A lot of people tend to think of the after life in terms of “up there” and “down below.” After death, if you are able to walk up the stairway, you've been good. If the stairway leads you to the basement, you've been bad.
The Fixer knows that there is no heaven or hell. At least, not in the concepts of what most humans conceive. Many people have asked the Fixer about this. The only best answer he can come up with is, “All there is, is just here and over there, like a bridge.”
Another very common misconception of heaven is that people grow wings and become angels after they die. This makes the Fixer laugh. Angels are snotty, who would want to be like them?
Sometimes the Fixer can only fix certain things by taking ideas apart. That's how you find out what went wrong. Most of the time, it's faulty wiring. A little reasoning or persuasion can correct most problems, if the thinker lets it.
A huge hauling truck pulled up in front of house number 9181 on Hogan Street. Kellie's dad was napping on the couch to a droning television talk show while she was being as quietly as possible to build heaven in her backyard without waking him up.
She heard the truck as she was hanging a cloud while nearly tripping over a long haired man, who was relaxing on a lounge chair. She didn't think much of the truck that she heard, until the Fixer stepped in her backyard.
Backyards often double as graveyards. It's no surprise to the Fixer to see ghost pets floating casually in the backyard. Despite one of the dead pets being a fish and another already having a pair of wings, they were flapping around, hovering above their nine-year-old former owner.
“Are you Kellie Lallin?” he glanced at his clipboard as he set down his toolbox.
“Yes?”
“Unfortunately, I am here to inform you that the city of Duluth prohibits its citizens to build a heaven on residential property without a license. Do you have the forementioned license?”
“No, I'm only seven,” Kellie replied.
“Well, I'm sorry ma'am. I have to haul everything out.”
“Am I in trouble?”
“No, no. Just as long as everything is cleared out, you should be fine.”
A narrow building, proclaiming, “Hall of Records” stood under a blossoming crabapple tree (the Fixer knew he was definitely going to need his compacting tool for that) and a giant screen projected bird eye's view of panoramic images of earth in 3D was playing at the other end of the backyard.
The Fixer took out a coil of rope from the toolbox and corralled a cloud. He held onto it like a kite as he walked to the hauling truck in front of the house. Kellie followed. The Fixer let the cloud float to a back corner of the truck.
He packed boxes of records and rolled up the huge screen. After loading some filing cabinets, golden pillars and coaxing an unicorn with some potato chips that Kellie found in her house, she asked, “Where is all this stuff going?”
“Over there,” the Fixer said matter-of-factly.
He got into the truck, the long haired man taking shot gun, sets his toolbox down on the sleeping bunk behind the front seat, and started the engine. He rolled down the window, “Say, you didn't see a guy that was about seven feet tall passing through lately, did you?”
“Um...,” Kellie started, “I don't remember.”
The Fixer tipped the brim of his cowboy hat, “Have a good day, ma'am.”
Name: Kellie Lallin
Location: Duluth
Think: Heaven exists in the form of simple minded clichés
Thing: Clouds, unicorns, harps-the whole spiel.
Status: fixed pending as is
Comments: Heaven disassembled.