Satire to entertain those who no longer watch ABC TV

[truedelphi]

A satire by TrueDelphi
GEORGE W AND THE AFTER LIFE





It was sudden and tragic, the day that George W met his reward.

The day started like any normal day at the White House. The Flash Card Presenter had

followed the President into the Oval Office and was flashing him the Cards that

detailed those activities and events in which George would participate during the

day.

George noticed a can of Spam left over from when the janitorial staff

had whisked through his office the night before. The can was the large economy,

super family size. George ‘s nostrils were tickled by a smell that had delighted the

President since early boyhood.

He felt his normal, Presidential constraints vanish. Instead, he impulsively thrust

his head and neck through the wedge of space where the metal lid had been half

opened and half peeled back. Unfortunately, he did a rather poor job of estimating

where exactly the can lid ended and his neck began. As his tongue reached out for

its first lick, the sharp serrated lid edges nipped off his head at the shoulders.

It was over before the Flash Card Presenter had the presence of mind to put down the

flash cards and go get help.

Of course the official story told across the nation’s airways was that the president

had suffered a stroke and died en route to the hospital. (This fact should surprise

few of the readers - When lately had big media told anything close to the truth,

anyhow?) But as the Public mulled over the prospect of having Dick Cheney as the New

Commander and Chief, and whether the nation could survive the distant and impersonal

Big C as their leader, George W had problems of his own.

First of all, there was no Jesus. that's right - no one in the Hinterlands of the

After Life remotely resembling Jesus was on hand to greet him. Instead, lower

echelon personnel wearing “WWJD” “Kerry or Dean?” on their pink or lavender

sweatshirts reluctantly ambled towards him, away from a miniature golf game. He was

escorted to a golf cart, and then driven to the Pearly Gate.
There, Saint Peter sat behind a desk, looking gruff and bureaucratic. “Yes,” the

Saint said, “Just who do we have here?”

”Why, I am George W Bush, President of the United States. Supreme Commander in Chief

of the Coalition Forces. Pro Life Advocate. And son of George Sr and Barbara Bush,

husband of Laura Bush, father to Jenna and …

At that point, Saint Peter looking distracted said, “Yes, but why have they brought

you to me?”

”Well, for admission into the kingdom of heaven. So that I can join with God in all

his Glory, and to receive the rewards that I worked for so hard during my time on

Earth.”

”But who are you again?” asked the Saint in a voice that remained exceedingly

puzzled.

”Why I am George W Bush, President of the United States.” George repeated his entire

speech from before and once again he related the names of family members. Once

again, just about at the point where he mentioned his mother Barbara, Saint Peter

hushed him. George however was determined to get through the entire list and he

continued, “father of Jenna Bush, and…”

God joined Saint Peter at his desk and interrupted… “Liar!” said God in a clear and

emphatic tone.

“What?” George W now blinked in consternation and some puzzlement of his own.

“You have failed to admit to being the one thing that you most certainly have been.

Liar.”

“I don’t see how you can say that,” bleated George in trepidation. (This wasn’t

going anywhere near close to the way that he’d imagined that it would.) “Surely on

Earth no one would have called me, George W Bush, a liar.”

“The problem is,” said Saint Peter, “You no longer are on Earth. You are here where

we have quite an extensive record of all that you have done and said and even

thought.” As he stated this, he indicated a big black thick book, whose corners and

pages looked wrinkled and well perused. “Yes, we know every move you made, every

thought you’ve had, every speech you misspoke. (And since God had always been

partial to the English language, some of those little speech mishaps of yours were

quite a nightmare for the Lord.) And some of your Executive actions have given both

God and myself, well, let’s say, a bit of indigestion.”

”What specifically?” said George in atone of bewilderment. “What have I ever done to

displease you.”

“You’ve hurt so many of my children.” Then God took from his pocket a small round

sphere. God made a definite indication to George. As his did, the President looked

around for the Flash Card Presenter. He needed to see if The Flash Cards would

explain whether or not this movement of God’s was indeed something that he as

President should respond to. Finally it did occur to George W that he was on his

own. (And a shame that was, because ever since “Rummie” had come up with the idea

that Flash Cards would help the President stay on cue, George W had found life a

whole lot easier.) Now he turned back to God, and with a bit of hesitation held out

his right hand.

