Scrivenings of the King-Beyond-The-Wall

Space Adventures #35

“Next!” I called out.

The individual I was currently helping shuffled off into the portal to the left, a catatonic look on his face. The next person from the long queue line moved up and, after a routine assessment, I sent her through the portal on the right with a giant, relieved smile on her face. This was the job in purgatory; sorting people according to their ultimate final destination. To borrow the nomenclature of a popular television series a few years back, a Good Place (to the right) and a Bad Place (to the left) so to speak.

The woman that meekly approached my station next looked around and clearly noticed the dejected, scared, angry, panicked, etc. faces of the people going through the door on the left, and the elated, relieved, excited, joyful faces of the people going through the door on the right.

“I want to go to that one,” she said, pointing to the door on the right.

“Sorry, it doesn’t work that way,” I said, pulling up her file on the computer.

I frowned. Her file was an unusual one; most people were clearly on one side of the scale or another, but she was right down the middle. It was going to take a closer look to make the right determination.

“What is it?” the woman asked.

“It seems you’re a bit on the fence,” I muttered, still scanning.

“Well if it’s all the same to you, if it’s that close and you can tell me what might, you know, help nudge things in that direction to the right over there, I’d be happy to hear it.”

I scrutinized the file even further and realized that she wasn’t just close to the fence. She was literally evenly split across it, a true 50/50 person.

“Looks like you do have that second chance after all,” I said at last. “When you’re truly in the dead center of the scale, you get another week back on Earth as a sort of tiebreaker.”

“That’s amazing!” the woman exclaimed. “I promise I’m going to make the most of that week.”

“I wish you the best of luck,” I replied. “You’re going to need it.”

“Wh-What? How come?”

“Because,” I said, pointing to the left portal. “That guy lives for this kind of stuff and is going to make your life a living hell... literally... to try and get you over to his side when you come back. He’ll exploit every weakness and vice you have to get you to fail.”

“That sounds ... less than ideal.”

“It is. I guess we’ll find out how it shakes out when I see you back here in a week!”

The woman was led off to a smaller third portal to the side. I watched after her, wondering what she’d do to make the most of the additional week she’d be granted. Then I turned back to the next person in line.

“Next!” I called out. A Purgatorio's job in Purgatory is never done.


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(502 words)


Prompt: Set your story at the boundary between two realms.