with anything fancy, he just popped the handle lock and walked right into Mary swinging the porcelain toilet lid as hard as she could into his face. Her blow was so powerful that the lid shattered.
“Ow!” Satan said, clutching his face.
Mary tried to go for his crotch again, but he grabbed her foot and tipped her backwards into the tub and then clambered on top of her. Mary panicked. Apart from some firm handshakes this was the most physical contact she’d ever had with a man in her entire life and it was worse than she could possibly imagine. Horrified, she scrambled out from under Satan and pushed herself as far as she could into the corner of the tub.
Then she started to scream.
“Stop that,” Satan said, trying to put his hands over her mouth. “Quit it!”
“What are you?” Mary sobbed.
“I’m Satan,” Satan said. “I’m here to kill you.”
Mary started screaming again.
“Look,” he said. “The sooner you simmer down and let me kill you the sooner they can get you processed and get you settled into Hell. It’s really not so bad.”
“Hell?” she wailed. “I’ve been a Poor Clare since I was nineteen. I can’t be going to Hell.”
“Mary Renfro, right?” Satan said. She nodded. “Yeah, you’re definitely going to Hell.”
“Is it because I’m a floozie?”
“It’s because you’re a card-carrying atheist. Where did you think you were going?”
“I’m not an atheist. I’m a Roman Catholic.”
“Not according to this,” Satan said, pulling a tattered membership card from the Society for Constructive Atheism from his pocket.
Mary Renfro went to touch it and then stopped as if it might curse her.
“Go ahead,” Satan said. “You’re already damned.”
Hesitantly, she took it. Her name was typed clearly across the front.
“I haven’t belonged to this since I was thirteen years old. I canceled my membership.”
“No, you didn’t,” Satan said. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”
“I sent in the form to cancel my membership. It was really long and you had to write an essay about why you were giving up and becoming a soft minded religionist. I know I sent it in. I’m sure of it.”
“You prepaid forty-five dollars for a lifetime membership. That precedes and supercedes membership in any other theological or religious organization. Sorry, but you’re an atheist and you’re going to Hell.”
“No, that’s not right,” she said. “Fifteen years as a Poor Clare in service to the less fortunate is canceled out by a mail order membership in a society of atheists that I signed up for when I was thirteen years old and had just read Ayn Rand for the first time?”
“That’s pretty much it,” Satan said.
“God does not make mistakes,” Sister Mary said. “His Creation is not the Department of Motor Vehicles. It is beautiful and perfect in its order and arrangement, every atom a part of God’s ever-unfolding plan.”
“No, it’s actually exactly like the Department of Motor Vehicles,” Satan said. “Except less efficient. Now, just relax. I have to kill you immediately.”
“I don’t want to die!” she sobbed.
“No one does,” Satan said. “But it’s not so bad. A lot of people find death very relaxing.”
“Why?”
“Well, they’re not so worried about dying anymore, for one thing,” Satan said.
Sister Mary began to cry again.
Satan was at a loss. He couldn’t just reach into Mary Renfro and extinguish her life, she had to be distracted first. That’s why people die in accidents so often. You’re driving along, you take a corner a bit too fast and the next thing you know you’ve got the steering wheel stuck through your chest. This is so startling that it’s quite easy for one of Death’s minions to reach in at this exact moment and extinguish your life. Being alive is something that most human beings are committed to in a passionate kind of way. But sudden shocks can make you lose your focus and when your metaphysical immune system is lowered like this it’s easy to catch a cold, if by “catch a cold” you mean “die.” Then, after the soul marinates in its lifeless corpse for a few days it comes to realize that it’s not very comfortable and it’s ready to move on to whatever is coming next. That’s when a demon reaches in, pulls it out and processes it into Hell or Heaven. It’s not an exact science but then again nothing is. Not even the exact sciences.
Anyways, however the process works surprise is key: a sudden illness, a pack of feral cats, an out-of-control wood chipper, anything for which most people are completely