P.U.

CW: Contains sensitive language related to violence, including towards children.

Hi-high, my treasured cohort,

We are here today to celebrate the 2025 graduating class of Purgatorial University, a.k.a. the beloved “In-Between,” as we finally get to descend to the great, righteous place they call…

Heaven.

It's been a long, long, long time coming.

We've gone through many ups and downs in this place—mostly downs, but nonetheless.

We’re here.

After many tests, many trials, and many tribulations in this God…-blessed…place.

I'm so happy to finally be here.

And while the ‘ups’ of course haven’t been nearly as up as I’m sure they are in the most ‘up’ place we’re headed to, I guess we can be grateful that the ‘downs’ also haven’t been nearly as down as the most…

Down.

It has not been easy these past several…however long we’ve been here…trying to fake—I mean, embody and display…the most virtuous of human qualities. Kindness. Honesty. Humility. Fairness. Compassion. Understanding. Sincerity. Self-discipline. Non-judgment.

Even good intentions.

But…

I've done it.

We’ve done it.

Fred and Alma… You’ve done it.

And officially, assholes we are no more!!! Ulp. Wait, can I say that?

I’m sure it’s okay to say that, right? I mean, we aren’t in Heaven yet.

And I haven’t cussed for, what? Several…

I don't know—however long it’s been.

I think that one time should be okay. Just a little reward for my…dedication…to this glorious process.

And did I mention how long of a process it’s been?

I mean, it’s been a really, reeaaally lonnng process…

We've really been here for quite a while.

Haven’t we, Alma?

Or at least I have.

And, to be honest with you…

I'm not really even sure why.

I mean, I kind of understand why you’ve been here, Fred, but, like, myself—I wasn’t a bad person in the main life, you know?

Now granted, I might not have been the most Gandhi of individuals—I might not have ‘had a dream,’ like Dr. Martin Luther King! But I was decent, you know?

I mean, hey… I might've swiped a parking space from an old lady…a time or two. Or took a piece of candy from a kid when he wasn’t looking, like…once. Three times at the most.

Or, you know how you’ll sometimes not say anything when the teenage cashier forgets to scan a few of your items when checking you out at the grocery store? And you just kinda sneak those things in the bag and quickly walk out?

I might have done something like that…

At some point or another.

But overall, I mean, I didn't kill anybody.

I mean, come on—I didn't rape anybody. I think that should count for something!!

So, to be honest I'm not really sure how and why I got here…instead of just going straight up there, but…

Whatever.

No, you know what? The more I think about it, why have I been here this whole time?!

Really.

I mean, yeah I know we're finally on our way up ‘there’...now and everything, and that's great, I guess, but honestly, I should've been there already.

Like, what kind of uppity, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, all-moral, no-mistakes-making-ever kind of standards does a place have to have…for a person like ME to not even have been able to get admitted into it from the beginning?!?!

Especially if you aren’t a bad person!! Which I’m not!! And never have been, even before all of…

This.

I mean, now don’t get me wrong—I could've been.

I had plenty—plllllllllenty—of opportunities…

To be bad.

There were lots—LOTS—of different very terrible, very horrible things—unforgivable, even!—I could have done to people if I really wanted to. Hell, now I’m thinking maybe I should have, if I was gonna end up not getting to go straight to Heaven anyway!!

I mean, isn’t that why most people don’t?!

I know it was one of the main reasons I didn’t.

Not the only, but it definitely was up there.

I mean, I definitely thought about it—about doing some of those bad things. I even almost did...in some cases, but…

I didn’t.

And what did what I get to show for it?

Purgatory.

The “In-Between”.

The halfway point of the afterlife.

No, not the worst place. But also far from the best.

Especially for it to not still be earth—I mean, might as well have still been on earth!!

Like ‘Yeah, you're not an evil, homicidal, kid-raping maniac, but you're also not quite…Jesus-enough…to get into our little precious Heaven.’

