Guillotines Direct

A Christmas Carol

Starring Your Favorite President (TRUMP!)

STAVE ONE

Herman Cain was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Trump signed it: and Trump’s name was good upon ’Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Cainy was as dead as his pizza company.

Nobody ever stopped Trump in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Trump, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o’clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Trump. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at all is better than a Trump eye, dark master!”

But what did Trump care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Trump.

Once upon a time, on Christmas Eve, Trump sat alone in the White House – working hard, thank you. He could hear Republicans in the Christmas party below, wheezing with Covid and Christmas cheer.

“Merry Christmas, Dad!” cried a cheerful and dangerously stupid voice. It was the voice of Trump’s son, Donald Jr.

“Bah!” said Trump, “Humbug!”

“Christmas a humbug, Dad? You don’t mean that. I was hoping you might show me a father’s love, today of all days. To own the libs.”

Having nothing else to say, Trump simply retorted, “Bah humbug!”

Choking back tears, Donald Jr left his father’s office, seeking the comforting arms of his girlfriend, who was paid by the Trump administration to be his girlfriend.

At this, Trump slammed the door to his office (the 12 foot walk was an arduous task which left him exhausted and panting) and began the marathon walk back to his desk, hoping to press the Diet Coke button and begin his hard work of looking at twitter for 9 hours. However, he found a man sitting in his desk.

“Ben Carson! Wow, what… you’re… hello!”

“No, Donald, guess again.”

“Jeff Sessions, is that… are you in that chair?”

“Guess again, Donald, as if your very life depended on this night!” retorted the man in a chilling voice.

“I don’t.. wow… okay. Rudy?”

At this, the man produced a spectral pizza before him and stood up. His body was wrapped in heavy iron chains.

“Do you know me now, Donald? I am dead, nearly 5 months now. Yet I return to you on this night.”

“I don’t… I’m… I only have the one black, Ben. And you’re… are you sure?”

“I am Herman Cain.”

Trump stood, befuddled.

“Herman Cain, who died of Covid in July of this very year after attending one of your rallies!” The spirit seemed angry now, the lights began to flicker in the Oval Office and his heavy chains rattled with each slight movement. Trump still stood, glassy eyed and confused.

“Perhaps you doubt me, Trump, thinking me to just be a slight disorder of the stomach! Perhaps an undigested bit of beef, some underdone potato. You might believe there to be more of gravy than of grave to me, hmmm?”

At this, Trump retorted. “Do you… is there gravy there? They don’t let me eat as much any more, but I’d… I’ll take the beef, also. Is there… is that pizza for me? Wow.”

It was a habit with Trump, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his pants pockets. His hands swung freely.

“I don’t even give a shit, I’m burning in Hell and I’d rather deal with that than you. It’s not enough that you fucking killed me, huh? Nooooo, now I have to come wander the Earth to teach you a lesson. I’m out, you hear me? Drag me back to Hell, let me wander Earth, whatever. See you later, fucko. I hope the three spirits drop you down an elevator shaft or something.”

With this, the spirit disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Trump remarked quietly to himself “Wow, Ben Carson, what a guy. My black guy, he works for me.”

STAVE TWO

When Trump awoke it was so dark that, looking over the mountain of diet Coke cans on his desk, he could scarcely make out the walls of his office. He had once remarked that it was impossible to hide in this room as there were no corners, because it was an Oval, wow, that’s why they called it that.

“So I… okay. It happened again, I slept through an entire day. Okay, time… gotta do the pills again, the powerful pills. Bing bing bing.”

The idea being an exciting one, Trump lay in this state until the clock began to chime.

“Bing, bing!”

“I can draw the clock, okay, I drew a wonderful clock and they said so. The men in the coats told me it was a good clock, coming from the brain.”

The curtains were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. It was a strange figure—like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

“Harlan Hill, is that you?”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past. Your past.”

“What have I passed, Spirit?”

“No, I mean… Jesus Christ, I knew it. I knew I’d get this guy. I mean the past, things that happened years ago. For you.”

