The Next Reincarnation for Tricky Dick – By Russell Twyce
The story of the year in 1974 was Richard Milhous Nixon resigning the presidency over the Watergate Scandal. This is a story of an eternity following Tricky Dick’s death in 1994. This is a 1000 word truth or fiction short story inspired by a truthorfiction picture.
The Next Reincarnation for Tricky Dick
“Welcome to the afterlife.” Heaven’s gatekeeper said after the 37th president of the United States trundled over mortality’s threshold. “Meet your messenger.”
“Here I am in heaven!” Richard Milhous Nixon excitedly exclaimed. “I’m surprised. As I saw the story of my life’s years pass before my eyes, I didn’t feel my judgment was favorable.”
“You’re negative impression was correct: you aren’t coming in here quite yet.”
“But I will be allowed in later.” Tricky Dick held his further thoughts to himself. ‘Many small good things my administration did that I was unaware of must’ve canceled out plenty, but not quite enough of, the less-than-auspicious stuff.’
“No.” The gatekeeper replied: even the innermost thoughts are an open book for heaven’s gatekeeper. “You’ll atone for all the evil you did personally, as well as the needless harms of the government entity you eagerly took responsibility for.”
“That isn’t legal!” Nixon rebutted. He was a lawyer before he was the president.
“Law is a Sophist notion and it’s of the worst evil possible. If you want to begin earning your pass through these pearly gates, you had best realize that the law only gave you a twisted method of suggesting that lies were actually true. Laws are lies.”
“It isn’t intrinsically fair then.” The recently departed lawyer switched defenses. “I didn’t know of every soldier killed by my army, or the tax agent that did overzealous harms. I was only seated in the President’s Chair. The Oval office held the power, so it must bear most of the culpability.”
“Wouldn’t that horse manure be convenient for you, and the rest of those who lust for power and like to blame their wrongful excesses on an inanimate object?” The gatekeeper chuckled. “If a flag happens to die while you’re serving your penance, I can transfer some of your sentence over to the banner’s immortal soul.”
“You’re oversimplifying a complex truthorfiction political notion.” Richard M Nixon grumbled.
“That is the true problem because truth is simple and the more convoluted you try to make it, the closer it resembles a falsehood. Then suddenly, it’s a lie that you still want people to believe is true. However, you’ll have plenty of time to fully grasp it.”
“In hell?” Tricky Dick’s mind envisioned torments as described in Dante’s Inferno.
“What eternal point would there be in putting a soul on a rack or into a pit of boiling oil? That’s a ridiculous concept that the church installed to solidify their hold. Here, you meet your messenger and we search for stories that perfectly suit you.”
“That’s unfair then too.” The ex-lawyer said as he recalled a joke about the many popes in heaven and the first lawyer allowed in. “The church has been responsible for many atrocities in history, but dead popes get an easy ride past Saint Peter.”
“I’m not Saint Peter. I’m heaven’s gatekeeper and he isn’t.” The angel smiled at the humor he read in Richard’s mind. Then his image transformed to resemble Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. “And for your information, we don’t have a single pope in here yet. Lawyers, politicians and police officers are in short supply too. You were the president and a lawyer before that so maybe your easiest way of understanding eternity’s soul processing, is thinking of it like a bureaucracy. You want something from us, your admission pass into heaven, but you keep having to take side trips to a morass of unpleasant wickets to get different forms filled out.”
“Let’s get on with it.” The 37th president bristled. “I am not a crook, but the sooner I get on with my punishment, the quicker it will be over.”
“Death isn’t a penalty.” Shiva said. “It’s a reward for a soul having completed a life.”
“Yet my eternal reward is not being granted admission into heaven.” Tricky Dick said in a downcast voice. “Where will I be headed, if not into Hell? Where are all the politicians, policemen and popes?”
“Each has a list of reincarnation assignments.” The Gatekeeper in Shiva’s image glanced at a book on his podium. “Adolph Hitler for example is currently on soul duty in a steer raised for meat. He’s spent his life in a pen and has been castrated. He’ll go to a slaughterhouse soon, so I have another reincarnation ready for him.”
Richard Nixon’s eyes lingered on the illuminated pages. The book of eternal karma was an amazingly small size, considering the information it must hold.
“In computer terms,” Shiva answered the mental question, “think of the device as a ‘cookie’ reader. Each individual soul carries its deeds and karma data: this book is like a search for stories engine. I ‘Google it’ for the story of the year where you can meet your messenger and where your soul can pay off some bad karmic debts.”
“What is it saying about me?”
“The next reincarnation for Tricky Dick is just a short one. It doesn’t address any of your major bad deeds: those are yet to come. Many people thought you a pain in the ass and you encouraged it by being a pain on the ass. Meeting your messenger in this brief sojourn will show you exactly what being a bruised butt feels like.”
“That’s ridiculous. A bruised butt doesn’t have a soul.”
“Are you the expert on souls? Or am I?” Shiva the destroyer said. “Why can’t an injury possess a life of its own? It is born in the pain of labor and then it grows to maturity. It comes into its prime of life either malignantly to kill its host, or slowly ages to die when the injured person recovers. As a matter of fact, Hitler’s soul will be going that route too. He will be a bad case of pulmonary emphysema. In this way his soul will better appreciate how his gas chamber victims suffered.”
“I was the 37th president of the United States!” Richard M Nixon blustered. “I should go on to a next life with the dignity I deserve.”
“If you really think objectively about it,” Shiva’s tone was sagely, “this is precisely the decorum you merit. The innocent people of Cambodia and Laos who suffered as a result of your undeclared war on them, might even suggest this next reincarnation is too auspicious for you.”
The End and here is the picture that inspired this short truth or fiction story.
Is ‘The Next Reincarnation for Tricky Dick’ truth or fiction? The author of Shiva’s Messenger claims it is fiction, but the familiar face on the bruised butt suggests otherwise—and the butt bruise was there in truth. The image was not doctored: Richard Milhous Nixon’s eternal soul could’ve been reincarnated there.
Examine the truth or fiction aspects of what qualities attract, as opposed to what a person says they are attracted to. For example;