Loop Day — a novel

anti-empire satire of Trump and plutocracy — full text — revised and expanded from serialization

From mid 2024 to early 2025, I serialized here an anti-empire satiric novel of Trump and the plutocracy. Too hot for the literary establishment to handle, I publish this partisan time loop novel here as one full document for the first time. Share it with anyone, if you like, along with your own personalized note of outrage about things as they are and must not be.

Preface

Loop Day — Trump on calamitous repeat. A satire of the police and military state, the insecurity state. Literature can help decolonize and liberate, as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o notes. Decolonize and liberate — that might be the best use of literature in this desperate day and age of plutocrat propaganda and murderous oppression.

When the establishment literati won’t allow it, let alone provide it, it’s left to others, to the people, to flyte the flyter, agitate, and lacerate the retrograde toxic leaders of white Empire. Trump and Trumpism and state-capitalist politics in general in the supremacist police state that is America have metastasized as the most destructive, brutal, and bigoted forces of empire ever to be found on planet Earth. Imperial Nation — Coup Nation. On time loop.

Loop Day calls out Empire, and strikes back.

Day of the Devil — Chapter One

“The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.” -Karl Marx

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Young and strong, and bleeding profusely from his gut, our hero, keen Navajo Presidential Aide, Leif Oak stands with his back to the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, a bloody sword sticking out through his stomach.

This is not the way Leif had foreseen his career going, speared by an eviscerating sword, his life spilling out in brilliant bursts. Stabbed in the back by the President.

President Tyrump leans over from the other side of the desk squeezing the hilt of the sword.

Surely Tyrump can slaughter his workers in the Oval Office and not lose a single vote — such is the cult of white Empire, the megalomania that backs Con Don Tyrump’s cult of personality. Bully Boy Don. Carnival Barker Don. White Supremacist Don. Con Don.

In fact, far from losing support, Con Don might gain votes by such dastardly deed. So he thinks, having pierced Leif Oak unintentionally when he had meant only to pretend to play war with his ancestral Bavarian sword in the Oval Office.

Tyrump keeps tight his grip on the hilt of the sword, momentarily stunned by what he has done. Then he plays it off. Tyrump is an experienced actor who knows instinctively how to front a role, and not just any role, the King role, the preeminent part on the main stage of the whole wide world.

Shysters have always been the best Presidents of Empire, in America as elsewhere, going all the way back to the Original Gangster, George Washington. Some would say that the Top Office of the American state was immaculately designed for the Shyster-in-Chief. How else to form a slave-holding, Native-slaughtering, land-wrecking, world-invading Empire and call it a Constitutional democracy? You need that bloody Shyster-in-Chief, every time.

And a fervent, deluded, bigoted citizenry. To whom Tyrump today holds the firmest claim. The quintessential Tyrump voters despise democracy and pompously point out that America is technically not a Constitutional democracy but a Constitutional republic wherein only entitled citizens have the right to select representatives to rule in the public interest. This is why the purest Tyrump voters feel so self-righteous in their efforts to deny the vote to people they look down upon, are bigoted against, or otherwise fear and despise.

Only entitled citizens count in Tyrumplandia.

This putrid claim is that a person must be more than alive and willing to legally vote on a stolen continent that the purest Tyrumpists thievishly think is theirs by Divine Right. Yes Sire, one must be an entitled citizen to legally vote in America, be more like the Masters and Lords of olde. Make America Medieval Again. MAMA. No Sire, life itself is not enough to be Constitutional in America. “Life” not so much a value, after all. America is not a democracy! So say the Good Old Boys. Noble geniuses all. Perish the thought! America is a Grand Old Republic! Worthy of a Grand Old Party of contemptuous entitlement and dripping red wealth.

Yes, Kind Readers, there goes the right to vote as defined by a bunch of Native-slaughtering, slave-owning, rich and pillaging, superstitious dead white men – dreadful centuries gone by. Ship of deadly tools. You see, Tyrump and his purest supporters feel infinitely validated by the naughty scribbles — some call it Evil — of this long since rotted crew of Founding Scoundrels. The purest Tyrump voters act in endless titillation, full of necrophiliac and incestuous urges for the sordid European clans of conquerors with blood-thirsty appetites that drove, that drives the European invasion over the continent and world, today, ongoing. Continents and worlds that the invaders claim without irony as their own.

