Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$0.99				$0.84

eBook Category: Fantasy
eBook Description: The deceased Morty Rosenthal, unrepentant wife-killer that he is, stands in line at the gates of Heaven waiting to be condemned to Hell--but an untimely interruption sends him to a Hell he can't quite figure out.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Asimov's, 1985
Fictionwise Release Date: March 2001

130 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [110 KB], eReader (PDB) [39 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [27 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [25 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [45 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB], hiebook (KML) [94 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [47 KB], iSilo (PDB) [22 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [28 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [56 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [41 KB]
Words: 8064
Reading time: 23-32 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Rosenthal, just as others before him, began slowly to comprehend the immensity of his punishment. It was hot. It was gloomy--all the flames cast "no light, but rather darkness visible" (as Milton put it). It stank. It reminded Rosenthal very much of the apartment on Second Avenue he'd lived in as a child, where his own parents had stayed until they'd succumbed to old age. He had never been able to persuade them to move--uptown, to Florida, anywhere but Second Avenue. His father had once waved an arm that took in all of that small, cabbage-reeking apartment and said, "There's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Rosenthal didn't know what the hell the old man had meant. He just knew his mother and father wouldn't leave that apartment if Eddie Cantor himself came back from the dead to talk to them about it.

Rosenthal hopped from one foot to the other. "Goddamn it," he shouted in agony, "I wish my goddamn feet would stop burning!" And just like that, his feet stopped burning.

"Hey," said Rosenthal. He took a couple of steps around the fiery plain, testing. He was surprised, a little puzzled. The soles of his feet had cooled, or rather they had toughened so that it no longer tortured him quite so much to stand in one place. He looked down at himself and was not pleased by what he saw: his skin had become tough and leathery and the color of old, scuffed shoes. He was as ugly as--pardon the expression--homemade sin. After a moment's thought, however, he shrugged. "So nu," he said, "if I have to look like the outside of a football, I'll look like the outside of a football. At least I won't die from hopping around." He learned that he could walk anywhere, sit anywhere, even lie down and rest for short periods without too much discomfort. There was always some pain after a while; but, naturally, this was Hell. You couldn't expect miracles.