The Belotano Clause

I am Marcel Schettstein, Esq. I provide legal aid to souls in the Waiting Room, or what you might call “purgatory.” Humans, what you’ve learned about God and the afterlife is wrong. God is not all-knowing and all-good. God is all-seeing and all-about-the-judicial-process. He sees what you’re doing, but he doesn’t necessarily know why you’re doing it. For this reason, God created an adjudicative process for Heaven admission. He also created lawyers, like myself, to represent both souls and Heaven, and judges and legislators in his image. However, as you humans know, remakes are never as good as the original.

Much like lawyers on Earth, my conversations with clients are strictly privileged. Not even God has access to them. Nonetheless, I would like to tell you about my most puzzling client. For anonymity, let’s call him Joe. Before I get into his case, it’s best we review the definitions of “action,” “person,” and subsections 1(a) and (e) of the Cautious and Reasonable Admission into Paradise Act, or the CRAP Act. As I said, remakes. Anyway:

“action” includes any step, measure, activity, work, undertaking, deed or act committed by a person.

“person” means a human during its lifespan, a corporation or a partnership.

1. As required by this Act, for admission into Heaven, a person shall be judged

(a) based on a person’s actions;

…

(e) notwithstanding any actions the person commits while unconscious.

To Waiting Room lawyers like myself, subsection 1(e) is known as the “Belotano Clause.” Leslie Belotano was a perfectly nice and normal guy. But every night, he would fart in his wife’s face while sleeping, always turning toward her before doing so. It got so bad that they needed to sleep in separate beds. Because of the stenches and sounds Belotano produced every night, the Halos were trying to give him five years in Hell. But his lawyer got him admitted into Heaven because he argued that Belotano was unconscious during his negative actions. That decision was then codified into law.

Section 1 is evaluated through a balancing test, in which a person’s positive actions are scored against his negative actions, weighted for the positivity and negativity of each action. So even if you open 1,000 doors for 1,000 old ladies, you kill one person, you’re getting time.

As a soul defense lawyer, when you are assigned a client, you get access to his file, which includes video of everything the client has ever done. You then evaluate each action, and create a narrative for your client that challenges the Halo’s arguments. I once got a guy out of hard time for several instances of drunk driving by claiming that his volunteer work at an animal shelter made him worthy of Heaven. But Joe had nothing. No easy thing I could point to that made him Heaven-worthy. Sure, he did normal things, like saying “please” and “thank you,” but nothing case-making. He also didn’t do anything irredeemably awful. No awful crimes. No betrayals. He did do some perplexingly rude things, though. Although there were other instances, I recall five in particular:

1. Waiting for a bus, Joe turned to an old lady and said, “I hope you die in a fire.” He then just got on his bus, as the old lady waited for hers.

2. Driving on a residential street, a basketball came rolling metres in front of Joe’s car. Instead of waiting for five seconds to let the kids retrieve their ball, he sped up to run it over.

3. At his friend’s house, Joe pretended his friend’s dog bit him. His friend disciplined the dog as Joe just sat there.

4. At a restaurant, he complained about his food being cold after not touching it for half an hour.

5. At a concert, he threw water at the back of a person’s head and blamed it on someone else.

Just stuff like that. Shitty, but not evil. In my opinion, he’d be looking at six months to a couple years in Hell, but maybe I could argue some subjective factors to contextualize these actions.

Then I met Joe. When people arrive in the afterlife, they arrive in their physical primes, except children, who get to grow into their physical primes. Joe arrived in the Waiting Room with unruly curly brown hair. He was short, and there was not much meat on his bones. After I explained why he was in the Waiting Room, the true nature of God, solicitor-client privilege and how the process works, he looked very nervous.

“Can you show me the CRAP Act?” he asked. This was not usually how clients reacted to hearing about their deaths and upcoming trials.

“Sure, but you’re not a lawyer, so you might not know what to do with it,” I responded, “maybe you want to review your footage instead.”

“We can do that, but I want to see the statute. I went to Columbia for Christ’s sake. I can figure out this CRAP.”

I gave him a copy. The next day, he scheduled a meeting. “Look,” I started, “the way your footage looks, if I had to guess, you’d get six months to a couple years in Hell.”

“I can’t do that!” Joe pleaded.

“I don’t want you to either. So let’s review the footage, and just tell me why you did some of these things.” I played the video of Joe telling the old lady she should “die in a fire.” “Now, why did you say that to her?” I asked. Joe looked confused.

“I didn’t say that to her.”

“Joe, these videos are uneditable. You said it.”

“Well, I don’t remember saying it.”

“But you did.” I then showed him the video of him pretending the dog bit him. “And why did you pretend the dog bit you?”

“It did bite me.” I enhanced the video.

“Joe, there’s no bite mark on your hand.” I then rewound the clip, focusing on the dog’s mouth. “Where does it bite you?”

“Oh my god,” Joe said, “I thought it bit me.”

“How could you think that?” Before meeting Joe, I checked if he had ever been diagnosed with a psychological illness. He had not.

“I don’t know.” I showed Joe every bit of evidence against him. He said he didn’t remember any of it.

