Purgatory's paperwork

Lin awoke to the sound of muzak—specifically, an instrumental version of "The Girl from Ipanema" that seemed to be playing on an infinite loop. He was sitting in what appeared to be a waiting room chair, the kind designed to be just uncomfortable enough to prevent you from falling asleep but not so uncomfortable that you could file a legitimate complaint.

The waiting room itself was overcrowded to the point of absurdity. People of all ages, races, and fashion sensibilities were crammed into identical chairs, all wearing expressions of profound boredom. The walls were a shade of beige that could only be described as "bureaucratic," and a flickering fluorescent light added a migraine-inducing ambiance.

"Where am I?" Lin asked aloud, though he wasn't addressing anyone in particular.

"Ticket number 4,285,291,776," announced a monotone voice over an intercom. "Please proceed to Window 7."

An elderly woman clutching a ticket stood up and shuffled toward one of many identical windows along the far wall. Behind each window sat a figure in a gray uniform, their faces obscured by the glare on the glass.

"You're in Purgatory, dear," said the woman sitting next to Lin. She appeared to be in her seventies, wearing a floral dress and knitting what looked like an infinitely long scarf. "The waiting room, to be precise."

"Purgatory," Lin repeated, trying to process this information. "As in, the afterlife?"

"Mmhmm," the woman nodded, her knitting needles clicking rhythmically. "Been here for... well, I've lost track of time, to be honest. It all blends together after the first few decades."

Lin looked down at himself. He was still wearing the same clothes he'd had on the bridge—jeans, a faded t-shirt, and one shoe. The other must have been lost in the fall.

"So I'm... dead?" he asked, the reality of his situation slowly sinking in.

"Ticket number 4,285,291,777," called the intercom voice. "Please proceed to Window 12."

"Well, you're not alive," the knitting woman said pragmatically. "Whether you're officially 'dead' depends on your paperwork. Some people get sent back, you know. Clerical errors, mistaken identities, that sort of thing."

Lin's mind raced. "So there's a chance I could go back?"

The woman's knitting needles paused. "I wouldn't get my hopes up, dear. The bureaucracy here is quite thorough. If you're here, there's usually a reason."

Lin remembered the bridge, the fall, the dark water rushing up to meet him. "I jumped off a bridge."

"Did you now? Suicide cases are always complicated. So much paperwork."

"It wasn't exactly suicide," Lin clarified. "It was more like... an accidental fall while contemplating suicide. I was actually reconsidering after getting a phone call."

The woman tutted. "Bureaucratic nightmare, that is. You'll be here for ages while they sort that out."

"How long is 'ages'?" Lin asked, a note of panic creeping into his voice.

The woman gestured around the crowded waiting room. "See that man over there? The one in the toga? He's been waiting since the fall of Rome. Claims it was an accident—tripped on his sandal strap and fell on a gladius. The afterlife bureaucracy is still trying to determine if it counts as a workplace incident."

Lin followed her gaze to a bored-looking man in a toga who was playing what appeared to be a game of solitaire using pebbles.

"But that's... that's insane! I can't wait here for centuries!"

"Ticket number 4,285,291,778," the intercom announced. "Please proceed to Window 3."

A teenager wearing headphones and a t-shirt that read "YOLO" stood up and walked to the designated window.

"The irony of that shirt isn't lost on me," Lin muttered.

"Oh, you'll develop a sense of humor about these things," the knitting woman assured him. "Eternity is a long time to hold onto existential dread."

Lin looked around the waiting room more carefully. Now that his initial shock was wearing off, he noticed the bizarre diversity of the waiting crowd. Besides the Roman in his toga, there was a woman in Victorian dress reading a dog-eared copy of "Pride and Prejudice," a man in what appeared to be medieval armor attempting to polish his helmet with his sleeve, and a person wearing a full spacesuit who was trying to connect to non-existent Wi-Fi.

"Is that... a caveman?" Lin asked, pointing to a hirsute individual wrapped in animal skins who was attempting to start a fire using two paper cups.

"Homo heidelbergensis, actually," the knitting woman corrected. "Lovely fellow. Terrible at filling out forms, though. Doesn't understand the concept of a middle name."

