The New Arrival Department

The New Arrival Department

Standing in the Grand Jas Cemetery, Flossie Boselieu stood in front of her husband Henry’s casket. She forced herself to make a sad-looking face. The truth was, it didn’t bother her at all that her cheating husband dropped dead from a heart attack. Too bad it didn’t happen when he was cheating on her with his floozy secretary.

In the Heaven’s Gate New Arrival facility, Garmites Thompson tapped his fingers on his fourth-floor office workstation desk and watched Flossie on a holographic projection. He and some friends had tickets to tonight’s Gospel A-Go-Go concert at the Saint Hedwig of Poland amphitheater, so Garmites waited impatiently for the day to end.

Like every other workday, Garmites’ monitored funerals. He watched to see what people were saying about the recently deceased. This factor, although a minor one, helped determine who made it into Heaven. No detail was too small for the Heaven’s Gate background-checking department.

From the next workstation, his co-worker Felix yawned and said, “I am so bored.”

Garmites looked over at Felix’s projection. “Who’d you get?”

“It’s a funeral for Walter Kittle at the Tranquility Gardens Chapel in Lincoln, Nebraska. The guy was ninety, and only a few people are even at the church. There isn’t going to be much, if anything, to add to his life history.” Felix leaned over to look at Garmites’ screen. “You at least have a lot of people in your assignment.”

At that moment, Flossie Boselieu decided to put on a performance for Henry’s relatives and feign sadness. Henry’s family was stinking rich, and Flossie wanted to stay on their good side. She moved forward, draped herself over her husband’s closed casket, and sobbed. Flossie knew acting. She studied at the Brigitte Bardot Performing Arts School in Cannes. She remained plonked down on the casket and wailed, “Henry was a good man. He didn’t deserve to go. Take me instead, God.”

Felix watched Flossie. “You know what would be funny? When someone at a funeral says, ‘take me instead,’ we do it.”

“We can do that? Switch people?” Garmites asked. Felix worked at the facility fifty years longer than Garmites and knew a lot more.

“The Mother Superior never would authorize it, but I could do it. Look.” Felix used his finger to make a red circle around Flossie, who had lifted herself off the coffin and now stood. “All I have to do is drag her to the New Arrival check-in center. It’s something the bosses don’t want us to know.”

“Well, that’s the darndest thing,” Garmites said. He knew Felix liked practical jokes. Last week at lunch, he substituted salt for sugar in the shakers at Marge Quiggle’s table, and she poured salt into her coffee.

“Boy, would we get into trouble if you did it,” said Garmites.

“No one pays any attention to what we do,” answered Felix.

The two technicians nodded their heads and then returned to their work. Workers in the New Arrival facility did not find it to be the most exciting job, so anything to break up the monotony was good. Many workers waited for promotions to jobs such as horticulturist in the Garden of Eden, or positions in the Eternal Bliss department.

A minute later, Garmites and Felix looked back at each other. Mischievous grins appeared on both their faces.

“Do it,” said Garmites.

Felix circled Flossie and moved her.

*****

Flossie Boselieu stepped back from her husband’s casket. After doing an Academy Award-winning acting job, she considered making loud weeping sounds, and then falling back and fainting for another dramatic effect. The next thing she knew, she stood in a waiting line with two other people. The line led to an opening in a pearly gate where an elderly priest, wearing a white robe, sat at a desk. On top of his head was a square ridged biretta cap. An old Packard Bell computer and monitor sat on the desk.

“What the?” she blurted out. “Where the bleeeep am I?” Flossie did not use the word bleeeep, but said a swear word. A censor automatically bleeped it.

The priest at the desk pointed a finger at her, then rubbed his two index fingers together in a tsk tsk gesture.

Looking around, Flossie saw there were about a hundred more waiting lines. Each seemed to have two or three people in it. A sign above which appeared to be magically floating in the air read, “If there are ever more than three people in a line, we will open a new one.”

In their small office, Garmites and Felix were watching Flossie. The two were having a great laugh.

“Look at the look on her face,” said Felix. “She’s probably thinking, what the sweet potato blossom is going on here?”

Garmites held his hand over his mouth to cover up his giggling.

Flossie made her way to the desk. People ahead of her answered questions and moved quickly through the gate. When a guy wearing a three-piece suit stepped through, a cute little Schnauzer yapped, and ran to him.

“Bubbles,” the man happily whooped. He picked up the dog and kissed it.

When Flossie reached the front of the line, the priest at the desk asked, “Name, please, my sister.”

“Um, Flossie Boselieu. This is weird. I can’t wait to wake up.”