“What’s wrong with me?” he cried, “if I was aware of what I was doing, I wouldn’t have done any of those horrible things!”

After our meeting, I thought about my approach to Joe’s case. I wondered how he didn’t remember any bad thing he’d done. For souls with diagnosed psychological illnesses, depending on the illness and the severity of their negative actions, either their misdeeds are forgiven, and they are sent to Heaven, they are sent to a post-mortem psych ward, or their misdeeds are so grave and plentiful that they are still sent to Hell, as they are determined to be evil, regardless of their psychological illnesses. But without a diagnosis, Joe did not qualify for any of those. We met again to discuss his case further.

“Joe,” I started, “are you being honest with me?”

“I am.”

“Don’t bullshit me. It’s only six months in Hell, two years max. Are you telling me the truth?”

“I am! I can’t go to Hell!”

“You can’t go to Hell or you don’t remember doing anything bad?”

“I don’t remember.”

“So when those things happened, what were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I just have these moments sometimes where I black out, but I never knew anything happened when I did. It’s almost like someone else was controlling me.”

I circled my office. “So it’s as if someone was controlling you.” Based on that information, I wrote Joe’s factum.

Then, we had our trial. God created seat fillers for every trial because lawyers like to play to a crowd. But because of the simultaneous trial of a controversial actress, the courtroom was relatively empty. Still, I was more nervous than usual, damn near suffocating on my lucky orange tie. After everyone settled in, I began. “Good evening, Justices. My name is Marcel Schettstein, and I am representing Joseph. This trial regards the post-mortem status of a well-mannered man who cares about his family, his community, and everyone he encounters. The Halo’s position is that Joseph cannot go to Heaven because of a few small transgressions. However, the Halo fails for the following reasons. Firstly, none of Joseph’s misdeeds were significant enough to warrant time in Hell. Secondly, even if they were, his good deeds far outweigh his bad deeds. Thirdly, Joseph was not aware of these misdeeds as they were occurring. Therefore, according to subsection 1(e) of the CRAP Act, Joseph lacks the requisite consciousness to be said to commit those negative actions.” Those in the courtroom whispered among themselves.

“Counsel,” one of the justices started, “how is it that Joseph was not aware of these actions?”

“Justice, Joseph blacked out during those incidents and did not have control of his actions.”

“Counsel, was Joseph asleep?”

“No Justice, but he was nonetheless not in control, and therefore, unconscious.”

“Counsel, how can you claim this when Joseph has never been diagnosed with a psychological illness?”

“Justice, just because humans have not thought of a particular name for what Joseph was going through doesn’t mean that these effects weren’t actually occurring. Though earthly decisions are not determinative in afterlife law, it is persuasive. And Canadian, British, and Australian jurisprudence hold that whether someone has a disease of the mind is a matter of law, not science.”

“Yes, Counsel, but afterlife jurisprudence holds that only those with diagnosed psychological illnesses qualify for misdeed forgiveness or psychological treatment.”

“Yes, Justice, but it would be an absurd outcome to let Joseph go to Hell for unconscious acts.”

“But, Counsel, it would be unfair for no one to pay for Joseph’s misdeeds.”

“Justice, we should be able to separate Joseph from the misdeeds he committed while blacked out and not in control of himself.” I continued with my opening arguments. The Halo then made hers. She argued that Joseph’s misdeeds warranted time in Hell, his negative actions outweighed his positive actions, and that we have no proof that Joseph is telling the truth about his consciousness during his misdeeds. I then gave my closing arguments. “Justices,” I started, “Joseph is a good man, and should not be put in Hell for a few minor transgressions of which he was unaware. The Halo casts doubts on Joseph’s condition…”

“You suck!” Joe yelled. The whole courtroom gasped and stared at him. “Oh God! Did it happen again?” he asked.

“As I was saying, the Halo casts doubts on Joseph’s condition. However, she has not given any evidence that he was in control during his misdeeds. Using this lack of evidence to send Joseph to Hell when he was clearly not in control, as evidenced by his interrupting his own counsel, would be incredibly inappropriate and undermine God’s rule. Justices, for those reasons, Joseph respectfully asks to be allowed into Heaven.” After our arguments, the Justices deliberated.

“Because the Halo has failed to adequately contest the claim that Joseph had no control over himself while committing those misdeeds,” Justice Elliott said, “we have determined that Joseph was unconscious, and in his current state, need not spend any time in Hell.” Joe fistpumped in excitement. “However,” Justice Elliott continued as Joe’s elation melted away, “because Joseph does not have a diagnosed psychological illness, and because he committed those actions while awake, unlike Mr. Belotano, someone must be held responsible. Therefore, we have determined that some other form of punishment shall be prescribed to Joseph via the Individual Disciplining by Idiosyncratic Options Task-Force.”

“What does that mean for me?” Joe whispered to me.

“I don’t know,” I whispered back.

