones. They have carried very heavy men in previous centuries. We shall ride together.”
    He mounted the exposed spine, adjusting his considerable weight on the edges of the vertebrae with a perverse sigh of satisfaction. “Nothing like it for the unmentionable itch!”
    Then he beckoned for Tennyson to follow his example. With the addition of a second passenger, the donkey