A man in a crisp suit appeared at Lin's side, holding a clipboard. "Mr. Wang?" he asked, his voice matching the monotone of the intercom announcements.

Lin jumped. "Yes?"

"I need you to fill out these forms." The man handed Lin a stack of papers at least three inches thick. "In triplicate. Blue sections are for suicide attempts, yellow for successful suicides, and pink for accidental deaths. If you're unsure of your status, fill out all sections."

"But I don't know if I—"

"Pens are available at the desk over there," the man continued as if Lin hadn't spoken. "No pencils, no erasures, no cross-outs. Any mistakes will require you to start the entire form from the beginning."

"But that's—"

"When you're finished, take a number and wait to be called." The man glanced at his watch. "Current wait time is approximately 987 years, give or take a decade."

"Nine hundred and—"

"Welcome to Purgatory, Mr. Wang. Please note that 'The Girl from Ipanema' will be playing on a continuous loop until further notice. Have a pleasant eternity."

With that, the man disappeared back into the crowd, leaving Lin holding the massive stack of paperwork.

"Told you it was complicated," the knitting woman said sympathetically. "You might want to get started. The ink in those pens has a tendency to dry up after a century or two."

Lin stared at the forms in his hands, then at the endless room of waiting souls, then at the muzak speakers that were still faithfully playing the same instrumental loop. If this was the afterlife, it was even more absurd than he could have imagined.

"I need to get out of here," he muttered.

"Ticket number 4,285,291,779," called the intercom. "Please proceed to Window 19."

No one moved. The waiting room remained as full as ever.

"Ticket number 4,285,291,779," the voice repeated, a hint of irritation creeping into its monotone. "PLEASE proceed to Window 19."

Lin looked down at his stack of papers. On top was a small slip with a number: 9,372,614,508.

"I think I'm going to be here a while," he said to no one in particular.

The knitting woman smiled sympathetically. "Don't worry, dear. After the first few centuries, you hardly notice the music anymore."

Three hours into his stay in Purgatory's waiting room, Lin had filled out exactly two pages of his paperwork. The forms were maddeningly specific, asking for details no reasonable person could be expected to remember.

"Date of first existential crisis?" Lin read aloud, squinting at the tiny print. "How am I supposed to know that?"

"Just put 'age thirteen,'" suggested a woman in a 1920s flapper dress. "Everyone puts 'age thirteen.' It's when we all discovered poetry and realized the universe doesn't care about us."

"Social Security number of first kiss?" Lin continued, increasingly bewildered.

"That's a trick question," the Roman in the toga called out from across the room. "If you answer, they assume you're a stalker and send you straight to Hell."

"Leave it blank," the knitting woman advised. "Along with 'exact number of lies told throughout lifetime' and 'comprehensive list of unkept promises.'"

Lin sighed and put the forms aside. He couldn't face another question about the carbon footprint of his funeral (which presumably hadn't even happened yet) or the butterfly effect implications of his kindergarten career choice essay.

"There has to be a way out of here," he muttered, looking around the vast waiting room for any signs of an exit.

"Thinking of making a break for it?" asked a man in a 1970s leisure suit, leaning over conspiratorially. "Don't bother. Everyone tries it eventually. Never works."

"What do you mean, 'everyone tries it'?" Lin asked.

The man in the leisure suit gestured around the room. "Look at us. Do you think any of us planned to spend eternity listening to 'The Girl from Ipanema' while filling out forms? Of course we've tried to escape. It's practically a rite of passage."

"And?"

"And we're still here," the man said flatly. "But hey, don't let me stop you. The attempts are the most entertainment we get around here."

Lin was about to respond when he noticed something strange. One of the windows—Window 13, specifically—appeared to be unmanned. No gray-uniformed figure sat behind the glass.

"What about that?" Lin whispered, nodding toward the empty window.

The leisure suit man followed his gaze and shrugged. "Probably a lunch break. Even bureaucratic entities of the afterlife need to eat. Or whatever they do."

"Or maybe it's a way out," Lin said, a plan forming in his mind.

