I Go To Heaven (continued)

"I'll go in," I said. "I'll try anything once."
St. Peter stood up and went to open the gate. I saw that his beard had grown clear down to his knees. I noticed, too, that he was in great shape for a man his age. He opened the gate a couple of feet, grabbed me by the arm and shoved me inside. He laughed like a maniac as he slammed the big gate shut.
My heart sank when I saw what was printed on the inside of the gate. There, in big, black letters, were the words:

YOU CAN'T GO HOME AGAIN
and in smaller words Sorry About That

I was scared speechless. I looked around but to my amazement I was all alone. There wasn't another soul as far as I could see in every direction. There was, however, a large angel reclining on a cloud, covered with his or her wings, and strumming lazily on a harp. I floated over and stood respectfully before this shining creature. It looked at me with luminous blue eyes and asked in a melodious voice, "Are you being served?'
"I do have some questions," I answered, regaining my voice. "Why am I all alone up here? I thought I would see millions of souls up here. This is spooky."
"Oh, you can see them if you want to," answered the Angel. "You can't see them when you first come in because it's all so overwhelming. Do you want to see them?"
I nodded and there appeared before me a million, a billion celestial beings, walking, running, dancing, standing as if in a daze, curled up sleeping, doing things I never thought I would see them do. It was horrible. "Please," I cried, cringing and covering my eyes. "I made a mistake. I don't want to see them. Take them away."
"It's O.K. They're gone," said the Angel. "I've never had a single new arrival who wanted to go through that more than once. Just relax. Do you want to read the rules? There are only three and they are easy."
It unrolled a large scroll, upon which were printed three lines in Geneva Type, 18 size print, black ink.

Rule 1: Be Happy. Don't worry.
Rule 2: Heaven is whatever you want it to be.
Rule 3: Practice patience. You have plenty of time.
Underneath someone had written a line of graffiti: Be all that you can be.
Underneath that someone else had scrawled: Don't ask. Don't tell.
The Angel hastily held one wing over the last two lines. "I'll have to erase that. Forget you ever saw those lines. They are meaningless. Do you have any questions?" (To be continued)