Take merely one of the Tyrumpists’ oh so noble forefathers, General George Custer — he who fiendishly pranced across the Great Plains with the US Army in an attempt to build his resume to run for President by slaughtering Native Americans, the conventional path, only to be himself slaughtered by those he would wipe from the face of the Earth, good European invader that he was. Sometimes the Empire gets nipped back along its blood-bounding way.

Now, here today comes Con Don Tyrump fiendishly prancing across the cheap plywood and electronic stage of the Incorporated Estates of America denouncing and attacking Black and Brown refugees and citizens and women and children and the impoverished and the neglected and the health-wrecked, the destitute, the victims of Empire in order to gain and maintain the Presidency of the Entire World! Tyrump and all the bully boy presidents want nothing less than to fully create the Incorporated Estates of Dearth (yes, a geo-political IED) — at the point of a gun — Pax Americana — that is, by way of the Incorporated Estates of the American Empire’s existing global military force — worldwide installations and weaponry that already dominate land, sea, air, and space — backed by the Empire’s bone-crushing economic power — marauding corporations, investment banks, and sanctions galore. Corporate-state terrorism, financial tyranny and bigotry unbounded.

President Con Don Tyrump is the very apotheosis of the terrible fixed idea held by his purest supporters — Death to Democracy! — an idea that is so horribly wrong that one cannot go too far in denouncing it. Or shall we go-along-to-get-along and subtly nuance the thing and call this malignant notion perhaps, say, “misguided”? Well, then, Tyrump’s purest supporters are misguided in the light they are blind to and brainwashed against.

You’re not a serious or lively person, you’re not clever or big-hearted — you’re a weak sell-out and you’re wrong and dishonest — if you want to see the thing subtly limned and nuanced, the rapacious way of the purest Tyrumpists — those most pure Tyrump souls who accuse honest intellectuals of being know-it-all, above-it-all, dumb-as-a-wall, bleeding flakes and fake tender heartless hearts.

There’s no point in trying to assuage bad faith actors or the wholly duped. Others certainly know them more than they know Others, because they don’t know Others any more than they care to. The purest Tyrumpists are very skilled at being wrong even as they think they are right. They are certainly of the right — tyranny — and opposed to the left — freedom. And they are certainly not in the right in being of the right — even though they think they are. If they even care, which many do not.

The purest Tyrumpists are among the most brainwashed, uncaring, and careless people in the world. And many are very, very rich. Some think they see the Divine Light. Some are Liars of Empire in an Empire of Lies. Insanity abounds where so much foolish and fraudulent and deadly make-believe is both fostered and allowed to fester. This make-believe often comes with as much power as reality — or more — as much appeal and force as sanity — or more. Better the Devil you think you know by your own good day than the Devil you wildly imagine in those nasty Others’ wicked, wicked nights.

And so in this sad, bad day of their lives, the purest Tyrumpers say, “Fuck ‘em all.” The purest ethos of Tyrumpists is to act tough, bully along, and pretend to righteousness, self-righteousness, no matter how bloody or insane.

And so it is that on this fateful day, Dear Leader Con Don Tyrump thrusts with his scurrilous blade wreckingly and without remorse, and Leif Oak takes the sword through his guts, from behind, from the incendiary aspiritual leader of the Incorporated Estates of Dearth.

Poor Leif is torn in half, and is in no way surprised.

Fortunately — and not — today is Loop Day.

And what of my own seeming self, as the teller of this tale that strips bare the current state of The Fake and Unholy Disunion? A discorporeal entity of time? Let it be. Let us bear ripe witness to the ever-lethal trap, this endlessly cruel Day of Our Lives. Then let’s step in and change it.

You can’t shock a particular sort of viewpoint, victimizer or victim. You can’t shock Leif Oak, not by now. And, if you’re a novelist ambitious to the hilt (so to speak) you’ve made it your purpose in life to see shit that most people can’t even dream of or won’t because they don’t dare, or they don’t wish to, or they don’t want to. Not yet, anyway. Meanwhile the blood-soaked vampires of the world and the dumb-as-a-rock brain-eating zombies are so hopelessly and destructively puritanical in their brute violence that they try to ban as many novels as they possibly can — just like the witch hunters and the idea killers of old. Witch! Witch! Witch! These Crusaders are medieval and waging a Holy War in what they think is Divine Light but is actually make-believe bullshit. Witch! Witch! Witch! They speak of Hell because they know it — they created it. Witch! Witch! Witch! They are the literal Original Gangsters of Hell. Here to haven Hell on Earth. They point the finger of accusation at everyone but themselves. Witch! Witch! Witch! Unwitting or not, and ironically so, the witch hunters are easily among the most possessed beings on the planet. Witch! Witch! Witch!

