‘Please do sink a welcome drink,’ spoke Angel to the Fool. ‘From all you see you may select, take any pleasure you detect. The finest tea, vintage Chablis, the sparkling, and the still. Indulge your every whim and want, your pleasure is our will.’

‘So unconfined? You are too kind,’ did Fool to Angel answer. ‘You have my praise, for such arrays I have not seen in all my days. I don’t possess, I must confess, the palate for such fare. If you’ll behest, may I request, a simple jug of beer?’

‘Beer? Just beer? Oh dear, how queer. I cannot say we have that here,’ the Angel stewed, but soon renewed. ‘How about instead some food? We’ve pan-fried hake, some rib-eye steak, or sinful chocolate truffle cake!’

‘I’m much obliged,’ the Fool replied. ‘I hungered all my time alive, for though I tried, I did not thrive, in riches I did not arrive. Of kindness, I was not deprived, but still I often had to strive, and furthermore I cannot lie, I did not eat the day I died.’

The Angel’s face lit up with glee, ‘Please then, come and sit with me. I’ve something you must surely see.’ The ghostly host plucked melba toast in fingers all a quiver, ‘You must try this, it’s simply bliss, it’s golden goose’s liver.’

The newly dead did shake his head and pondered o’er what must be said. ‘I do not mean, to sound unkeen, and such a spread I’ve never seen, but when I’ve dined, it weren’t refined, it’s simply not the life I led. If you could find, to be so kind, I’d take some chips wrapped inside bread?’

Foiled once more, the Angel swore, and looked frustrated to the floor. Duty hard upon them wore and at loose feathers, Angel tore. A thought occurred, they would make heard, and to the simple soul addressed, ‘Stomach aside, we must provide. How ‘bout pleasures of the flesh?’

‘Now, I’m intrigued,’ the Fool agreed. ‘How do you plan to meet my need?’

‘Anything that you desire. Anything which lights your fire. We’ve girls, there’s boys, and all between, orgies like you’ve never seen. Pleasures, pains, here nothing lacks. Ecstacy from lips to sac.’

‘That’s what I feared,’ the Fool declared, at which the Angel’s heart despaired. ‘Don’t get me wrong, temptation’s strong, for after all my blood runs red. Yet I feel the same in death as with my every living breath: with only they who I did wed, would I ever share a bed.’

‘Well then you will have to wait,’ seethed the Angel, quite irate. ‘For we cannot take a soul, who’s life still burns as white as coal. What then, Fool, have I to proffer? Tell me what you’d have me offer?’

Fool looked Angel in the eye. ‘I understand I had to die, and that to host me you must try, in Heaven’s pleasuredome. But if I can’t be happy here, the answer then to me is clear, and for this path I volunteer, you’ll have to send me home.’

At that, the beaten Angel sighed, and swallowed down its holy pride, and to the Fool softly replied, ‘Well played, my friend, for now, goodbye.’