Saint Peter made a check on his impossibly big clipboard and shouted, "Next!" A young man in military fatigues stepped up to the gate.
"Do you have any idea how long I've been waiting?" the young man asked.
Without consulting the clipboard, Saint Peter replied: "Two years, seven days, twenty-seven minutes and three seconds."
Refusing to be mollified, the young man aggressively asked, "How come the people in that line are getting in quicker?" He waved a hand at the next gate over, where Saint Peter seemed much happier processing a little old lady.
"That's our six sins or less line," Saint Peter explained. "We found that things moved much more smoothly after we instituted it."
"So, you gonna let me in, or what?"
"Donny," Saint Peter asked, "How many people did you kill?"
Donny thought for a moment. "Seven."
Saint Peter shook his head. "I've got you down as killing fifteen."
"No way, man," Donny argued. "I put a notch on my gun for every towelhead I killed - there were only seven."
"You're not taking into account the add on effect."
"Add on effect?"
"Some of the men you killed had children who depended upon them. The children starved to death because they had no father to look after them."
"That's not my fault!" Donny protested.
Saint Peter shrugged. "It's the way Karma works. You kill somebody, you become responsible for the lives of the people that person was responsible for."
"Karma's a bitch, man" Donny commented.
Saint Peter resisted the temptation to roll his eyes ironically and agree. This is why people in this line take years to get processed, he thought, but, again, did nothing to give his thought away.
Donny, not comfortable with the silence, said, "Look. Seven...fifteen...who cares? I mean, I'm here, now. That's all that matters, right?"
"Have you never heard of the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill'?"
"Murder."
"Pardon me?"
"Thou shalt not murder. See, the commandment was mistranslated from the ancient Arabic, or whatever. We originally thought it meant you shouldn't kill anybody. Ever. But, what it actually said was that you shouldn't murder anybody. So, we need a really good reason to kill somebody, and, maybe the permission of someone in authority like the President and, like, then it's okay."
Saint Peter almost sighed. The rationalizations never seemed to end with these people. "No," he definitively stated, "you had it right the first time. Thou shalt not kill. Period."
"No, you see, murder doesn't mean the same thing as ki -"
Saint Peter had heard enough. "Donny, we wrote the book up here. I regularly have dinner with the deity who laid down the ten commandments! You can't argue with me."
"I was just saying..." Donny mumbled.
Saint Peter looked piercingly at Donny, who looked away. All he could see were clouds and gates and people waiting in line to get to...whatever lay beyond the gates. Although they were wide open, it was impossible to see what was on the other side.
"Are you sorry that you committed these killings?" Saint Peter asked.
"Are you serious?" Donny replied. "Camel jockeys got what was coming to them, man! By attacking us, they asked for a righteous vengeance to be brought...uhh, to be brought down on their..." Donny's enthusiasm petered out when he saw Saint Peter shake his head grimly. "What?"
Saint Peter rifled through the pages on his clipboard. "I understand that on your deathbed, you made a confession to..." It took Saint Peter a moment to find the page he was looking for. "Father Alfonzo Rappini. Is that correct?"
"Uhh, yeah?"
"Because, frankly, you don't sound all that repentant."
"Oh, no, really, I am. It's a terrible thing that those camel jockeys had to die. Really. A terrible thing."
"So, given the choice, you wouldn't do it again?"
Donny swallowed hard. "No, sir."
Saint Peter almost allowed himself the luxury of a sigh. "I've never been that impressed with deathbed conversions," he confided. "It seems to me too easy, and it makes a mockery of the lives of people who have actually been righteous to allow people who have sinned terribly into the bosom of the Lord just because they had a pang of conscience a few seconds before they died. Still, I didn't make the rules."
Saint Peter made a check on his impossibly big clipboard and shouted, "Next!" It was going to be a long eternity.