And the level of fraud is almost beyond comprehension. Right — the purest Tyrumpists know they are become the Evil they spout on about, and they don’t care, because they are like their White Supremacist, White Empire, old dealer Con Don Tyrump himself. They’ve played the long con their entire lives. They’ve become the Con. They are the grotesque Con Don mini-hes. The purest devotees of the Con Art. The witting and wealthiest among the purest Tyrumpists are easily among the worst people in the world — all menace and thug exploitation. Not at all ameliorated by their thinking or pretending that they are among the best people in the world!

Then there are those hapless Tyrumpists who don’t have the faintest idea what they are doing in their brainwashed work. Not even when they think they do. Especially then. Does not make them any less damaging to the vote. They’ve been fooly Conned, their brains fooly conditioned to the habit of fooly Conning right along. They’ve become fool Con Don addicts, fool Con Don believers, fool Con Don Nuts. And they fooly think it’s real! Vibrant flesh-and-blood brains turned into synthetic counterfeit plastic flexing any which way the Con Don pushes. It’s Sad, it’s Bad — in Con Don speak.

Meanwhile, most Tyrumpists may be a psycho-babbling mix of the two — the Lying Cons and the Fool Cons. Lying Fool Cons. Supplicants, lethal swords of the King of Empire Con Don himself. They all would be ignored or isolated if there were not so much rich support for their profitable twisted spirits and their brazen cuckoo bird callousness. A mendacious, malicious type of cultural money laundering. Normalization of the corrupt. Making the illicit legit. These are the cultural foot-soldiers of the White Empire of the Big Buck.

How dare you speak power to truth?! People will get mad!!!

Tell it to Leif Oak. Tell it to Dhyna Durango. Tell it to the fucking Marines. Go pound sand. All that. Or tell it to anyone merely sane who is being torn apart and smashed to pieces for every bad reason on Earth.

Then tell it to the giant teratorn of this stubborn Loop Day narrative who haunts the Rose Garden by the Oval Office and stalks the dire days become Day of Dhyna Durango and Leif Oak. And see what kind of reaction you get from the giant teratorn.

Dearest Dhyna will be met soon, Patient Reader. And the extinct but intensely angry giant teratorn, as well, who arrives screaming into the day with the long-buried demands of the dead.

One might channel Nobel Prize in Literature winner, Wole Soyinka, or even the First Amendment of the US Constitution, to note that “Criticism like charity begins at home.” Imagine that.

Some have.

So then, by all means — ban this book! Censor it! Censure it! Gatekeep! You do so in Royal Defiance of the letter and the spirit of one of the actually inspired quality moments — the First Amendment — in the Tyrumpists’ Truly Holey Constitution.

Surely there’s a special place in Tyrumpists’ Hell for the book banners of the world, the run-of-the-mill idea exorcists and their unwitting or willing dupes. The insidious movement to brainwash in the name of a fraudulent purity is part of the game run by the theologist extremological shock troops and their ideology of Empire. Pious Moms and pugilist Dads. One might even consider it a sad, sad book these days where can be found no attempt to ban, censor, gatekeep, or torch it out of existence by the purest Tyrumpists — and also by their status quo liberal yet reactionary-in-effect counterparts. The hammer of Empire falls both as hard as the words of a culture war Tyrumpist, and soft as the keystroke of a financial warlord Corporatist.

Let’s not allow poor Leif Oak to linger too long in his painful, pitiful, eviscerated state, impaled by the corporate-state on its grinning gleaming sword, Kind Readers. We’ll return to that moment of the macabre soon. Meanwhile, these recriminations, extended denunciations, may be as much the story as the drama itself. Bear with, if you wish to see Leif Oak rise from the dead to triumph against those who would reign over his spilt blood in this too Terminal Day.

Okay, okay, Impatient Readers! You think I don’t hear you banging in my head? Back to dearest Leif, his fate, our fate, and the eternal play.

---

Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Krushin Karvin Kilman stands shocked in front of Presidential Aide Leif Oak who doubles over the killing edge of the sword in front of President Con Don Tyrump.

With both hands, Leif reflexively grabs the blade that sticks out through his belly. His hands then bleed in streams.

General Kilman has gone catatonic at the unnerving blood of the scene in the otherwise pristine Oval Office. Leif Oak and Con Don too are immobile, if clutching opposite ends of the sword that entirely guts Leif.

“Christ!” says President Tyrump.

“God oh God!” says General Kilman.

“My meds!” shouts Tyrump. “My med man!”

