The Meeting of the Minds

Some of history's greatest figures meet in the next realm

 

NOTE: This is a fictional piece, but is based on real events. Actual quotes are in italics.

Shakespeare, Napoleon, Horatio Nelson, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, and Franz Kafka have all gathered and are having tea.

NAPOLEON: So, mes amis, what do you think of the afterlife so far?

HAMILTON:It's pretty good now that all the fools have been weeded out.

JEFFERSON: You think everyone's a fool.

HAMILTON:Yeah, but which of us is the very founder of capitalism in America? I am.

JEFFERSON:Your plan only benefited the elite. What about the working classes?

HAMILTON: They are not as important as the elite.

JEFFERSON: That's a load of bull.

HAMILTON: Oh yeah?

NELSON: OK, break it up you two. We are trying to have a peaceful afternoon.

SHAKESPEARE: Franz, thou seemest quiet today. What dost thou think?

KAFKA: Well,...I would have to side with Jefferson on the working class vs. the elite issue.

NELSON: Come to think of it,I whipped you at the battle of the Nile, Napoleon.

NAPOLEON: Yes, I know. You don't have to remind me. I should have won the Napoleonic Wars, they were named after me.

NELSON: Why is it that my country and I won the Napoleonic wars but you are the famous one?

NAPOLEON: I don't know, but I know there are more books about me than about you.

NELSON:There are a lot of books about me, too!

SHAKESPEARE: Speaking of books Franz, since we are both literary geniuses, what are your views on writing?

KAFKA: Well, for me, writing is a form of prayer.

NELSON: How so?

KAFKA: Writing is, for me, a spiritual act because it forces one to focus on one's inner soul.

SHAKESPEARE: Interesting.

KAFKA: Also, a book should be an ax for the sea of ice within us.

SHAKESPEARE: What dost thou mean by that?

KAFKA: By that I mean that a book should affect one emotionally, breaking the ice that is representative of one's inner desensitized being.

NELSON: Wow, Franz, that's pretty profound.

SHAKESPEARE: I agree with you on that one, Franz. I always wrote for effect, trying to make the audience really feel for my characters.

KAFKA: That is precisely how every great author writes.

NAPOLEON: Do you consider yourself an existentialist, Franz?

KAFKA: I do not align myself with any literary movement.

Einstein enters and sits between Kafka and Shakespeare.

EINSTEIN: It's really cold out there.

NAPOLEON: Have some tea and make yourself at home.

EINSTEIN: Danke schon.

NAPOLEON: What did you say?

KAFKA: He said "thank you" in German.

NAPOLEON: Ah, I see.

NELSON: So Einstein, do you believe in the existence of time?

EINSTEIN: Yes, if it did not exist, it would not have worked in my theory of relativity.

KAFKA: So you don't think it is merely an intellectual construct?

EINSTEIN: No. If you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it feels like two hours, but if you talk to a pretty girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. That's relativity.

HAMILTON: So you are claiming that time is relative?

EINSTIEN: I am claiming that our PERCEPTION of time is relative. There is a difference.

KAFKA: Yeah, it's like in my story about the train station where the man has his own time independent of the time on the clock.

EINSTEIN: Exactly.

JEFFERSON: How do you objectively measure an entity that people experience as relative?

EINSTIEN: You can do that because Time itself is objective. It is only our perception of it that is relative.

HAMILTON: Isn't it weird that a day up here is like a thousand years on Earth and vice versa?

NAPOLEON: Oui. It's quite weird.

KAFKA: Yeah. I've probably been here for a shorter time than any of you, but it's like we got up here at the same time.

EINSTEIN: Actually, I think I'm the most recent addition to our little group since mine was the most recent death.

KAFKA: That's right. So many things have changed since I was there last.

EINSTEIN: Have you heard about the Internet?

NELSON: I have. It's so amazing. A message that would have taken weeks or even months to reach its destination in our time now takes seconds.

KAFKA: It seems in a lot of ways that my vision of the future was correct, in that life is so beaurocratic and isolative since our time.

EINSTEIN: Yes, you certainly could describe the 20th century as "Kafkaesque."

NAPOLEON: Franz, why do you have your own adjective?

KAFKA: For the same reason that you do. Both of us got famous enough. Why it happened to me is beyond my imagination.

SHAKESPEARE: Thou art so hard on yourself, Franz.Thou art only one of the world's greatest authors.

Kafka blushes

KAFKA: Thanks, but really I'm not...

SHAKESPEARE: Shh! I would not hear your enemy say so.

NAPOLEON: William, aren't you overdue for a reincarnation?

SHAKESPEARE:I already went back as Emily Dickenson and George Orwell. I'm done with Earth.

NAPOLEON: If you're done reincarnating why aren't you in Nirvana? This is only a secondary Heaven, a rest stop between lives. Real Paradise is on the next plane.

SHAKESPEARE: I've been there. But there are so few people up there that it got lonely, so I came back here.

KAFKA: If you were other authors how did you decide which incarnation to take the form of when you got here?

SHAKESPEARE: Shakespeare was the most successful, so I use his persona.

Kafka's pager beeps

KAFKA: Dang, someone calling for a seance again.

NAPOLEON: Yeah, I've gotten plenty of calls to do seances. They're so annoying, because the people always ask you "What is the afterlife like?" and of course we can't tell them because it would be breaking the rules...

KAFKA: (sigh) Well, I'd best be going.

NAPOLEON: Au revoir.

KAFKA: Auf Wiedersehen.

HAMILTON: I think I'd better go because I have an appointment with God to schedule my next reincarnation.

NELSON: Me too.

NAPOLEON: Well, it was nice talking to all of you.

JEFFERSON: Same here.

Everyone says goodbye to each other and one by one they leave.

 

Reviews

[Fear Corrupts!]

This is interesting...creative topic.
I like the humour incorporated into this, makes the read more enjoyable (obviously).
Alos, a great flow.

Good Write,

Fear Corrupts!