“She thinks she’s dreaming,” Garmites said.

He and Felix again laughed heartily.

The priest typed on a keyboard. “Can you please spell the last name?”

“B-o-s-e-l-i-e-u.”

“Hmmm,” replied the man.

“What does hmmm mean?” Flossie questioned.

A “poof” noise sounded, and a woman suddenly appeared in the line behind Flossie.

“My sincere apologies, Flossie Boselieu, but you are not showing up on our list of today’s arrivals,” the priest stated. He touched an index finger to his chin and scrunched up his face. “It appears you have a lot of time left.”

Felix said, “Uh, oh. That’s not good. I didn’t think of that.”

“You didn’t think she wouldn’t be on the incoming listings?” Garmites questioned.

At the desk, the priest pointed his finger up, and a yellow light blinked overhead.

The woman behind Flossie complained, “This always happens to me. Every time I get a checkout line, something goes wrong with one of the customers in front of me. Someone bought the wrong size laundry detergent that wasn’t on sale and wants to get a different one. A coupon doesn’t work. Someone can’t remember the pin number on their debit card. You name it, and it happens to me.”

Flossie turned her head and gave a nod, to show she knew what the woman meant.

A golf cart with flashing lights mounted on a top rail motored up to the desk. “Is there a problem, Bishop Leo?” the man driving asked. He wore a fancier red robe.

“Yes, Cardinal Gregorio. This new arrival is not scheduled to report today.”

Cardinal Gregorio stepped out of the cart to look at the monitor. “Hmmm.”

Flossie eyed Cardinal Gregorio, and thought, what’s with these guys saying, hmmm?

The Cardinal looked at Flossie. “Please state your date of birth, sister.”

“May second, nineteen-seventy-two.”

“Hmmm,” said Cardinal Gregorio.

“Hmmm again,” Flossie said to herself.

The Cardinal touched the Packard Bell keyboard. This time, a bright red light began blinking over the desk.

“Oh, jeez,” said the woman behind Flossie.

In less than a minute, an angel appeared overhead. Large wings slowly flapped and kept her in the air over the lines of people. Her long hair flowed, like a blond lifeguard running in slow motion. Heavyset, and having a head shaped like a peanut, she looked different from the ones Flossie saw in pictures.

The angel saw the blinking light, and she flew – more like floated over to the desk, and set down behind Cardinal Gregorio and Bishop Leo.

“Well, that’s not something you see every day,” said the woman behind Flossie.

“Angel Hazelica, this patron is not on our schedule,” Cardinal Gregorio explained.

Angel Hazelica typed very fast on the keyboard, Flossie thought. Her fingers moved like someone playing a Netflix movie at the highest speed. Flossie thought it would be funny to ask her if she could make a good angel food cake, but kept quiet.

Angel Hazelica pointed to the monitor, then yelled out. “Ah, hah!” She leaned her head back, took in a deep breath, bent forward, and bellowed out, “Felix Pablooski!”

The open mouth yelling sent out a blast of wind over the lines. A front-row man wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball jersey had his toupee blown off.

Getting a whiff, Flossie thought the angel’s breath smelled like mint. Almost like she just ate a peppermint Tic Tac. Flossie guessed angels wouldn’t have bad breath.

Felix’s workstation shook as if he was in a violent earthquake. Next, a fast-moving airstream blew over him. “Uh, oh,” he said.

Garmites quickly turned his head away and looked at his hologram to show he had nothing to do with this.

*****

On the Grand Jas Cemetery’s grass, Flossie lay on her back and opened her eyes. In a state of confusion, she looked up to a cloud that looked like the Pope Mobile. Her Aunt Beulah was slapping her face.

“Flossie, wake up. Wake up. Are you all right?” Aunt Beulah asked.

She grabbed her aunt’s hand to stop the slapping. “I’m fine. I guess.”

“You fainted.”

I was only going to pretend to faint, she thought, then asked, “What the heck happened?”

“You fainted.” Aunt Beulah helped her stand and put her hand on Flossie’s forehead, apparently checking to see if she had a fever.

Flossie pushed the hand away. “I’m okay.”

For some reason, inside her large purse, Aunt Beulah had one of the gizmos doctors used to look in a patient’s ear. She took it out and put it in Flossie’s right ear.

This too, Flossie pushed away. “Seriously, Aunt Beulah. I’m fine.”

Beulah moved the ear checker away, took a few sniffs of Flossie, and asked, “Is that a new perfume you are wearing, dear? It smells like a peppermint Tic Tac.”

The End