Trump was already wandering off to the door at this, and raised a hand to wave goodbye.

“You know what, your pudding brain probably doesn’t even remember this stuff. Do you remember when your Dad bought you a car you wanted and then smashed it in front of you? Or when you stole a gift from your brother and then destroyed it rather than give it back to him? Any of this ring a bell, buddy? Any of this making you regret being a huge piece of shit for 70 years?”

Trump was now sitting on his chair, cheeks barely on the edge. His face had taken on a serious tone and he sat with his fingertips touching each other.

“Perhaps we could make a deal, Spirit. I’m a good deals guy, surely you’ve heard of this. I will… you can have the USA, the whole thing, but you gotta give me the beef the other one was talking about. I’ll… I’ll buy the gravy as well, also. And all the vaccines, you can have those.”

At this, the spirit disappeared. Had anyone in the room been paying attention, they might have heard a spectral “For fuck’s sake” echo from nowhere in particular.

STAVE THREE

Awakening in the middle of a prodigious snore, Trump felt restored to consciousness. His thoughts flitted along like hummingbirds and certain words made his brain “feel hot”, just like normal.

Seeking diet coke and fish delights, Trump reached for the doorknob of the Oval Office and opened the door.

Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in! and know me better, man!”

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!”

Trump looked upward. “Wow, a… where’s the present. The Christmas Present? Did you know I did that, I made…. they weren’t saying that before me. And you might say the vaccine is a wonderful present, a great present which I created.”

“Okay, they weren’t kidding. Let’s just do this quick. Your son is crying on twitter right now as his “girlfriend” screams into a dark hallway. Your other son, Eric, is stripping copper wires from the walls of this building. Is that enough?”

Trump stared, comprehending nothing.

“Your wife is currently googling “How to get immunity” as we speak, okay? Is any of this sinking in? Half the country hates you, literally hates you, and a few million children specifically said they hope you die this year, that was their wish. How’s that strike you? Are you growing as a person, maybe just a little?”

Trump had waddled down the hallway, muttering about Christmas presents. The Ghost of Christmas Present disappeared.

STAVE FOUR

Trump had discovered a pile of presents. A handwritten card sat upon them, proclaiming “For those cancer kids”. Trump happily began unwrapping the presents. A nerf gun (good, they didn’t let him play with the real thing any more, not after he shot Jared in the kneecap), a Barbie doll, several die-cast cars. And, most exciting to Trump, a box of cookies. He greedily scarfed down the cookies and began smashing the other toys with a hammer, getting a small joy from knowing that he was taking something away from another human being.

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When it came near him, Trump bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

“Rudy? Where’s Rudy?” said Trump

The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.

Before Trump and the Spirit appeared a lonely hillside, covered in mud. Two big guys, strong guys, straight out of central casting stood there, dressed in black.

“When did he die?” inquired one.

“Last night, I believe.”

“Why, what was the matter with him?” asked the first. “I thought he’d never die.”

“God knows,” replied the other guy, with a yawn. “I heard he shit himself to death, but he might just have shit himself AFTER he died. Either way, I heard he was on the toilet and they needed to peel him off with a forklift.”

This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

They left this scene and headed up the hill, where mourners dressed in black carried an oversized casket.

“Let me do it!” exclaimed one, and as Trump and the Phantom drew nearer, they saw that this was Donald Jr. “Let me carry it alone! I can lift so much, I’m super strong!”

The other mourners; Eric, Jared, Ted Cruz, and Mike Pence, all dropped their load onto Donald Jr. The final pallbearer, BARRON T, had been hunched over to carry the casket and finally stood up to his full height. He walked away and, with just 5 steps, was several miles away.

A sickening pop came from Don Jr’s back and he fell under the casket. Both he and the casket went skidding down the muddy hillside. The casket opened up when it hit a headstone and a body flew out. It struck a large statue and burst open like a rotten piece of fruit. The mourners rushed down to the body and began to stand over it.

