The Promotion

“And the Angel was bound to a boulder by the barbarians who did not believe the Lord’s word, and he was struck. With one blow, he was cast from this world and sent back to Heaven, where he reigned on God’s left side,” the teacher said.

“But why?” a small boy asked.

“Well Alex, God must always claim his Angels. They are not meant to live among us,” she explained with a knowing smile.

“So the Angel is up in Heaven?”

“Yes, Alex,” the teacher replied, “he is.”

*****

Everyone was working tirelessly. It had been over a few thousand years since the last global wipe out, when the boss had decided he didn’t like how things were going down there. The last one had been a flood, saving nothing but two of every animal and some family of a guy called Noel, or Nevin; Rainne couldn’t remember.

He’d seen so many people pass through this place it was impossible to remember names, especially as he had only been a simple mail room clerk until at least two hundred years after the man himself came through. Jesus. Now that was a name worth remembering.

The paperwork was so immense, Rainne had been running back and forth with contracts for two days, not to mention the complaints and pleading letters from down there. They had received such a problem in fact, that Jesus was the only person in history they decided to send back, despite what people said about Elvis. It was only temporary of course. Sending him back permanently involved a contract that would have been a hell-ridden nightmare, and no one wanted the job of going down there to get the necessary signatures.

Contracts were an every day occurence in Rainne's life. Every soul on Earth was given a contract before birth, at conception actually. Sometimes Rainne got very annoyed with the fact that while two humans creating new life were probably having quite a lot of fun, all it did for him was create more work. The contract was legally and eternally binding, and as long as the humans lived up to their end of the contract, at death they would be granted entrance into Heaven. At least, that was how it worked in the old days. Now, when it came to looking over a contract, it was less of an iron-clad document, as it was the starting point for what could turn out to be a three day negotiation.

Purgatory wasn’t all that bad. Sure, the days were long and the pay was pretty minimal, but at least Rainne was educated enough to skip the low paid manual labour in Hell. The only good jobs in Hell were the high powered ones, the ones you had to bribe a few people to get, and Rainne didn’t know enough people, or have nearly enough money to get a secretary job down there. Up here, however, he was slowly making a name for himself. Rainne, Junior Records Advisor, was his proper title. Most people however, knew him as:

“Rainne? Oh yeah, Mathsterson, the guy who got promoted after that war thing.”

Rainne hated the way he was remembered. That bloody war. He had calmed down the outbreak of another war in Purgatory waiting room between the newly dead soldiers of both sides merely by yelling at the top of his lungs that if they didn’t all shut up and sit down he would personally rubber stamp them all straight down to Hell; no exceptions. Just as he had shut them all up, the boss had happened to come down to see what all the noise was about, and why he had heard there was blood all over the new white linen couches.

Rainne was promoted without even showing a job reference, something that followed him, much to his dismay, for over two thousand years.

Rainne was, once again desperate for a promotion.

It wasn’t that he hated his job. In fact, he enjoyed it most of the time, but who wants to spend eternal life rubber stamping entries into Heaven or Hell? No, Rainne Mathsterson was destined for great things, and by his word if not God’s, no one was going to stop him.

The rumours about a Black Hit had started months earlier, but like most rumours, Rainne took them as office gossip between bored secretaries. The boss had only ever administered two Black Hits on Earth and things had been much worse back then. Though, of course, they did have lawyers now. Highly respected beings paid lots of money to weasel around the law, and not even God’s law! Love thy neighbour, for example; when was the last time that was implemented? Discounting yesterday afternoon when Mr J. Wilson of 78 Stetson Drive ‘loved’ Mrs C. Valliant of 76 Stetson Drive. Someone sure read that commandment the wrong way.

When the rumours were confirmed the week before, Rainne had been invited to a general meeting as a representative of his department. It turned out; the meeting had been called to discuss the reasons behind the Hit. The boss explained he had been steadily getting angrier about the lack of people getting into Heaven without the use of a loophole.

Loopholes had become a large part of Rainne’s job. Hours were spent searching through contracts and checking them against actions. Most of the time there was a loophole, so people escaped their punishment. If he wasn’t an Angel, he supposed he wouldn’t look as hard and would send them down, but he was, and he had to do the right thing and let them in.