God put the small sphere on George’s palm. Then God nodded his head at the sphere,

and
immediately the sphere mushroomed out into a globe of considerable size. God bent

over the globe as though looking for something and then he said, “Look, George,

there are the children you have hurt.”

And suddenly George W could see them all, children suffering from war injuries in

Iraq, and children suffering from the loss of their parents in Afghanistan, and

children in the United States whose parents were doing hard sentences in jail for

small thefts or even more ridiculously, for smoking a weed that God himself had

given mankind for their use. There were children whose school programs were cut

back, and children whose parents were dying of deadly diseases, and children who

themselves were sick. Other kids were suffering while enduring lives with extensive

handicaps, and some children were clearly fetuses being expelled by their mothers’

bodies.

“Oh now surely you can’t blame me for all of this,” anguished George.

“Oh no?” queried God. “Which of these children has not been hurt by you?”

“Well, surely the fetuses being expelled by their mothers’ bodies - I mean, I always

voted my conscience and my conscience always agreed with the Christian Pro-Life

Crowd. I didn’t even allow monies for contraception, or sex education,” said George

proudly. “I mean, Reverend Billy Graham himself had explained the importance of

being ProLife.”

“Ever hear of Mercury?” asked God in a slow patient way as if dealing with someone

who might not get it. “Quicksilver, a substance that some wise people
in your country wanted to keep out of the air that men and women, including

pregnant women, just might breath occasionally.” Perhaps if George had been the sort

of person who could pick up on irony, then he might have realized that God himself

certainly knew how to express that quality often. Regardless of whether the Reverend

Billy Graham had ever seen God that way, God was indeed capable of voicing things in

an ironic mode, especially when things involved some people’s misdeeds.

”Yes, I have heard of mercury once or twice. I think I have, but then again maybe

not,” said the President. (This was after all a man that had once told the media “I

think anybody who doesn’t think I’m smart enough to handle the job is

underestimating.”) As God looked at him with frustration, George continued. “I am

not sure that you can fault me for mercury - after all, it is or at least I think it

might be, one of your creations. That you created or maybe ordered from somewhere?”

(And it is very realistic to believe that George said this, for after all, on

another occasion, he once told reporters, “I’m sure that you can imagine that it is

an unimaginable honor to live here in The White House.”)

“When I created Mercury, I meant for it to stay in the ground. When men started

mining mercury, they started to ruin the health of my favorite properties, and I

have been extremely upset with them for this. But even worse, when Mercury is put

out in the world in a way that it should not be, people’s health suffers.”

“My friends in industry said it was safe.”

“Your friends in industry said a lot of things. Do you remember Kenneth Lay telling

you how wonderfully profitable his accounting techniques would be? You were flying

around on one of his private jets during your first Presidential campaign when he

told you that. He also hinted way back then that your going to war in Iraq would be

as good for Enron as it would be for Halliburton.”

“There is nothing wrong with profit,” defended George with some strong emotion. “If

there is a war, someone is gonna profit. Why not my friends?”

”What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?” interjected Saint

Peter.

”But we had to save the world from terrorists.”

”How could you save so much as a gnat if war is nothing more than state-sponsored

terrorism?” asked God.

”But my friend said…” protested George W with a weaker voice than he had used up to

now.

A very patient God explained, ”I think it’s finally time that you learned to think

for yourself, George.’

The globe on George’s hand spun in a dizzy-ing fashion. George saw a little burst of

a mercury plume get emitted from a huge smokestack over Florida, and he saw a puff

of the fumes enter a pregnant woman’s body. He saw her husband rushing her to an

emergency room while her body miscarried their offspring. He saw their tears and

felt the pain that the fetus had experienced. A wave of anger and disgust washed

over him. He realized that something was terribly wrong.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” the man blurted out. “You’d have thought that my

friends or my family might have told me the truth. If only I had known.”