I think back on the past…however the hell long it’s been---and that’s another thing! Why aren’t we able to track time here?!? Is that part of our ‘kinda’-punishment?!? Our ‘not quite Heaven’ personal Hell?!??!

Is there, like, a huge clock and calendar once you get to Heaven that follow you everywhere and help you to very comfortingly know what time it is, what day it is—which, admittedly and in the greater scheme of things, may not quite matter anymore…I mean, you’re in Heaven after all, but! Still, it just being nice and satisfying to know. Or, do you just lose the ability to care completely?

Well, I’ve definitely cared about it—a lot about it—here, and it’s nearly driven me insane.

I mean, really—how long has it been? Months? Years? Centuries? Hours? Minutes?!

Who the Hell knows. That just seems like a special kind of unnecessary cruel, don’t ya’ think?

Anyway…whatever insane, obscure amount of time it’s been…

It’s just been a long, slow, agonizing stretch of a whole lot of...

Nothing.

A lot of nothingness.

Plainness. Dry, mind-numbing…banality.

Mediocrity.

Redundancy.

A great deal of exceptionally maddening, painful monotony.

Like, remember the static when you couldn't get a real channel on those old-school TVs?

Now, if people could imagine that sound playing nonstop in the background while you paint an endless wall off-white for what is at least hours on end, then sitting and watching said paint dry for several more hours, and then the next day, doing the exact same thing again. Until the end of time, with no breaks.

That's purgatory.

Almost sounds like Hell, doesn't it?

That's what we've had to endure here. What I've had to endure here.

And I think about that and the ways I've had to constantly prove myself.

The ways I've had to constantly prove I was good. No, not ‘good’ because I was already good—I had to prove I was good enough…to go to the great, all-mighty, highly sought-after, illustrious Heaven above…

To walk among the angels… Or fly—I don't know what they do. I assume fly.

I've had to do this and endure that, suffer in ways that, now that I think more about it, I feel I shouldn’t have had to.

I mean, I long felt like I shouldn't have had to, but man.

It's really hitting me now.

And just think, what kind of people—what kind of holy beings—are in Heaven? Let's reflect on that for a moment.

That's probably one of the biggest things I’m most looking forward to in finally going there—to see just what kind of self-righteous, highly judging, morally perfect assh—I mean, people—made it up there…from Day 1.

Actually from the beginning. Right when they died. Not Purgatorial U. candidates, but actually pure-enough—holy-enough—sacks of flesh…to have immediately ascended to what’s supposed to be the greatest place that ever existed.

And never having to bother with the “In-between.”

Imagine that—straight, A-class, direct flights to the original...Mile High Club.

I'd like to know! What does that kind of person look like?

Because I feel like I should have fit the bill!

Who are they? Monks? Kindergarten teachers? Librarians?

The old lady who had to leave her rundown retirement home to go work at Walmart, just so she could help pay for it?

I just gotta know.

And then, ya’ know, it's also particularly insulting to think about some of the people—the kind of people—I’ve seen come through Purgatory U.

People that I felt were definitely way worse than me.

Far less good people.

And yet, not only was I somehow grouped among them—many of them long ago graduated, way before I did!!

How does that make sense?!?

I should have been out here a long time ago. I mean, I shouldn’t have even been here to begin with, but if I was gonna be, it should’ve been for, like, two seconds—

LITERALLY.

And, again.. Maybe it has been, because we can’t even know that here.

And punished for what? For not being perfect? What kind of justice and fairness is that?!

It’s like there’s this weird, abstract, unfair hierarchy they have going on here that, in some cases, just don’t accurately apply!

Now I get the hierarchy of separating the absolute worst of mankind from everyone else, but after that, I feel like pretty much all of us should be able to go straight to Heaven. Why not?

And then it’s Heaven.

Isn't it probably impossible to kill someone up there?

So, in a way, you probably could even have bad people up there! And everything still be okay.

But okay, I'll give you ‘Don't let in the actual bad people there.” Fine.

But I should've been there!! Dammit.

It is not.

Right.

So, I accept this…diploma...today…in a very bittersweet way.