Leif bleeds from his guts like end times. His work in the Oval is indeed that of Addict Con Don’s on-the-spot nurse and ready rapid drug tailor, as well as impromptu gopher, Presidential pin cushion, and general punching bag to Lord Tyrant Tyrump.

How on Earth did someone of Leif Oak’s demographic disposition land in Tyrump’s Oval at all? The crazy optical dance of bigotry is not always what it may seem. More often than they like to admit, even the bigots make a pact with their fantasized Devils if they believe it’s the only way to get the goods they so desire, or need.

And so the Socialist Resistance covertly maneuvered both Leif Oak and Dhyna Durango into their oblique White House slots, as a last ditch attempt to control the worst of Con Don’s mercurial moods and terminal machinations in power. Not to mention as incidental espionage for the people. Dhyna and Leif are the Peoples’ spies, the Peoples’ eyes in the Oval. Though to no entirely great point, Dhyna would judge. As so would Leif. In fact, so ineffective has Leif felt in the Oval Office, so insufferable has been the maltreatment — long before the killer blade — that he wanted to quit more than anything. Only the warm and steady presence and the insistence of his co-revolutionist lover Dhyna Durango kept him on in the execrable job.

And yet now he has been killed by it.

With one last impossible effort, Leif squeezes the blade of the bloody sword, slicing deeper both hands, which ooze in fatal sheen.

In desperate attempt to not do nothing, General Krushin Karvin Kilman grabs Leif by both arms and jerks him off the sword. Simultaneously, President Tyrump – offended by his ancestral Bavarian sword being tainted and smeared by the impure blood of a brown commoner – rips back, tearing the red blade out of the shredded guts of Leif.

Tyrump falls into his chair and drops the bloody sword onto a large map of Texas that covers the Resolute Desk.

“There will be blood today!” shouts Tyrump.

Leif staggers to the near wall, collapses to floor. Gasping.

“God oh God!” says General Kilman.

“That guy supplies my meds,” says Tyrump. “Who will get me my meds?”

“Medic!” screams Kilman.

Leif vomits blood. Dies.

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Satisfied now, Greedy Reader, by that little bit of undignified and unholy and most gruesome action? A hero falls. Don’t worry. We’re merely getting warmed up to Leif’s greater rise from the dead, from the defeated, the dispatched, to the victorious, to the real, to the righteous, and — if not to ultimate revolution — at least to relief, release, and to some not insignificant and hopeful reprieve from the slaughter of his own mind and body in this ghastly day and age.

Yes, yes, and yes, don’t worry, Edgy Reader, it’s all very structural by design and designed by structure of a particular sort. Of good form, by good form, whereby form is most unique in shape when unique of content. Meanwhile, our story holds to the two-eye nature of story in that authors pursue themes as characters pursue goals — a story that flows from a main character pursuing a goal, in a challenging and dynamic world, where characters suffer, struggle, and overcome (or succumb). Can it not be that constant pursuit of a goal is as crucial in story as is constant focus on the one thing the story is truly about – the theme? How to be human in an inhuman world? How to be revolutionary in a reactionary world? How to be a survivor among killers? And so this story maintains both character focus on goal and author focus on theme — given our two-eye nature of story and mind that marks the mortal soul of a life, religious or not, that vast inner sea of who you really are, and the eternal swim of what you might become.

Who are you really? And what have you done? What is the scope of your sea? And what is the direction of your swim in the brute nature of this cosmic world that contains us?

Leif would like to know the answers to it all, even as he lies, for the moment, in death.

Okay? So that’s the nature of the structure of the story that might help us out here, the protagonist’s relentless pursuit of their goal, the author’s pursuit of their theme, and the drive of waves and particles, narrative engines that reveal emotion, insight, wonder, delight. Each scene or section — as you may see — illuminates and evokes theme to give the story artistic unity, integrity — to save Leif’s and Dhyna’s and our own true life. So if you think I don’t know what I’m doing here, Doubtful Reader — well — strap in and buckle up, because we’re going in fast and furious on one Jonah’s Whale of a dynamically designed ride.

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But first, do you think, Skeptical Reader, I can’t help but ask, do you wish to hear what more might be said about the purest Tyrumpists and their vaunted long-sought Dystopia? Righteous indignants with their one idea that is catastrophically wrong. Of course the purest Tyrumpists say the same thing about leftists, but they are wrong and in the wrong. And leftists are not — my blunt working theory — because why not? It’s clear. The purest Tyrumpists bray their one idea about America and the world, and it could not be worse in being so belligerent, so vicious, so bogus, so richly bankrupt.