”You always had someone else telling you,” said God. As the globe spun in George’s

hands, he saw the Flash Card Presenter flashing cards. In a strange and distant way,

George W could remember seeing during his life every single thing that he had ever

read on the Big Cards as they flashed by. But now, in God’s presence, the Cards

began to read differently “GLOBAL WARMING CAN END ONLY IF THE USA CHANGES ITS

BEHAVIOR” “USA MUST REVISE LANDMINE POLICY” “LEAVE NO CHILD BEHIND SHOULD RECEIVE

ADEQUATE FUNDING”

There was one Card that held a truth that was so painful that even there in the

celestial throes of the After Life George W positively flinched reading it, “TAX

CUTS FOR THE MIDDLE AND WORKING CLASS - NOT FOR THE RICH”

The Cards whipped by faster and faster. Some times as he read the Cards, little

scenarios lit up on the globe that still quickly spun on his hand. He saw a woman in

a wheelchair thrown into a jail cell for her use of medical marijuana. He saw a

young family lose their house when the two breadearners both lost their jobs. He saw

an old woman crying as she read a letter telling her a grandson had been killed in

Baghdad. She sobbed and sobbed, without stopping, until finally she put the letter

down and raised her fist to heaven. “There mustn’t be a God - He wouldn’t let a man

like George W run things.”

George W felt tears come. But then his moist eyes turned back to the still flashing

Cards. He read the final brilliant message, “TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT ALL THINGS” After

reading it, he could no longer meet God’s eyes.

”Well said, or at least well Flash Carded,” said God. He was noticing that there was

a change in George’s demeanor. “Now, George. I have an important question for you.

Will you take the first step toward making the world better? Will you admit you were

a liar?”

”But I wasn’t really a liar. I only agreed to tell some fibs because it helped my

friends.”

Neither Saint Peter or God said anything.

Finally George W summed up his philosophy. “Okay I am willing to cop to it - I told

a fib or too, but the fibs I told were always, without exception, or maybe with

exception, I forget how to explain it myself -- always the fibs were for a Greater

Truth.”

God fell silent and Saint Peter had to take up the slack. “Maybe on Earth the fast

crowd that you ran with accepted that as just the way things are. But up here,” the

Saint gave an expansive gesture that indicated all the far reaches of the heavenly

world, “we don’t cotton for anything that cheapens the Word.”

God chimed in with, “Yes, that’s just not how we see it up here. There is the Truth

and then there are Lies, and the twain never does meet.”

Now every image that George had experienced over the last twenty minutes resonated

inside his Soul. “I know what you are telling me,” he said sadly. “I have been

fooled. And I mean to make up for it.”

He gazed around. “So tell me how I do that? Do I go to Hell now? Or maybe to

Purgatory? Tell me what my sentence is,” (and here the President let out a

discernible gulp), “and I will surely accept it.”

“Are you positive that you plan on mending your ways?” George W still could not

bring himself to meet the eyes of the Lord, so he just looked down at the ivy ground

cover coating the clouds and said, “Yes, God. I really, really do mean to change.”

Then God explained to George about reincarnation. Since George still had many

lessons that he needed to work on, it was agreed that he would have to go back to

Earth.

”This is how it will work for you,” God began explaining. “I have already selected a

couple of families that are awaiting the birth of a little baby. They are eager for

this child to enter their lives so that they can love and nurture him. They plan on

doing everything that they can to help him or her grow into a spiritual person who

will do My Work. You will have several families to choose from.”

Considering everything George had learned about his major mistakes, he was rather

incredulous. “You mean that this new family will love me? That even though I did so

many rotten things, I will be given to a family that is capable of love? And they

will love even me?”

God felt it would be difficult to explain the next part to George W.

Even though there were all those people whose lives had been wounded by the man,

he wished that some things did not have to be as they had to be. But He could

soften the blow.

“George, Ipromise you, your new family won’t have any way of knowing who you have

been. They will be indeed very nice people and very fond of children. I will

personally see to it that you are their favorite. But you do have a choice here

to make - do you want to be born in Afghanistan, or do you choose Iraq?”