Afterpants: Afterlives (The Inn Between Worlds)

One of my favorite story-telling tropes; the Inn Between Worlds is, in my not so humble opinion, an element of a story that makes it SO much more magical! The idea is simple of course...you have the idea of the multi-verse, the idea of a 'space' between those universes and you put in a bar, a hotel or a similarly social/public setting.

The person/s running the place are generally immortal and (for humans' sake) in a human form. I have run into a place like this in a story which was actually a masquerade and the staff of the hotel were actually demons...but this idea is just brilliant!

As with my Afterpants: Nether Regions (Limbo) I have to repeat my absolute love of the idea of "in between spaces" and an inn (or other structure) IN those in between spaces really turns the volume up to 11!

(Image from Vertigo publishers; "Sandman: World's End")

But....is it true?

Other than a few religious beliefs, ranging from "Aerial Toll Houses" to something you might see in the Bardo (which would only be an illusion) there is not much evidence that any major world religion believes that such a thing is necessary or possible...oh wait...there IS an entire town on the way through the aftelife in Fijian beliefs and there are several folktales about disappearing houses in Japanese myth so

I'll add that to my summation in saying that the idea of an Inn Between Worlds is: