Immediately the subordinates in Heavenly Bodies were given assignments and the activities began in earnest. A giant notice was painted in the Square. The printers had to crank their presses furiously in order to supply enough application forms. These were distributed by the youngsters, while some ladies volunteered to man the information desks from one end of the golden street to the other.
The angel in the Department of Records and Statistics turned his computer up to high speed in order to get the performance profile of every angel and every man resident in time for the first interviews. At last the day arrived.
A throng of applicants was anticipated, so four desks were set up under the giant notice in the Square. They were manned by Linus’ four most expert interviewers. Medium to high ranking angels were to be found in all the queues except the priest queue, and there were not in this one due to lack of experience. To begin with, there was an impressive gathering of men in each of the queues, but soon Linus was called for by the interviewer at the Perfect Life desk. He had a dilemma. All of the men who had submitted applications had very good lives, but none of them had a perfect life. On the other hand, the angel applicants, though innocent of sin, were immortal. How could they be qualified to give their lives as a sin offering? Linus loved a challenge, but for the moment he hadn’t the answer. He would refer it to the committee, but in the meantime, the interviewer had a point. All of these applicants would be free to go into another category. The announcement was made on the public address system.
There was no time lost in assembling the senior advisory staff in the conference room of Heavenly Bodies, and Junius took the floor. Junius was something like a general in rank and really knew how to cut through the red tape and get things done. He called right away for a brainstorming of alternatives which he wrote on the chalk board. There were not many alternatives to discuss, but you could see that Junius wasn’t going to give up. Directly he turned again and connected two items with a curved arrow.
“Will it violate the basic plan if one individual performs two functions?” he asked triumphantly. There was a ready murmur of approval.
Linus slapped his knee, saying aloud, “Of course! Why didn’t I think of that myself?”
So it was back to the Square and the interviews for Linus, where he held a briefing for the interviewers, and the decision was announced to the applicants.
To be continued
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