When I first started to apply the custard, it screamed, but the eyeball people assured me this was normal.

"Are you sure this is normal?" I asked again.

"Sure" the eyeball people replied.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

"Because it doesn't feel very norm--"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

"I don't know why this--"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

"Because you're being punished" said the eyeball people.

"For wha-"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

They shrugged.

So that was that.

When I was covered head to toe with custard, the screaming dulled down to a hiss. I put on my foam Gary Busey head and began to sweep.

The bristles of the broom scraped against wet linoleum, a moist ssssss that ricocheted off the gold vaulted ceiling, hugged the redwood columns, and sang against the porcelain walls.

"Do you remember your job?" asked the eyeball people again.

"Yes," I replied. My job was to sweep the mint jelly off the tiles, then separate the jelly from the spiders.

"When you're finished with that," said the eyeball people, "you can begin to cleanse the spiders."

I nodded underneath my foam head. The eyeball people departed.

...

What they don't tell you about the afterlife is how interminably long it is. How often it's filled with surreal and altogether useless tasks, completed out of some compulsion for some unseen higher order. You often wonder "why? Why am I here? I get up, I work, I sleep. But why? Is there a purpose? And can that purpose really make me happy?" Yet there's a madness in the air that compels you to move forward. It drugs you with hope, until you find yourself daydreaming through your routine. Slowly, a comfort begins to build, and in time you see your personality within your patterns. And so the workday grafts itself into you, and in this bizarre harmony, you feel a sense of worth.

ssssssss ssssssss

The broom and the custard both hiss against my endless chamber.

Along the walls, they tumble and ring. It sounds like if a waterfall could whisper.

I find that soothing.