Bottom line - it's a PARABLE!
 

Parable - A short fictitious narrative from which a moral or spiritual truth is drawn. (New American Bible under a section entitled Literary Genres or Forms)
 

Parables are fictions, they are not meant to be taken literally. If we take this literally, those souls in Paradise and those souls in flames can see and hear each other, they can even carry on a conversation! Is this the picture of heaven and hell that is the popular concept? Furthermore, the rich man wanted Lazarus to dip his finger in water to cool his tongue - what!? Disembodied souls have fingers and tongues? And that a little water in the everlasting fire of damnation would actually cool one's tongue? And why is it that the rich man could see Lazarus in Paradise and yet couldn't see that there was a "great chasm fixed" between Paradise and Hades? A literal interpretation obviously makes nonsense out of this passage.
 

The point of any parable is just that, the point. The details are fiction and not to be taken literally.
 

The point of this parable is that the Pharisees loved money and transgressed the Law of Moses and the Prophets. It has nothing to do with the actual condition of souls after death.