“I’m crying because I’m so happy,” she said. He looked at her quizzically. “I’m so happy about...the toasted sandwiches.” she said. “Really.”
The cabbie shrugged and drove on.
They pulled up outside a Quiznos. It anchored the corner of a bleak strip mall and, like all Quiznos, when you walked inside you entered a universe of sadness. Curling, laminated signs advertising products that no one was interested in dangled from the ceiling by strings like cardboard suicides. A neon sign over the counter reminded non-existent customers that the food they weren’t eating was, “Mmmm...tasty...” Two employees who had long ago abandoned any expectation of ever serving actual customers listlessly wiped sanitized rags across cutting boards that no one had ever used. No one ordered a toasty sandwich. No one asked for the key to the bathroom. No one paid for a refill. In their bins, tasteless tomato slices and piles of shredded iceberg lettuce slowly oxidized and turned brown.
As soon as Satan and Sister Mary entered the two employees stopped what they were doing and looked up expectantly.
“Welcome to Quiznos,” one managed to stammer, but by then Satan had led Sister Mary to a door marked “Employees Only” and swiped a key card. It clicked open and he led her into a tiny storage area. The two employee’s shoulders slumped. Even the people who actually came through the door weren’t customers. Carson, the older of the two, looked at her watch: her shift had only started forty-five minutes ago. It felt like forty-five years.
In the storage area, as promised, there was an elevator. Satan pushed the call button. There was a chime and the doors slid open. Inside there were only two buttons, one marked “Up” and the other marked “Down.” He pushed “Up,” the doors rumbled shut and the elevator began to ascend at a ridiculous rate of speed. Sister Mary knelt on the floor and began praying while Satan did his best to ignore her. They rode in silence for a while.
“Would you cut that out?” he finally said.
Sister Mary prayed harder.
“You can suck up all you want,” Satan said. “But you’re still going to Hell.”
“Deceiver,” she hissed, opening her eyes. “I have finally figured it out. You’re here to test my faith.”
“You’re right,” Satan said. “I’m testing you. It’s all a great big test. You’re actually going to win a giant golden banana and stay in Heaven forever when we get there. You got me.”
“I know what’s going on here,” she said.
“I don’t,” he said. “I have no idea what’s going on here, and it’s making me very irritable.”
“I’m talking about my sin.”
“Oh,” Satan said. “That.”
“My turning away from God and towards the false idol of atheism is not a mortal sin. It is a venial sin.”
“I can’t really tell them apart.”
“I must spend time in Purgatory away from the presence of My Lord in order to be cleansed of my apostasy,” Mary said. “And once cleansed I will ascend into the presence of my Creator.”
“Actually no,” Satan said.
“I will not debate theology with Satan,” Mary said.
“I’m just saying, there is no Purgatory. So you probably won’t be spending any time in it.”
“There is a Purgatory,” Mary said. “And I expect to be spending time there atoning for my venial sin.”
“You can believe me or not,” Satan said. “But Purgatory was never that profitable, so back in the 50’s Heaven figured it would be more cost effective to chop it up into parcels and lease it out. There are pieces of Purgatory everywhere. They leased a chunk of it to the Port Authority of New York back in ‘51 to use as a bus station, they leased parts of it to city governments all over the world to use as permit and licensing offices, a lot of it went to the old Soviet Union. The last piece of it was actually leased to FEMA after Hurricane Katrina for emergency housing. It generates some pretty hefty rental revenue for Heaven.”
Sister Mary narrowed her eyes
“Mock not my beliefs, O Satan.”
“Have it your way,” he said.
Sister Mary went back to praying. The elevator kept ascending. It ascended for a long time. It ascended for so long that finally Mary got bored. It takes a lot to bore a nun. They wear the same clothes every day and they love nothing more than praying for hours on end, but this elevator ride was that long.
“Is Heaven wonderful?” she finally asked.
“What?”
“Is it glorious to be in the presence of the Creator?”