The gate to heaven was propped open.

Joel was not a religious man and had not given the afterlife much thought. If pressed to wager, however, he would not have bet money on ending up here, in the fluffy white clouds of heaven.

A great marble desk to the side stood empty. Maybe St. Peter was on break. Maybe not. The gate looked tarnished, and the desk looked abandoned. No one was there to stop Joel from walking in.

The gate disappeared behind him, and he stepped into a desert. There was nothing else but scattered groups of people milling around, as far as the eye could see.

“You’re new here,” said a sunburned man in jeans and a T-shirt. “I saw you pop in. How’s life on earth?”

“It’s sucked ever since high school. But what’s going on here? I thought this was heaven, but where are the angels and stuff?”

“It hasn’t been that way for two thousand years. What you see is all there is.”

Joel scoffed. “Wandering the desert? You sure this isn’t hell?”

“No one goes to hell anymore. We’re all here.”

“But why would Christians be good all their life, give up booze and women and fun, for… this?”

“You know about Adam and Eve, right?”

“Yeah.”

“They sinned, God evicted them from Eden. But mankind kept sinning. So God started over. Noah and the animals in an ark, and everything else wiped clean. The big reboot.”

“So?”

“Mankind kept sinning. Centuries later, He sacrificed His son, and we kept sinning, and that was strike three, you’re out. He took His Son back, gathered his angels, and just… left.”

“What? He’s gone?”

“Yup. Some people are hoping He’ll come back — but hell, Paul and the others thought he’d be back in their lifetime.”

Joel was getting thirsty. “Hey, is there anything to eat or drink around here?”

The man shook his head, smirking. “No. But don’t worry, this is eternal life. You can’t die.”