Long ago, so very long ago, King of the Realm, George of England, was removed as Conqueror of America only to be replaced with a new form of King of Empire culminating in king cretin Con Don Tyrump today — he who continues the centuries-old slaughter of impoverished Blacks and Browns across all borders, and the ongoing enslavement on plantations called prisons of impoverished and attacked Blacks and Browns and plenty of busted Whites. Doing their deathly time in these internal concentration camps, death camps. Dungeons. You know, those infernal places of the Mid-Devil Ages into which the great Kings flung and doomed the desperate, the willful, the disobedient peoples of the realm, when not merely butchering them outright.

Can it be mere coincidence that Con Don’s near ancestors hail from the German Bavarian white supremacist heartland of the Nazis? There it is. Not to mention that the ex-wife of the blubbering campaign orator writes in her memoir of Con Don’s keeping Hitler’s book of speeches by his bed. Germans, ironically and tellingly, are by far the largest traditional immigrant group to America. And Con Don, born with a silver spoon in his ass, has predictably risen to the damnedest place in the world — Shyster-in-Chief, blood-red in tooth and wallet.

Kind Reader, might you insist that all this is too much sordid background for The Story of Our Day? Taboo background at that?

Is it, though? I think we can a have a little bit more honest and more expressive and more meaningful and more heartfelt literature than that. One does not wish — does one — to do the witch burners work for them in advance. Witch! Witch! Witch!

Be that as it may, let’s move on to the remainders of The Story of the Day of Our Lives in this potentially last and mangled atomic apocalyptic climate collapse of a Loop Day. Or, Doomsday Time Loop. Or, The Long Crying Death of the Mighty Extinct Giant Teratorn. Call it what you will, it’s a Day we can only hope to survive to never forget.

What might be some other good book-banning titles for such a tale?

Life ‘n Death in the Fracking Oval Office of the Filching White Empire.

All That’s Taboo.

American Taboo.

People Will Get Mad!

Ad Infinitum.

Okay, Restless Readers, back to Leif Oak, to the action line of the story, to the heroic pursuit of the main goal: life itself.

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With no memory of being killed and no idea that the day has reset in a time loop of unknown origin, Presidential Aide Leif Oak stands behind President Tyrump who sits at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office staring at a huge news screen on the wall.

A more than life-size Wolfe News Moderator reports in disbelief: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

Unhealthy and morose, plopped like a big shapeless lump of incredibly ambulatory cheese and — to use his own words against him — garbage at the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump hypnotically strokes his ancestral Bavarian sword. Con Don Tyrump would appear to be the very “garbage people” that he decries, with no irony, though he is very rich garbage, and supremely positioned, very dangerous in power.

Tyrump curls his upper lip at the Wolfe News anchor.

“My wonderful glorious invasion,” he says. “My gentle and lovely incursion.” He taps his billion dollar nails on the smooth where not sharp blade of the sword.

Leif looks away from the dispiriting news into the Rose Garden where he sees a massive bird land with an impressive thud, as if — rather than floating gracefully down — the giant teratorn superhero-hopped off the roof of the White House.

Fierce. Spreads wings. Thirty foot wingspan.

“Impossible,” says Leif, remembering from science class. “That’s a teratorn. Extinct since the Ice Age. Heaviest flying bird in history.”

The teratorn hisses at Leif.

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it!” says Tyrump.

Leif checks his phone.

“Soon, Sir.”

Leif looks out the windows again into the Rose Garden. The teratorn is gone.

“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”

Leif responds with tact: “He did indeed meet his end, Mr. President.”

“Did I replace him?”

“Not yet, Sir.”

“So it’s just you and me running the ship, Leif?”

“Sir, it’s just you.”

“That’s good.”

“Very efficient, Sir.”

Like an enormous turkey vulture eyeing potential roadkill on a country lane, Con Don Tyrump watches the approach of kitchen aide Dhyna Durango, a young Puerto Rican woman, as she brings him his diet cola. The good thing, from Con Don’s perspective, is that a server like Dhyna Durango is very affordable. The bad thing, from Tyrump’s awful eye, is that Dhyna Durango is an obvious border crosser.

Dhyna’s ethnicity, her race, her skin color make Tyrump both reflexively angry, nervous, morbidly suspicious, and — he could never admit it — tantalized. Here she strolls, even struts in his land, all angles soft and motions dizzying, independent and standoffish, in his territory, his space, walking all over his rights — in the very Oval Office itself! — in the Whitest of Houses! So Dhyna moves, in face of Tyrump, like a stealthy border crosser, smug, he believes, in possession of his diet cola.