IDIOT was created after a court determined that Hell was sometimes too severe a punishment, even in a short sentence. This came after the Bartholomew Bick case. Bick was incredibly annoying in an almost inexplicable way. He would stand too close to people. Wear shirts a size too small. Put his band’s music on for people and claim “it was a hot new band everyone was talking about.” He couldn’t be put away because these weren’t really evil actions. But because Bick still needed to be disciplined before entry into Heaven, he was sentenced to 100 days of being yelled at in a foreign language. It was unlikely that Joe would be subjected to the same punishment as Bick because of IDIOT’s wide discretion to issue new punishments.

We arrived at the hearing. “After reviewing your case,” Commissioner Adams started, “we have determined that, in order to ensure that Joseph is not penalized for misdeeds he committed while unconscious, while also ensuring that there is retribution for the acts that Joseph committed, we will use the Safely Parting Lone Individuals into Two machine to separate Joseph’s conscious, Heavenly self from his unconscious, Hellish self. His Heavenly self will go to Heaven and his Hellish self will become a second individual, and go to Hell.”

I then met with Joe in my office. “So?” I asked, “see what I did for you? Now you can go to Heaven, and not need to worry about those pesky unconscious acts.”

Joe gulped. “Well, there’s a problem.”

“Shoot.”

“I did commit those acts, and I was conscious. I thought that if I pretended I wasn’t, they’d forgive me, and send me to Heaven.”

“Joe, are you fucking kidding me?”

“What? You think I wanna go to Hell?”

“It would only be for a short time, then you’d go to Heaven forever.”

“No, I can’t spend any time in Hell. It’s not for a guy like me.”

“But it is though, Joe. You’re a bad guy. You lied to me, the court, God. Why did you do that stuff on Earth in the first place?”

“I don’t know. I thought I could. It didn’t really affect anyone anyway, and why would I think that someone would be judging me for them? The more important thing is what’s gonna happen to me now? How can I get SPLIT if I wasn’t unconscious?”

“I don’t know, Joe.”

“Come on, you’re my lawyer! What are my options?” At that moment, I thought about ratting on Joe, which would technically be what I was supposed to do, but then I thought about how embarrassing it would be for this to go public. “Marcel Schettstein tricked by a client?” That wouldn’t go over well at the Waiting Room Bar Association events.

“Well, you can either admit the truth, and go to Hell, probably for upwards of ten years now…”

“Not happening. I wouldn’t last a second there.”

“Or, we can see what happens with the SPLIT.”

“And what would happen?”

“I don’t know. I’d assume, either it’d SPLIT you, and the part of you that committed those negative actions will be someone else, or you’d be SPLIT into two of the same person. Or maybe it won’t work. Or you’d burst into flames. I don’t know.”

“I’ll take my chances. Anything to avoid Hell.”

The next day, Joe had his SPLIT. As his lawyer, I was required to view the process. The machine was a big white box with a tube that fed to a tray outside of the box. They first tested the machine on loose trail mix, which was inserted into the box, and successfully separated into M&Ms and the rest of the stuff that nobody wants. Joe gulped.

“Strip,” a large officer demanded.

“Do I have to?” whined Joe.

“Strip.” Joe took off his grey waiting-room-mandated robes. He revealed a body that looked like it had never touched a vegetable in its life. Skinny limbs and a small paunch. Joe covered his privates with his hands.

“Into the machine,” the officer instructed.

“But…” Joe started.

“Into the machine.” Joe gulped once more and got inside. After a second, the machine dinged, and two Joes slid through the tube onto the tray. One Joe had greyer hair and greyer skin. His hairline had receded. His belly was bigger. The other Joe was glowing in comparison. His chest and shoulders were slightly broader, while his gut had deflated. He had his hands on his hips, not over his privates, which looked slightly bigger than before.

“Wow! I feel so clean!” said the comparatively handsome Joe.

“All of you can suck my toes!” yelled ugly Joe. It fucking worked. Despite Joe’s lying, his good self was SPLIT from his bad self. Handsome Joe was handed white robes and was sent to Heaven. Ugly Joe was handcuffed, nipple-clamped, and sent to Hell.

After the SPLIT, I went on quite the bender, celebrating my far-fetched legal victory. Then, one day, I received two letters. The first:

“Dear Mr. Schettstein,

Because of your superb ethical and professional reputation, it is our pleasure to offer you the prestigious role of Minister of the Order to Utilize Task-Forces as He Pleases if Instructed by Executives, Commissions or Employers. As MOUTHPIECE, you will have several responsibilities, be required to work heavy five-hour workweeks, and attend biannual conferences. If you wish to accept this offer, please respond within the next five business days.

Regards,

Afterlife Selection Services”

The second:

“Marcel,

During my time here, I have realized that heaven is not nearly as fun as I thought. Everyone is too good to be even remotely interesting. The worst part is, I am no longer interesting, either. I’m not saying I justify the bad actions I did on Earth, but at least then, I felt alive. I keep asking the staff how I could get merged back into one person, but every time I do, they think I’m joking. Please inquire how I can do so. I’ll even spend some time in Hell.

-Joe”

I leaned back in my chair, crossed my feet on my desk, and thought, “Oh well, Joe. Rot in Heaven.”