It started when Ivan Warren Sturgess went on a world tour. Everywhere he went in the world, he would call his name is a loud voice:
“My name has echoed around the world”, he used to say.
On the steps of Saint Peter’s in Rome:
Up the Eiffel Tower in Paris:
At the Taj Mahal in Agra, India:
On and on it went. At China’s Great Wall:
Now that he was back home, and even if driving along a lonely country lane where he had never been before, he would wind down the car window and shout out:
It so happened that Ivan Warren Sturgess died. He was an egotist; he was not yet ready for heaven, claimed God. His name had echoed undeservedly around the world. He must walk the earth as an ill-tempered spirit and shout his name in every place he’d missed.
“All over the world. Down every country lane,” said God.
“That will take an eternity,” said Ivan Warren Sturgess.
The Devil had a good cackle over that one.