"Trust me, kid, there's no—"

But Lin was already moving, slipping between the rows of chairs toward the unattended window. The room was so crowded that his progress was slow, but no one seemed to be paying him much attention. The processing staff behind the other windows were all occupied with their current cases, and most of the waiting souls were too bored or resigned to care about his activities.

When he finally reached Window 13, Lin glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then ducked underneath the counter. To his surprise, there was indeed a door there—a small, nondescript door with "STAFF ONLY" written on it in faded letters.

"Too easy," Lin muttered, reaching for the handle. The door opened with a soft click, revealing a dimly lit corridor beyond.

Lin hesitated for only a moment before slipping through and gently closing the door behind him. The corridor was narrow and seemed to stretch on indefinitely, lined with identical doors on both sides. The lighting came from old-fashioned gas lamps mounted on the walls, casting eerie shadows that danced as Lin passed.

"Now what?" he wondered aloud, his voice echoing slightly in the confined space.

A sign on the wall caught his eye: "PROCESSING → FILING → APPEALS → REASSIGNMENT → DAMNATION." Each word had an arrow pointing in a different direction, forming a bewildering navigational puzzle.

"When in doubt, follow the exit signs," Lin decided, choosing the corridor that seemed to lead away from "PROCESSING." He reasoned that anything labeled "DAMNATION" was probably not his best option.

The corridor branched and turned, leading Lin through a labyrinthine series of passages. Occasionally, he would pass someone in a gray uniform who would nod politely without seeming to find his presence unusual. Lin nodded back, trying to look like he belonged there.

After what felt like hours of wandering, Lin found himself in a large, circular room with dozens of doors lining the walls. In the center of the room was a desk, and at the desk sat a figure in a gray uniform, reading a newspaper.

Lin froze, but it was too late. The figure looked up, revealing a face that was disconcertingly ordinary.

"Can I help you?" the figure asked, folding the newspaper.

"I, uh, I'm looking for the exit," Lin said, deciding that honesty might be his best approach at this point.

The figure raised an eyebrow. "The exit to where, exactly?"

"Back to Earth?" Lin suggested hopefully.

"Ah," the figure nodded understandingly. "You're a runner."

"A what?"

"A runner. Someone trying to escape processing." The figure sighed and reached for a red telephone on the desk. "Happens at least once a day. You'd think after millennia of existence, this place would invest in better security."

"Wait!" Lin said desperately. "I'm not trying to escape. I just... got lost on my way to the bathroom."

The figure gave him a look of profound skepticism. "The bathroom. In the afterlife."

"Everyone poops," Lin said weakly. "Even dead people?"

"Actually, they don't," the figure corrected. "One of the few perks of being deceased. No bodily functions to worry about."

"Oh," Lin said, his excuse crumbling. "Well, I didn't know that. I'm new here."

"Clearly," the figure said, then pressed a button on the telephone. "Security to the Hub. We have another runner."

Before Lin could react, two of the doors burst open and in rushed what could only be described as celestial security guards. They wore the same gray uniforms as everyone else, but with the addition of mirrored sunglasses and earpieces.

"Come with us, sir," one of them said, gripping Lin's arm with surprising gentleness.

"But I haven't even finished my paperwork!" Lin protested, as they led him back through the maze of corridors.

"Don't worry," the other guard assured him. "You'll have plenty of time for that. But first, a little detour."

"Detour?" Lin asked, not liking the sound of that.

"Standard procedure for runners," the first guard explained. "Direct line to final processing."

"Final processing? What does that mean?"

The guards exchanged looks. "Let's just say you're being fast-tracked," the second one said cryptically.

They arrived at a door marked "EXPEDITED PROCESSING" and pushed it open to reveal a small, windowless office. Behind a desk sat another gray-uniformed figure, this one wearing glasses and a perpetually annoyed expression.

"Another one?" the figure asked wearily.

"Found him in the Hub," reported the first guard. "Claims he was looking for a bathroom."

The figure behind the desk snorted. "Original. Very original." He gestured for Lin to sit in the chair opposite him. "Name?"

