Immortal Accommodations

"As for where we go after death and what we do, there is nothing but mystery," the wise man finished.
The listening king thought that over. "We are guilty of an oversight then if we, who have been sure to provide for our living subjects, fail to do the same for our dead. We must set off a park for them alone we will call "heaven" and furnish it. What do the dead like to have?"
Without any pause such as a less thoughtful man might have needed, the wise man said, "Your Majesty, it is universally observed that the corpse grows cold and hard. Unquestionably a warm bath would soothe them handsomely."
"Very good. We will have a warm bath put in and beside it, on tables, bowls of porridge easy in the eating."
All this was done, and soon the dead visited heaven, not only those of the kingdom but from without also. Even when the king imposed a fee on the foreign dead, that did not deter them. The removal of currency worried other rulers with the result that they forbade their dead the journey, but the people revolted over it. In the end they made their own heavens and each land had its own, and later each town as well, funded by its guilds.
Finis

Double Heaven

"When the day comes, if you have lived rightly, tranquil fields will be yours to wander. Had you still needs they would be met, but as it is, nothing but untroubled time awaits you for the space of a year.
"At that time a messenger will arrive to inform you of an offer. You may continue to reside in that blessed realm, or you may spin the wheel. Should it stop at a favorable position, you will ascend to a more exciting afterlife, but in the other case, you will return to the mortal world to live and strive for righteousness again.
"The higher afterlife is the province of the witty, the learned, and the well-traveled where lassitude is impossible. Having dwelled there for ten years, the same messenger or another will inform you of another land reached by a similar method. That realm is impossible for me to describe. After a century there, the messenger will approach you again, and so on. Well? Would you take the first chance? The second? What do you think?"
"Grandpa, I wouldn't and neither would anyone else."
"Heroes would, child. And as for those heroes . . . do you think they hope for the outcome you would?"
Finis

Obligations of the Dead

There was a man who, as punishment for a crime irrelevant to this history, spent a term in the land of the dead. When the end of his sentence approached, he asked the king of that land about that which confused him most about the customs there.
"Why is it, great king, that this is far from a dismal land? The dead have such feasts and entertainments as are never possible elsewhere without months to separate them, but here there is never any rest among those said to be forever resting in the matter of revels."
The king tested him with these words. "Where did you hear that this kingdom was ever dismal?" The man responded with citations from several classics, whereupon the ruler of all subjects nodded, satisfied. "It is because today the dead are deluded and think their duties done, whereas wiser men in earlier ages, relieved at last of the obstacle of sleep, set themselves ceaselessly to laborious tasks that they might not be found unprepared when at last it comes."
The man spread the warning of the ultimate monarch among the living and trained his body relentlessly, interrupting his exercises only when he judged more exertion would be wasted and never for the purpose of pleasure. Accordingly he was remembered as the first of the sword prophets. Reverent gratitude became attached to his name after at last it came, by the prepared; the unready regretted their indolence.
Finis

Addendum

When James Bond dies, he'll go to a special heaven where there are parades of double-taking pigeons all day. Let's all live worthwhile lives and earn wondrous rewards such as that.