What is to be done about this invasion of even Tyrump’s own home, the White House of the Nation, by these affordable Others? True, two of Tyrump’s wives are immigrants too, and all of his grandparents, and his mother was an immigrant as well — but they were white! And worthy! Not brown! Not black! Not bad! Why cannot the entire world be all-white, blonde, and blue-eyed? That would not be Devilish at all! Why, it would be saintly, ethereal, snowy, pure.

If a bit bloody.

And so it goes. This is the sick and perverted legacy of those whites who feel threatened by the extended Day, by the formerly captured and enslaved black people driven and controlled by white merchants and white slavers and by the formerly exterminated native brown people in the land white Europeans and their descendants continue in systematic ways financial and social to attempt to conquer. Dhyna knows too well. To Dhyna, President Tyrump is merely one in an unending line of bigoted bosses that she has seen and dealt with through life — a psycho sort so often sitting at the height of power, in the middle of The Fucking Day.

Though much more to the point at the moment, Dhyna and only Dhyna is aware of the otherworldly time loop that holds Leif and herself and who knows how many others in the fearsome grind of the Oval Office, in the White House, on this fatal fateful final day.

Leif and Dhyna are lovers. They tried to keep it on the down low at work with great success. But this eternal infernal stretch of time changes everything for Dhyna. She no longer cares who knows what, given the unprecedented demands of her day. The relevance of her office love life to an office work life that never changes — she sees no ramifications worth worrying about anymore. She now could not care less if even the lumpy old letch Con Don Tyrump is forced to deal with the fact that she and Leif are lovers — because why not? They all die this day. Each and every one. Every time. Each and every cycle. Might as well let out the last secrets before the big boom ends it all again. And again. Again.

Lizard-eye Tyrump fixates on Dhyna’s shape — so full and promising to his pineal mind. (Nothing against lizards but evidently this is the rather primitive level that generates what might be considered thought in Tyrump.) Tyrump’s eyes dribble out of his head, passing from Dhyna’s swell of breasts to her methodically working butt and on down to her shockingly human legs and toes — he simultaneously consumes her and dismisses her as server — while piercing her into the musty old museum case of his shabby brain. Trying to grab her all the way around her back by the spine with his brute eyes he would swallow her whole if he could. There is something about Dhyna though that he finds to be indigestible. He projects and thinks he knows what it is. She is a dark witch. Tyrump is certain.

He is both repelled and fascinated by this outlander of a kitchen aide come to present to him and to serve him as he properly must be presented to and served. So very Royally. The pleasure he finds in being served by a witch in the White House remains one of the more appealing parts of his day. Not that he could ever admit it. But it’s almost on the order of carrying out his plan to invade Texas and Mexico simultaneously. Such is the potential and feared power of the likes of Dhyna Durango over Con Don Tyrump and his ilk.

Tyrump flicks the tip of his grabby tongue over his bloodless lips as Dhyna carries the diet cola toward him, for him. On a small metal tray. With a coaster and a napkin. In a classic glass bottle. With a plastic straw. Per Creepy Con Don’s pleasure and request. Here she comes.

“Mr. President, your diet cola.”

Dhyna hesitates, then sets the napkin and coaster on the map of Texas that entirely covers the desk. She places the cola on the coaster near Dallas. Dhyna feels a complex blend of bad vibes for Dallas, something to do with the snotty white wealth of the place made plain by the old TV show that runs on endless repeat. Not that Dallas is only one thing, Dhyna knows. Far from it. There’s a different Dallas – much less well known than the one typically shown on the big money screen.

Tyrump raises the cola and manages to tear his gaze from Dhyna’s body to look into her eyes for a darting moment. He feels instantly stabbed, seen, misunderstood by Dhyna’s laser look. She seems to be telling him something. It seems to be, “Fuck you, you Cretin, you Creep.”

Tyrump is knocked back. Briefly jolted, then frozen. He does not drop the cola.

Maybe she’s having a bad day, he thinks. He recovers.

“To my great and glorious day.” He toasts himself gaudily.

Con Don Tyrump sips his cola and strokes his sword and returns to watching his swaggering, threatening presence onscreen where news of his announced invasion of Texas and Mexico is reported nonstop.

Nothing quite like his ultra-enhanced image on the big screen. God, he loves to look at himself, listen to himself. He is his own idol. What a figure he cuts. The screen makes him look even bigger than actual three-dimensional life, especially to himself.

