“You mean the mall maniac,” Marvin asked.

“Yeah.” she said looking back towards the store with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

“There’s no way, what are the odds? There are millions of souls in Hell. You know what it is we were talking about it before, you were thinking about it, you saw the at kid back there and it was some kind of PTSD thing.”

” I wanna go back.”

“And do what ask him if he killed you, retaliate or what?

” I wanna know why,” Ellen said weakly.

” What difference does it makes, you’re dead? It’s bygones. What were you shopping for at the mall, anyway?”

” Oh, I wasn’t I worked at the mall. In a bath store, I really hated it. ”

They walked by a travel agency. There were several advertisements For various Casinos on the third level. A small poster advertising a weekend in Heaven caught Ellen’s eye.

“You can go to Heaven on vacation?”

“If you’re Steve Jobs…”.

It’s that expensive.? Like How many Poker chips does it cost?

“They really just give you the poker chips for little incidentals I don’t think any one gets more than $200 a week. You’ll probably get a few with your next punishment. No, you actually have to earn a trip to heaven by you know, doing your job really well.

“Working hard for the devil gets you a trip to Heaven?”

” Well, sort of”, Marvin said. Heaven and Hell are very dependent on one another. You’ve seen the way the animals come down here to enjoy their rewards. The Glory Train, the trains back to heaven? They take a lot of man power to run. You’ve gotta have the conductor, The porters, and there not ordinary porter either. There’s an interesting punishment for ya… The porters on those trains are former circus trainers. They have to perform all kinds off stunts for the animals and if the animals don’t like it they get to bite them.”

“Huh,” Ellen said, glad that she didn’t take that job she was offered at the zoo.

Once there here They have to have a place to stay and the hotels we have for people who live in Hell would never do for someone from Heaven. The average luxury hotel down here has an average of a hundred employees and punishese, : Marvin said.

” I’m surprised anyone would want to take a vacation in Hell. I thought you’d get anything you want in Heaven.”

“Well, not anything,” he said with a wink. ” Besides how would you ever know how good you had it if everyone around you had it just as good as you. You have to have a basis of comparison and what better thing to compare your life to than the life of someone in Hell.

What you have to do to get a vacation heaven is think of a way to make both Heaven and Hell dependent on your product. Or in your case think of a punishment that benefits both heaven and Hell in a sustainable way.

“Are there hotels up there or do people just sleep on clouds?”

” I can’t really say I’ve never been, but I would imagine they have hotels.”

They arrived home. Marvin turned on the and watched a show about the up coming elections. Ellen headed of to bed with her magazines. She again found herself unable to sleep. There was an ominous and familiar sounding grunting coming from Danni’s room. She closed her eyes and tried to think of something else. She wanted to go to Heaven, She tried to think of the punishment plan that would get her there. She wanted to talk to the convenience store guy as well. She drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

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