I watch as another leaves through The Door. She hasn’t been here long enough for me know much about her, except that she is beautiful. She has a killer smile and flashes it at us as she takes one last look at us poor unfortunate souls. I want to knock her perfect pearly whites right out of her mouth.

People file out of the Temple, back to their various places of settlement in the green valley below. Every week we have these stupid meetings naming all the people who got to leave.

I stride purposefully toward Father Liam.

He smiles his crinkly smile. It makes it hard to be mad.

“Hello, Adele.”

“Father, why haven’t I passed on?” I ask. I’ve been waiting in what I assume is purgatory for what seems like ages.

He sighs. “We cannot know His divine will, Adele.”

“So what’s the Big Guy got against me then? I went to church, said my prayers. I waited. And I died a virgin at nineteen.”

“I’m sorry, Adele.” Then he turned away, like that settled it.

But nothing was settled. That much was clear.