"Lin Wang," Lin answered, seeing no point in lying.

The figure typed something into an ancient-looking computer. "Ah, yes. The bridge jumper who claims it was an accident. You've created quite the paperwork nightmare, Mr. Wang."

"Sorry?" Lin offered.

"No matter. We have ways of streamlining these things." The figure pulled out a rubber stamp and a small ticket, roughly the size of a movie stub. With a heavy thunk, he brought the stamp down on the ticket, leaving behind the word "DAMNED" in red ink.

"What's that?" Lin asked, eyeing the ticket nervously.

"Your express ticket to Hell," the figure said matter-of-factly, handing it to Lin. "Congratulations, you've bypassed several centuries of waiting."

Lin stared at the ticket in disbelief. "But... but I haven't even had my case reviewed! This isn't fair!"

"Fair?" The figure laughed, a sound like papers being shredded. "Mr. Wang, you tried to escape the afterlife bureaucracy. If there's one thing we take seriously here, it's proper procedure."

"But I—"

"The punishment for attempting to circumvent the system is automatic damnation," the figure continued, adjusting his glasses. "It's all in the fine print of the forms you didn't bother to fill out."

"I didn't know!"

"Ignorance of the afterlife law is no excuse, I'm afraid." The figure pressed a button on his desk, and a portion of the floor beneath Lin's chair suddenly slid open, revealing a dark chute. "Have a pleasant eternity, Mr. Wang."

Before Lin could protest further, the chair tilted forward, dumping him unceremoniously into the chute. He fell, screaming, into the darkness, the "Girl from Ipanema" muzak fading behind him, replaced by the rush of air in his ears.

His last thought before the darkness swallowed him completely was, "I should have just filled out the forms."

I'll continue developing your comedy novel from where I left off, starting with section 2.3 and continuing through as much as I can. Here's the expanded version:

The line to the processing counter moved with the urgency of continental drift. Lin had been standing in the same spot for what felt like hours, watching the overhead fluorescent light flicker with maddening irregularity. The waiting room of purgatory resembled nothing so much as the DMV from hell—which, he realized with dawning horror, might be exactly what it was.

"Next," droned a voice devoid of all emotion.

Lin shuffled forward. Behind a scratched plexiglass barrier sat the most aggressively bored bureaucrat he'd ever seen. The nameplate read "CLARENCE" in faded lettering.

"Paperwork," Clarence said without looking up.

"I don't have any paperwork," Lin replied. "I just woke up here after—"

"Everyone has paperwork." Clarence sighed, opening a drawer and extracting a form that appeared to be at least fifteen pages long. "Form D-1347: Application for Afterlife Placement and Judgment Review. Fill it out. Both sides. Black ink only."

Lin accepted the form. "Do you have a pen I could—"

"Pens are at the writing station." Clarence pointed to a small table in the corner where a cluster of people hunched over identical forms, desperately jockeying for the single working pen that was chained to the table.

"But that's—"

"NEXT!" Clarence bellowed, looking past Lin to the person behind him.

Lin reluctantly joined the huddle at the writing station, where a woman with a beehive hairdo was clutching the pen like it contained the elixir of life.

"Excuse me," he said. "Could I use that when you're done?"

"I've been dead for thirty-seven years, honey," she replied without looking up. "I'm still on page three."

After what seemed like an eternity—which, Lin realized with increasing dread, it very well might have been—he finally completed the form. Each question was more bizarre than the last:

On a scale from 1 to 10, how would you rate your mortal existence? Note: all answers will be automatically reduced by 3 points. List all sins committed, including those you were planning to commit but didn't get around to. (If additional space is needed, please see Appendix C) Have you ever used the express checkout lane with more than 12 items? If yes, how many times and please justify your actions.

When Lin returned to the counter, Clarence was eating a sandwich that smelled suspiciously like despair.

"Finished?" he asked, not bothering to swallow first.

"Yes," Lin handed over the form. "Now what happens?"

Clarence flipped through the pages with shocking speed, then reached for a large rubber stamp. Without reading a single answer, he brought the stamp down with practiced precision: "DAMNED."