“I get the fillings!”

“They couldn’t get his watch off when they buried him, but if we chop his hand off we can get it!”

“I’ll bet we can sell his skeleton online. The skull at least!”

The mourners took their pieces and left. Mike Pence solemnly yet passionately kissed his white horse and rode off into the stormy darkness.

The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to the body. Trump advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.

“Who’s that loser? ” said Trump, “Answer me that. Make a good deal with me here.”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the corpse by which it stood.

“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Trump. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!”

The Spirit uttered a loud “What?” and, in shock, let down its hood. Staring back was the face of Donald’s father, weathered and decayed with age.

Trump crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, looked upon the neglected body and saw a red MAGA hat.

“I like guys who don’t die, okay? Not so great when they die. BYE BYE.”

The finger pointed from the body to him, and back again.

“Okay so… I’m… I see the guy. I’m looking at him.”

The finger still was there.

“This guy died. The china flu, perhaps, maybe… we should have looked at doing the HYDROXY I guess, that’s… okay. Why was Ivanka here? Where’s she going? Can we go there, perhaps… are we going to her bathroom?”

The finger still was there.

“Listen, the guys… they do the pictures for me. The eggheads, you know, the science guys. They love me, I know more than them on a LOTTA things. So I understand things, okay? I do things like nobody thought possible, I got an IQ… it’s really good.”

STAVE FIVE

Trump awoke in the Oval Office and found the sun had risen.

Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!

“What’s today!” cried Trump, calling downward to a Secret Service Agent, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“I wasn’t texting Melania, sir. Uh… it’s Christmas Day.”

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Trump to himself. “I haven’t missed it.”

Trump reached into his pocket and found his phone. Logging into twitter (Password: MAGA2020123) he composed a great tweet, wonderful tweet, to celebrate the season.

@RealDonaldTrump: HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL. A lot of people are Dead of the Wuhan Flu, China should be Very Sorry! I survived (immune) and am opening a Great Present this year, unlike Many. Next Year, I will be President and will MAGAGA (Make America Great Again Great Again). Thank you!

His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.

I’ve always been very good at the tests, okay, I got a LOT of postiives… lots of positives and lots of tests. And now? You might say I tested the most positive of all. The biggest positive I’ve… well….

*Snffffffffffffff*

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

But the test, they take you into the room, and they give you the cup. And they say “Mr. President, SIR, you need to fill the cup.” And I said, well… where’s the… I need the magazine. I need the book. Where’s the book? And then you blink, you close your eyes for a second, and you’re in a different room. And they’ve got a stick, okay, they put a stick up your nose. They put the stick up and you feel it touch the brain, and then you…. that’s how they do it.

So then somebody comes back, they come back with the results. And you’ve gotten tested 100 times, 108 times, 117 times maybe. And you’re fine each time. And then somehow, like magic, you get the positive. And you say “Wow, another positive, that’s good!” But then they come up to you, big guys, tears in their eyes. And they say “No, the positive is bad.”

And it takes a while, but it’s 3 hours later and you understand that the positive is bad. They really should call it a negative, we’re thinking of renaming it that, but we….

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

But Melania has it, too. And she starts crying, she’s crying so much. They say we need to stay in a room together and she grabs the knife, she says she would rather die of the knife than stay in the room with me. And you… that’s how it goes. It’s… that’s why we can’t do the windmills, because your TV would never work, and you’d be talking to the wife. Or daughter, in some cases.

*COUGH COUGH COUGH*

But we’re…. hello. I can see them a lot clearer now, of course, he’s… he’s in the corner now, getting much closer. It’s incredible.

Wow, so… it’s… it’s that day again, the 9th…. the 11th of the 9th, which means September. September 11th, you might call it. The day that will live infamously, as they said at the time.

And we still remember, believe me, some of us are… we were there. Many of us, myself included, ran into the towers as they were falling, ran in and saved many lives. I carried out 3 children, 3 children who are with us today. They’re in the back of this crowd, waving, because I saved them. They are now 20 years old, which is… wow. That’s an age, right? Wow. Get a look at these kids.