It’s the strangest sort of advanced technology, digital beams burning people’s brains with neuron-killing power. Studies show: the more you watch, the less you know. And Tyrump, like his carefully courted and counted faithful flock of loyal-consumers-in-training, devout to all things would-be holy but in reality very shitty, he watches and is watched constantly by these digital beams of mental evisceration. Con Don Tyrump watches and is watched as if by artificial hawks flying high on shifty currents of predatory algorithms.

And what of Dhyna Durango? What of Leif Oak? Caught in the Day’s loop for endless months, with no one in the know to talk to, Dhyna has lost track of the passing days, weeks, eons. She is no thug ruler like Sisyphus, so why does she need to roll that damned boulder of his to the top of the mountain each day, only to see it roll back down again, to be pushed back up by her the very next day. Which is every day. The same fucking day! And the next. And the next. And goddamn it!

Today, yet again, Dhyna takes the long way out of the Oval Office. She carries the metal serving tray like a shield against Con Don Tyrump and circles toward her fellow doomed captive, Leif.

If this Devil’s delight of a day is Dhyna’s life forever now, her precious one and only existence, she could use less of it. Maybe that’s the point of making up the afterlife, to lead people to tolerate the intolerable, the one and only life that always kills you and everything in the end. Death, as it happens, is part of a full life, not that you want it any too soon. Your own death can be extremely interesting or entirely Evil — and may be avenged if need be or, more likely, not. Either way, people are inclined to put it off — the final straw. Somehow even a tiny, creeping, miserable bit of life is perceived to be typically more compelling than oblivion. To meaningfully endure, or better to escape, or far better yet to change the remorseless day is the point of being human. So Dhyna thinks. For one and for all. And all for one. She knows it’s an old and incomplete thought. But goddamn it — this life of hers now — it truly sucks to be so totally on her own.

Dhyna stops beside Leif and taps him with the serving tray.

“What’s going on, Leif?” she says, though she thinks she knows.

Leif nods to the Rose Garden. “Strange day. Dhyna, strange day.”

What passes for civilization seems so often utter nonsense and barbarity to Dhyna, especially now that time no longer goes by, each day always fatal, each and every afternoon terminal, this day the same as the other day, forever and ever, on end, without end. Amen — not. Dear gods — let it be otherwise if only for once. As for the Rose Garden, Dhyna feels eternally beset, bored by the flowers, bushes, thorns, and dull patch of lawn. No one ever promised Dhyna a Rose Garden, and here she fucking got it forever and ever without fucking end.

Dhyna Durango knows other things too and wonders if she increasingly sees the way out of this endless day. She hasn’t been able to fit all the pieces together yet. Something is missing. Something always goes wrong. She could use some goddamn help here.

She could use a change. The far too pristine Rose Garden seems to change least of all aside from the giant teratorn, coming and going at unpredictable moments. Unfortunately, only Dhyna is able to see the teratorn. As far as she knows. That is, until today.

Dhyna puts herself directly in front of Leif and pushes her left index finger into the center of his chest. “He’s going to kill you, Leif. He always does. One way or another – personally, impersonally. You die. And we all die. Beware the sword.”

Misunderstanding, Leif says, “This whole place is killing me, Dhyna. I want to live before I die. Let’s get to the farm on the Rez. Come with me. Today.”

“I mean literally. He will kill you.”

Still misunderstanding, Leif nods. “I know, right. I can’t leave without you, Dhyna. I won’t do it. Can’t do it.”

“I know,” says Dhyna. “I know you can’t, Leif. I can’t leave either. Doesn’t mean I don’t try.”

“We must.”

“Yes, we must.”

“Come with me, Dhyna. Today.”

“We’re a day late, Leif. And maybe a trillion dollars short.”

“Don’t say that, Dhyna. I’ll get it going again. We can make a success. We know how. We should go now. Screw this shit.”

“Yes,” says Dhyna. “This shit is most entirely screwed.”

---

Leif thinks of simpler and greener days on the broken farm of his family, his people. He pictures Dhyna and himself working in and around the greenhouse, tightening downspouts connecting the roof to water tanks, using hand carts to wheel heavy fifteen gallon pots of soil, positioning everything in full sun. They take a break. It’s so hot. They wear shorts and tee shirts, every bit of skin covered in sweat. They hold hands, damp embrace, their warm kiss in the bright day.

---

Leif wakes from his quick daydream and finds himself holding hands with Dhyna behind the back of President Tyrump in the Oval Office.

