He passed peacefully in his sleep, surrounded by his family. He was not an old man, exactly, but he had gone far beyond the limits of youth. He had liked to say “I’m not over the hill, exactly, but I got one hell of a view.”

And so he did again, staring in slack-jawed astonishment at empyrean ivory towers and gilded streets bustling with the all manner of activity, as men and women of every shape and color passed smiling and nodding to one another, beautiful monsters of pure light and dove feathers palavering by street side, then silently springing into the air and rising, fluid, like some great shining legendary bird, mighty wings throwing warm drafts to the immaculate sidewalk.

“I’m home,” he whispered to himself, taking slow steps forward. He noticed the constant, nagging pain in his lower lumbar was gone. His muscles worked without any of their typical lags and protestations. He ran, and then sprinted, not gasping for breath, not even breathing.

“This is incredible!” he shouted, his words coming out in a strong, unbroken stream. A laugh made it half way out of his mouth before he stopped short, colliding with some great, invisible presence.

“Oh my…” he started, before thinking better of it. He pushed a hand into the invisible force. It was warm and comforting on his palm, somehow reassuring. “Is it… is this God?”

“No,” came a high, nasally voice from his left. He whirled to see a small, timid looking man in a white cloak with matching hair reclining in mid-air, an ancient, dusty book on his lap. “He’s at croquet. Also, a lot easier to see. This is the gate.”

“St… St. Peter?”

“Pete.”

The man paused for a moment, unsure of how one is to go about demonstrating reverence to a person you’ve only heard of in religious tomes dating back thousands of years. Eventually, he opted to collapse to the ground in a heap before him, bowing on one knee and fighting back joyful sobs.

“No. Oh, Yeshua no. Get up. Get up RIGHT now,” the man ordered, settling to the ground and rushing to straighten Heaven’s newcomer up. “What do you think you’re doing? No Gods before me, remember? He’s not joking.”

“I’m… I’m so sorry, I thought-”

“Remember that story? About that idiot who saw an angel, dropped down, started worshipping? How the angel backpedaled so hard, despite being an overdramatic, self-important priss? Yeah, well, reason for that. Jehova really frowns upon it.”

“You call him Jehova?”

“I can teach you His real name, but it summons Him, and He makes a lot of the newcomers… kind of uncomfortable. You get used to Him.”

The man’s jaw worked on its own for a moment, formulating general word shapes, but no actual words. Eventually, he forced out the only thing he could think of: “Shouldn’t the gates be golden?”

“Budget cuts.”

“What?”

“Think of how many people die every day,” Peter said, drifting back off the cloud-carpet into his suspended seated position. “Then, figure they’re going one of two places. Figure they’ve been doing this for millions of years-”

“Six thousand.”

“Where’d you read that one?” Peter laughed. “Dianetics? Seriously, though. Millions of years of divinely imposed population control means this and the alternative approached critical density pretty quick. Hell lucked out, though. It’s a lot easier to dig into rock than it is to sculpt the aether.”

“Couldn’t God do it?”

“Would you do anything you didn’t want to if you were omnipotent?” St Peter’s eyes shone an indescribable shade of amber, glowing gold around the iris. “We melted the gates to add some streets. Jehova didn’t care, of course. And if He did, I came up with a great line. Ready?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Why would we need golden gates, anyway? Isn’t vanity a sin?”

The man looked at his feet for a moment, surprised to find them invisible in cloud-stuff, then nodded.

“I guess so.”

“Which brings us now to my least favorite part,” the saint sighed, opening the book. “Milo Tiberius Snedeker?”

“That’s… that’s me.”

“Died at fifty-three, wife and three children, two-thousand-fifty-kay-plus a year…”

“Why would that matter?”

“You’d be amazed. 1026 Revian Hills?”

“Yes…”

“All right, let’s see… you urinated in the neighbor girl’s hair when you were five, and really enjoyed it. Sort of weird, but not strictly a sin. Your adolescence was a whirlwind of sin, but most of them were small and menial. I see here you were a sodomite at one point?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Not often, though. Sodomy isn’t really Hellworthy these days; we don’t much care what you do with your bodies. They’re not really our realm. Your adult life was essentially pious, or at very least harmless, if laden with lust, greed and envy.”

“Now wait a second, here-”

“Don’t waste both of our time, Mr. Snedeker. The book doesn’t lie.”

St. Peter scanned a few more lines, his face dropping. “Oh, my. I’m sorry, Mr. Snedeker, but I’m afraid I’ll have to deny you entry.”

White hot terror shot through Milo’s entire being. “What? No! That’s impossible! Please!”

“I’m sorry. It says here your middle child… well, he goes on to torture and kill six women before being apprehended.”

“John? He would never!”

“He will. Six years after your funeral, six days after. And we are certain it was your influence that warped him.”

“I raised him the best I could!”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Snedeker. You weren’t around. You were never there for him. It was not good enough.”

“I can’t be held responsible for the sins of my son!”

“All sons are held responsible for the sins of their fathers, sir,” St Peter said, shaking his head sadly. “’Whatever you hold true on Earth, I will hold true in Heaven’.”

“NO!”

“I’m sorry.”

St Peter closed the book and dissolved into nothingness. The clouds parted, and Milo rode a sunbeam into the heart of the abyss.