But it’s been 19 years since these terrible attacchhskkkssch hit our soil, the US soil, the dirt, and killed almost 3000 people. That’s about 3 days now, 3 days in the United States, and it happened all at once. Which is… that’s incredible, isn’t it? 3000 dead. And they stayed dead, unlike some. You know… you know what I mean.

*snffffffffffffffff*

But the US has gotten much stronger since then. Baracko Biden, he was President on that day, and we’ve all seen the famous photograph of him reading the book. He’s reading a book to a room full of angry dems, and then they say “Sir, it’s 9/11” and he has to react, very strongly. But he never did, never did the big reaction.

If I had been President then, believe me, it would have been a VERY different story. I’d have flown up there, I’d have talked them down, I’m very good at making deals, making the amazing deals. You’ve seen what I’ve done with North Korea, we would have had WORLD WAR THREE if Hillary Obama had won, but they didn’t, I won, and now? Now things are doing incredible, really just… things are great. Doing amazing in many ways and about to do even more ways. But I’d have stopped the planes and maybe saved a LOTTA lives. Unfortunately though, I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t have the tallest building in New York then, would I? So, I suppose… I think that maybe there are always good things and bad things. And even in 9/11, there were good things.

And I remember getting the call on that day.

“Sir, the towers are going down. There’s smoke everywhere and the towers are going down. What do we do?”

And I was watching TV, okay, I don’t watch much TV but I was watching 13 hours of TV and I turned it and saw the planes. And at first you think “Wow, this is a good way to collapse a building” and then maybe you have a bad thought, you think about your brother who flew a plane and you think maybe he’s come back, he’s finally come back to get you. But it’s not that, thank God, it’s just a plane hitting a building. And some people died, it’s fine, you’re fine. And now? Now you have the tallest building in the world.

*snffffff*

So on this, the holiest of 9/11s, I’m… God blesschhh us. That’s…. that’s what I remember. The skyscrapers, or cloud touchers we call them, but everybody left. And I remember seeing the Muslims dancing in the street. Dancing in the street and AOC was there with them, serving them drinks from the bar she owned. And I turned around and Joe Biden was there doing a hula dance. And that’s… that’s what you need to know, okay? That was 9/11. And Joe Biden didn’t do a THING to stop it.

I’m here because…. well… we can see. There’s a black man, he died, he’s dead… and a cop killed him, but there are a LOTTA questions, of course. But I know bad cops, I’ve been dealing with them since day one. LISA PAGE, THE WONDERFUL LOVERS. LYIN’ JAMES COMEY. And the rest. Bad cops, awful cops, and you might say that they killed me, too. I know that I, also, can’t breathe. That’s what he said, what George said. You see the video, he can’t breathe, and we’ve…. that’s not a great way to die.

But you…. you can’t stop the cops, they do some wonderful things. About a…. maybe a week ago, I wanted to go to a beautiful church. To take the Bible, or GOOD BOOK as it’s known, to go for the walk and stand in front of the church, as you do. And I said “Okay, I’m going to go do this.”

And the guys, the generals, they said “Oh no, SIR, there’s a riot! A terrible riot and it’s…. it’s not good.”

So I asked where were the cops. Where’s the cops? And they said “We don’t know, Obama didn’t leave us any of the cops, or police men AND WOMEN as they are known.” So I got us the cops, they did the thing, they sprayed the pepper balls, and I walked to the church.

Which, BY THE WAY, BY THE WAY? You get pepper on food, they can put pepper on food and it’s not… it’s not a chemical. It’s what’s known as a mineral, I believe, a seasoning. So you… these people complaining about the taste? The burn? You…. I thought black people enjoyed spicy food, that’s what Diamond and Silk have said to me. They are my African Americans, I own…. well…. we don’t do that any more. But I…. they love me. They love me. They’re my blacks.