I guess I'm grateful, but I'm also uhh… A bit resentful.

And annoyed.

Kind of angry, actually.

Honestly, part of me just kind of wants to be like…

Heaven can shove it.

Like, seriously—who needs it!!

They can shove their little fake graduation to their little elite club in the clouds.

I will be okay.

And I know I’m a good person, no matter what they say.

I know I’ve been a good person—not just this fake show I’ve been putting on since I got to this weird place, just to be able to one day go there. I actually am! I really am!!!

I honestly don't even know if I want to go there anymore.

You hear of certain things like the harp playing nonstop, beautiful, soothing, calming relaxing, and varied melodies. And clear, beautiful, clean clouds. Light air.

Everyone just walking around or flying around all happy and in sheer, everlasting bliss. Everyone getting along—no war, no conflict.

Everyone's supposedly equal—no more, no less.

Everyone's greatest positive wishes and desires are granted.

That's what they say, right? But how great is that really?

Is that really a place where we want to be? Because that kinda sounds like its own kind of boring, ya' know what I'm sayin'?

What kind of interesting life is that to lead?

I bet it's not even real!

Or I bet it's probably just like this place or worse. Wouldn't that be somethin'?

If it ended up being nothin' but just like life on earth, with more problematic human beings and more of their many problematic ways…

And yet we spent all of our lives—and for many of us, too many of us, much of our afterlives—trying to get there.

For what?

How do we really know what we're striving towards?

It could all be an illusion!!

What if it's nothing?

What if, once we graduate from this place, we just walk off into the abyss?!

And the other place—Hell—is supposed to be sooo bad.

Oooh—fire and brimstone.

Demons popping out from every dark corner.

Plumes of black smoke coming from everywhere and nowhere in particular. Just an endless black, smokey haze in a place that feels like Vegas in July, times infinity.

Like you’re picnicking in a house on fire, with coal as your only nourishment, for the rest of eternity.

That’s what they claim—what they've shoved down our throats since we were babies—about Hell, but…

What if Hell isn’t that bad?!?

What if it’s just been this major fear tactic and campaign to keep us on our toes, to keep us from not living—to scare us into doing and being good our entire earthly lives…

And, for some of us even luckier few, our entire purgatorial lives…

Only for Hell to turn out to be just, like…barely bad.

Like the kind of bad when you go through the drive-thru at the McDonald’s—the only McDonald's still open in your city—at 2am and find out they’ve already stopped serving the day menu, and you'd had your entire mouth watering for some good, salty, cholesterol-raising french fries, along with a 'special-saucy', insulin-spiking Big Mac...

And now you have to settle for a dry chicken biscuit and some undersized hash browns.

And then, before you can have even that, you’re forced to first wait an extra half hour for them to switch systems and the staff to the overnight shift.

Or like when you're tired after work but have to grab one quick thing from the grocery store, only to get there and find somehow the whole city has decided to come to the exact same store at the exact same time as you because the parking lot is completely full. And you circle the block for about 10 minutes before finally eyeing an open spot...only for a little spoiled runt in his daddy's Escalade, with his obnoxious music blasting, to speed into it right before you.

As he laughs in your face.

Maybe that's what Hell's actually like.

Like bad...but not that bad.

Not "Later-walk-out-to-your-keyed-Escalade-with-the-slashed-tires" bad...

Anyway…

I guess Heaven, it is, right?

If nothing else, at least I'll finally get to know what time it is again.

Or at least no longer care if not.

I definitely look forward to that!

So, yes. Cheers to us.

Oh wait. Just a second, it looks like someone wants to have a word with me...

Sigh.

So...

It seems…

Some of my words here today may have a bit…inappropriate...and offensive…to Heaven's standards and for my promotion there, so, my diploma’s been...suspended...and I guess I have to spend…however much longer, in this...

Blessed place...

Starting with an uhh…undetermined ’period of enlightenment’… in the uhh….

Other place.

Anyway.

Congratulations, graduating class—Fred and Alma.

See you up there one day.

Or whenever.