"Wait, what?" Lin protested. "You didn't even read it!"

"Didn't need to." Clarence tore off a small ticket from a roll and handed it to Lin. It resembled a carnival admission stub, except instead of "ADMIT ONE" it read "DAMN ONE."

"But that's not fair! Don't I get a hearing or something? A chance to plead my case?"

Clarence looked up for the first time, his bloodshot eyes meeting Lin's. "You jumped off a building because your boss gave you a pink slip and your landlord evicted you. Not exactly a paragon of resilience, are you?"

"That's... that's private information! How did you—"

"It's all in your file." Clarence patted a folder Lin hadn't noticed before. "Besides, suicide is an automatic fail."

"But I didn't technically commit suicide! I fell accidentally while contemplating—"

"Save it for customer feedback," Clarence interrupted, pointing to a suggestion box by the exit with a sign reading: "YOUR OPINION MATTERS (Terms and conditions apply)."

"So what now? Where do I go?"

Clarence pointed to a door marked "EXIT" in peeling red letters. "Take your ticket. The Hellbound Express leaves in five minutes. Don't miss it—the next one isn't for another century."

Lin clutched his damnation ticket and walked toward the exit. As he approached, the door swung open on its own, revealing not a bus or train, but what appeared to be an ordinary bathroom.

"This is just a toilet," Lin called back.

"Yep," Clarence replied without looking up. "Flush yourself."

"You've got to be kidding me," Lin muttered as he stared at the toilet. It was surprisingly clean for an interdimensional portal to eternal damnation.

A line was forming behind him. A man in a 1970s leisure suit cleared his throat impatiently.

"First timer?" Leisure Suit asked. "Just sit and flush. Trust me, it's better than the escalator they used to have. That thing took centuries, literally."

Lin reluctantly positioned himself on the toilet seat, ticket in hand. "So I just..."

"Yep. Pull the handle and hold on."

Feeling ridiculous, Lin reached for the flush lever and pulled. Nothing happened for a moment, then the water began to swirl—not just in the bowl, but all around him, defying gravity and the laws of physics. The vortex spun faster and faster until Lin felt himself being pulled downward with impossible force.

He was falling, tumbling through a tunnel of rushing water and disorienting lights. His screams were swallowed by the roar of the cosmic plumbing. Just as he thought the falling would never end, Lin crashed through what felt like a membrane and found himself sprawled on a damp floor.

"Rough landing," commented a bored voice. "Seven out of ten. I've seen worse."

Lin looked up to find himself in what appeared to be a public restroom, though one designed by someone with a questionable understanding of human comfort. The stalls had no doors, the sinks were slightly too high, and the hand dryers seemed to be blowing lukewarm air scented with disappointment.

A janitor was mopping nearby, wearing headphones and a name tag that read "CHARON."

"You Charon? The ferryman of the dead?" Lin asked, struggling to his feet.

The janitor removed one earbud. "Yeah, budget cuts. Used to have a whole river setup, boats, the works. Now it's just toilets and maintenance work. At least I still get my coin." He held out his hand expectantly.

Lin patted his pockets, finding them empty. "I don't have any money. Just this ticket."

Charon sighed and took the ticket, tearing it in half and returning one portion to Lin. "Keep that. You'll need it for orientation."

"Orientation?"

"Through there." Charon pointed to a door marked "New Arrivals" in comic sans font. "Better hurry. They hate stragglers."

Lin pushed through the door to find himself in a hallway that stretched impossibly far in both directions. Signs overhead pointed to various destinations: "Eternal Torment," "Administrative Offices," "Food Court," "Abandoned Hope Gift Shop."

Following the "New Arrivals" signs, Lin eventually found himself in a waiting room filled with confused-looking people clutching identical ticket stubs. At the front of the room, a projector screen displayed the words "Welcome to Hell" in a PowerPoint presentation, complete with clip art flames and an animated devil that bore a suspicious resemblance to the Microsoft Office paperclip.

"Please take a seat," said a chipper voice from speakers overhead. "Orientation will begin momentarily. Remember to silence all cell phones, pagers, and existential screams during the presentation."