Chapter 12:
The
Most Wonderful Place of All
Follow the golden brick road.
That was the advice the kiosk lady had given Brian, the way to get
inside Heaven. Looking down at his feet,
he saw that he was standing on… you guessed it… a road made of golden bricks,
suspended just above the clouds. “Follow
the golden brick road,” he murmured to himself.
“Follow the golden brick road!” said a throaty voice behind
him. Jumping, Brian turned to see a
midg… er… little person standing behind him. He was dressed in a long (well, short,
really, but long on him) white gown, and a golden halo floated just above his
head. A pair of tiny wings fluttered on
his back.
“You’re an angel!” Brian gasped.
“That’s right,” said the little angel (is that what we call the,
uh, “vertically challenged” angels?).
“And you’ll be one too, once you get to Heaven! So follow the golden brick road!”
“Follow the golden brick road!” chimed in another little angel,
appearing from nowhere. This one was a
female, and her voice strikingly resembled Alvin the Chipmunk’s.
“Follow the golden brick road!” cried yet another.
“Hey,” said Brian, looking at the newest arrival. “Aren’t you Kid Rock’s little friend?”
“Yeah, Joe C,” replied the little angel. “Now follow the golden brick road!”
“Follow the golden brick road… follow the golden brick
road,” they all began to sing, dancing around Brian as he walked slowly
along the path. “Follow, follow,
follow, follow, follow the golden brick road!”
“Okay, I get the picture, guys,” commented Brian.
Still, they proceeded to frolic along with him for a good half
mile or so down the road. Finally, they
stopped and let him go on his merry way.
Their singing faded into oblivion as he walked down the road, fighting
the urge to skip.
A ways down the road, he came across a pretty young woman standing
alongside the road. She was dressed in
hospital gown, similar to the one he was wearing himself.
“Hello,” he said tentatively, approaching her.
“Hi,” she greeted him. “I’m
Angela. What’s your name?”
“Brian. What are you doing
here?”
“Just hanging out. How
about you?”
“Following the golden brick road.
I’m trying to get into Heaven,” Brian replied.
“Me too. Well, that’s what
I’m supposed to be doing anyway,” said Angela.
“Well, why aren’t you?”
Angela shrugged. “I dunno…
I guess I’m just not ready to go to Heaven yet.”
“Aww… well, I understand. I
wasn’t ready either, but… well, I guess I don’t really have a choice.”
“I know,” Angela sighed. “I
just wish I were still alive.” And
before Brian could comment, she leaped out onto the road in front of him and
began to sing and dance like some kind of epileptic spaz. “I could make some Beefaroni… or screw my
boyfriend Tony, if I only had a pulse… and a blood pressure… and maybe a
brainwave or two…”
Brian smiled faintly. “Uh…
yeah… well, I need to get going now, so… bye!”
He hurried ahead, hoping to get rid of her, but she chased after him.
“No, wait!” she cried. “I’m
coming with you! I guess I’m ready to go
to Heaven now!”
“Oh… uh… okay…”
“Come on, let’s sing!” cried Angela, grabbing Brian’s arm and
beginning to skip off down the golden brick road. “Weeeeeeee’re off to go to Heaven, the
most wonderful place of all…”
And so, off they went, skipping and singing like two fruitcakes
trapped in a cheesy musical. Finally,
Brian saw something rising above the clouds in the distance. A pair of golden arches.
“Look!” he cried, pointing at them. “That must be Heaven’s gates! We’re almost there! Let’s go!”
And so, off they skipped again, faster this time, singing in
double time so that their voices sounded even more like Alvin and the
Chipmunks’. “We’reofftogotoHeaven,themostwonderfulplaceofall…”
They reached Heaven’s doors before they even realized it. They were not, as Brian had thought, the
golden arches he had seen, but a tall, golden, chain-link fence with barbed
wire coiled around the top.
“You got your hands stamped?” asked a snaggle-toothed woman
standing on the other side of the fence.
“Yeah.” Brian and Angela
both showed her the angel stamps on their hands, and the gate of the fence
swung open with a creak.
“Welcome to Heaven,” grunted the woman as they walked past her.
“Hm… that certainly wasn’t what I expected,” commented Brian as he
and Angela stopped inside the gate and looked around. In the distance, he could still see the
golden arches that he had thought were the gateway to Heaven. “I wonder what those arches are for.”
“What kind of American are you?
Can’t you recognize a McDonald’s sign when you see it?” a female voice
asked patronizingly. Brian turned to see
another young woman, this one dressed in a white gown and bearing a halo and
wings.
“A McDonald’s?” Brian repeated.
“You have McDonald’s… in Heaven?”
“Well, of course!” replied the woman. “McDonald’s loves to see you smile, and
Heaven is the happiest place in the world.”
“I thought that was Disney World.”
“No… that’s the second happiest.”
“Oh.”
“But anyway, you can’t go to Mickey D’s yet. First you two newbies have to get your
uniforms.”
“Uniforms?” asked Angela.
“Yeah,” replied the girl, pulling at her white robe. “Now, come on, I’ll show you where we keep
them. My name’s Angelica, by the way.”
“I’m Brian, and this is Angela,” introduced Brian, and they
followed Angelica off to a large, golden building. A sign on the front of the building read Angelcrombie
and Fitch, and in the large windows on either side of the door were large
pictures of provocatively posed angels clad in white robes.
Angelica led them through the store, which was filled with racks
of identical-looking white robes, and up to the counter. “Hey, Angelina,” she said to the cashier
behind the counter. “I need a couple of
robes for these two. They’re newbies.”
“Oh, sure, Angelica,” replied Angelina. She came around from behind the counter and
went over to one of the racks. Flipping
through the various robes, she selected two and held them out to Brian and
Angela. “Try those on and tell me how
they fit.”
“Uh… okay…” Brian went into
one of the dressing rooms, where he removed his hospital gown and pulled on the
white robe. It fit him perfectly, and he
stepped out to show Angelina.
“Perfect,” she said. “Now
you just need a halo.”
She sifted through a pile of halos in a box on the counter and
pulled one out. Carefully, she held it
over Brian’s head and then let it go.
Miraculously, it stayed afloat just over his hair. “There ya go.
All set,” she said.
“What about wings? Do I get
wings?” Brian asked eagerly.
“Nope, sorry, you have to earn those.”
“Earn them? I thought an
angel got their wings every time a bell rings.”
“Sorry, that’s just in It’s a Wonderful Life. Welcome to the real world, buddy.”
“Oh.”
Laughing at the expression on his face, Angelica said, “Come on,
newbie, how about we hit Mickey D’s? I
could go for a Big Mac right about now.”
“Uh… okay.”
And so they set off for the golden arches, without a care in the
world, for after all, they were dead.
What was there to care about anymore?
If only they knew what was
to come…
***