The last few days had been a hectic mess of people trying to find contracts and put them in order. There was a new office sweepstake as to the form of the Hit. God was the creative type, didn’t like doing the same thing twice, so the office betting was varied and entertaining. Rainne had put his money on a nuclear weapon. He had given them the brains to produce good and yet they produced these monstrosities. Might as well punish them with their own mistakes. The highest stakes were all on natural disasters, but with flood and meteor both out, Rainne couldn’t see how say, an earthquake, could cause global wipe out.

Like most people in power, the boss liked to keep his plans close to his chest, so Rainne knew, having been around since the beginning, that they would only know the Hit when people began flooding through the doors complaining about that ‘bloody torrential rain’ or ‘horrid great piece of rock that landed in the back garden’.

Faced with the reality of six billion people travelling through Purgatory, Rainne had been assigned an extra fifty staff, all of whom were currently checking the contracts of North America. Rainne had arrived at his desk that morning to find his desk obscured by fifty or so waist high stacks of files, a flame red post-it attached to the pile nearest his chair. He picked it up, muttering under his breath that it was about time. He placed the sticker on the corner of his desk, the blood red ink they preferred down there shining up at him.

Here are the contracts you asked for. Everyone who has negotiated a deal with us that is still alive.
Regards. A.H.

Rainne was glad, looking at the stacks piled around him, that he had thought of such an ingenious plan. Usually, deals with the Devil himself had to be sent for on a case by case basis, but with the sudden loom of a Black Hit, Lucifer and all his staff had been extremely helpful, sending over anything Rainne and his staff asked for. It was one thing you couldn’t fault them for; they were damned organised.

Yesterday, Rainne had been invited to what could possibly be the running point in his career, a meeting between Lucifer and the Boss. Upon seeing the email, he had almost fainted, ordered one of his staff to run up to Level Six in Heaven, find Jack Daniels and buy a bottle of whiskey.

Rainne had dressed extra carefully that morning instead of his usual white. He didn’t want to half his chance of a promotion by offending Lucifer. Sitting behind his desk, thinking carefully, Rainne decided that was what he thought was the funniest about humans, their belief that God and the Devil were immortal enemies. Sure the boss had been annoyed and had ordered a ten day storm when Lucifer announced he was leaving, but after his initial anger and disappointment, the boss had realised having Hell was a good idea. It was somewhere to send the people he didn’t want.

The meeting wasn’t until that afternoon, so Rainne spent his morning looking through the contracts that had been sent over from Hell. He made notes on each one and filed them away in alphabetical order in a collection of separate cabinets. It was pretty painless work, and by the time two o’clock came around, he had made his way through three and a half of the waist high stacks. He didn’t trust one of the newer employees to deal with these files, and the rest of the staff were too busy sorting through the African work load. No. He’d have to spend the next two or three days finishing this off.

A note pad tucked under his arm and a couple of pens clutched in his slightly sweaty palm, he stood outside the meeting room, waiting anxiously. He was glad the meeting was taking place in Heaven. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Hell, but Heaven had the comfier chairs and better views. He’d been stood for almost ten minutes and was starting to let his mind wander when Lucifer made his appearance. Rainne jumped and hastily checked he looked respectable. He nodded hello to Lucifer and stood far back from the door to let him pass with his assistant, a short balding man in a tailored suit. Damnit, Rainne knew he should have worn a tie.

Stepping into the room behind the man, Rainne looked around, wondering where he should sit. He assumed the seats at either end of the table would soon be occupied by Lucifer and the Boss, and sure enough, as he thought it, the Devil took his place at the end of the table furthest from the door. He didn't really want to sit next to Lucifer as he felt this a bit presumptuous to place himself next to one of the most important people in the meeting. Looking at the long table, he assumed sitting in the middle was also a bad idea, it would probably look arrogant to sit in the middle as if he were someone whose ideas would matter so much that anyone could hear them. But then, who should he sit nearer to? The Boss was his superior, but he didn't want to offend Lucifer by choosing a seat near the other end of the table. With all these thoughts rushing through his brain, Rainne didn't realise he'd been dancing from one foor to the other, a panicked look passing over his face as Lucifer looked on, highly amused by Rainne's dilemma.

It was then, during Rainne's moment of indecision that the Boss himself arrived. Rainne finally stood still, trying to give the Boss a look of calm respect. Lucifer grinned slyly at this, and Rainne suddenly felt extremely stupid, taking the nearest seat to him and trying to hide the pink flush that was slowly blooming over his cheeks.

Two and a half hours later, a decision had finally been made. The hit would occur in a week, which should hopefully give Purgatory time to finish sorting records and contracts. Rainne had nodded understandingly, and cursed silently. A week? A month wouldn't be long enough. The Boss had argued his case well, and Lucifer was more than happy to comply, but was angry that Hell would not get nearly enough souls out of the bargain. The Boss had been sympathetic, and had assured the Devil that as soon as this was out of the way, they would broker a new deal on souls and the share that would go to Hell.

Staggering back into his office under the weight of all the files he had been given by both sides, Rainne dumped them on his desk and fell into his chair. He’d thought that after the wipe out there would be some time to rest. Though apparently, according to that meeting, there wouldn’t be.

By the end of the week, Rainne was confident they had everything figured out. The contracts of every continent had been organised and filed away alphabetically and by location, the new staff in Purgatory were properly trained and aware of every eventuality, and Rainne was positive he would be up for promotion when this was all over. Plus, he was rather excited at the fact that the office sweepstake had reached over forty thousand gold coins and thirty pieces of silver... even Judas from Hell was in on the betting.

The next morning, when Rainne walked into his office, he found the place in chaos. His staff were running backwards and forwards under large stacks of files, each with a terrified or stressed look on their face, and some even sporting what would have been mortal wounds if they were not immortal. The best he saw as he ducked a chair flying past him, was Heana, a collection of files under each arm, and a fountain pen sticking out the middle of her forehead, blue ink dribbling down her nose.

Apparently, the Boss had administered the hit during the night, and now, over a billion people were in the waiting room. Once in his office, Rainne took a seat and called two of the new staff, Drak and Kaniel, in to see him. He told them to go into the waiting room and begin finding the people with Hell contracts, and to send them through. Kaniel, a rather weedy looking young man, looked horrified at the prospect, but after Rainne explained that they should not tell the waiting humans why they were being sent through, he looked a little happier.

It was two days later before Rainne discovered the nature of the hit, and this time, he fainted. A nuclear missile had been fired, and had hit a store of other nuclear weapons. He’d won. Rainne, Junior Records Advisor of Purgatory had just won forty-seven and a half thousand gold coins. Of course, there was no time to celebrate; there were two billion humans waiting to be seen to.

When the Boss came down to Purgatory a month later and told them that the last of the humans were through and that they should all take a week or so off, Rainne could not have been happier. He hadn’t been sleeping much due to the number of people coming through his office, and was beginning to get cranky about the fact he still hadn’t been able to touch his winnings. It was a short lived happiness though, as just as he was packing away his things, the Boss came into his office and told him he 'needed a word'.

Rainne offered his seat to God, who declined and took the visitor's seat happily. A little flabbergasted, Rainne dropped into his seat and asked what he could do for him.

What Rainne could do for him, it turned out, was to take a promotion. The Boss had heard about his excellent reorganising before the Black Hit, and believed that Rainne was the perfect person to help start organising the human contracts including the rules for the new religions so that the Devil got his fair share of souls. Rainne accepted immediately. He would have been stupid not to. Religion was one of the biggest areas of Heaven, and to be working in that department was a big step up.

And so it came to be that an Angel, who began as a mail room clerk, became one of the main writers of the new religions to be instigated on Earth. Of course, there were a few provisos. The Boss had made sure to tell the writers that under no circumstances were they to put in anything about each one being the “one true religion”; it’d caused so much hassle the last time. There were to be no loopholes to keep things fair, and finally, Jesus would not be returning. Apparently, the Boss’s son had his own things to be getting on with, and was now refusing to go and do his dad’s bidding any more. No, someone else would have to do that. Someone who would know what they were doing, who knew the contracts for humans inside and out. Someone… who would gain a promotion at the end of it if they did the job well.

*****

As Rainne lay against the boulder, his hands bound around it and his head turned at an almost painful angle, he waiting for the killing blow. He’d done his job, he’d preached the word of the Lord to the humans, and he was going to be killed for it. Jesus had suffered through this, and now it was his turn. As he waited in terror of dying he cursed his ambition, he cursed his job, and most of all he cursed God… cursing himself afterwards because due to the removal of the loopholes from human contracts… he’d probably just earned himself a one way ticket to Hell.