“Wake up, Leif,” says Dhyna.

“I am,” says Leif.

“He’s going to kill you. I’m telling you.”

“I know.”

“No you don’t.”

Tyrump amps the volume on the news, mostly reports of himself discussing his desire to invade Texas and Mexico both, to take possession of the vast oil and gas fields as punishment for yesterday’s bizarre and suspicious modern-day bombing of the Alamo — that stone-walled trap of the mind for tourists, where a bunch of white settler invaders back in the day anticipated Custer in trying to kill as many browns as possible in a land to which they were not welcome and did not belong before succumbing to their gun-first fate.

“Texicans!” shouts the image of President Tyrump from within the electronic liquid of the screen in front of the actual President Tyrump. “Texicans are to blame! Neither Texan or Mexican! People with no allegiance to any country, to no God. These are worthless non-souls who deserve to be deprived of their possessions — oil, gas, gold, copper, turquoise, you-name-it. Godless men. And women. Bombing the Holy Mission that is the Alamo.”

Leif tries to comprehend the sheer depth of the outrage of these most recent events called news, and he tries to think of one thing actually new about it. He struggles.

“Crazy like an ox,” says Leif. “Everything a bullshit story. Each one as bitter, bold, and bad as the one before. Time for another dose of his meds, I think.”

“You should double the dose,” says Dhyna. “We live longer in the day when you double the dose.”

“I should be dosing and growing new things far from here,” says Leif. “My grandfather said he knew I would come back one day. To the land, to the people, to his dream of feeding people in the outposts and in the communities.”

“You must,” says Dhyna. “And we’ll video-log the work. The revolution — the permaculture revolution will be monetized if not televised.”

They are amused. Then grim.

“If we can ever get away from DC,” says Dhyna.

“We will,” says Leif. “Come with me today.”

“We can’t. You can’t. I can’t. No one can. Not today. Ask me tomorrow. I want you to ask me to come away with you again tomorrow, as if it were today, Leif. Because I will then. Tomorrow, I’ll go. Not today. I can’t.”

“What’s the difference — tomorrow or today?”

“Everything goes to shit today, Leif, I’m telling you. The whole fucking thing goes nuclear. It’s one colossal climate collapse of a day. That’s why.”

“But that’s every day anymore,” says Leif.

“It certainly is,” says Dhyna.

Dhyna looks past Leif into the Rose Garden. Without turning, she nods at Tyrump. “Because of him. Because of people like him.”

“Unbelievable, isn’t it?” says Leif.

“Yes, they are.”

“The insanity.”

“Yes, it is.”

“And the support for it.”

There’s no sign of the Teratorn in the Rose Garden. A shame really. Most days the impossible dead bird seems the realest thing in the world to Dhyna. Sometimes the only real thing because it too lives outside all time, alone with Dhyna, alone in her world.

“The old Con can’t stop us,” says Leif.

“Oh, he can.”

“We’re free to leave.”

“No, we’re not.”

“You watch,” says Leif. “End of the day, I’m out of here.”

“Okay,” says Dhyna. “Me too. I hope.”

Leif smiles and squeezes Dhyna’s free hand. “We only need to make it happen, Dhyna. I knew you would say yes.”

“Did I?”

Dhyna scans the Rose Garden for the teratorn.

“Every day anymore,” says Dhyna. “It’s always the same.”

“That changes today,” says Leif.

“We need to survive it first,” says Dhyna. “And everyone else needs to survive the day with us.”

“It’s only one day,” say Leif.

Dhyna has been through too much for too long to know that to be remotely true. “Okay, Leif.”

President Tyrump slams his right fist onto the map of Texas on the Resolute Desk. “Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?”

President Tyrump twists in his chair and looks at Leif and Dhyna lewdly. “Are we going for some touchy grabby feely time today?”

Dhyna whispers to Leif: “We need to survive the day, Leif. The sword. Beware. Stay alive.”

---

The Conquest Continues — Chapter Two

Dhyna pulls away, and Leif scans the dormant hues of the Rose Garden. He searches for the impossible extinct giant teratorn. Nowhere now to be seen.

It’s the day after the mysterious bombing of the historic Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. It’s a bad day.

---

President Tyrump monitors every step Dhyna takes as she walks from the Oval Office with his empty bottle of diet cola.

At the door, Dhyna pauses and glances back at Leif. Tyrump thinks she has caught him gawking. He stares without remorse. He smiles. Then he realizes that Dhyna’s eyes are for Leif only.

Dhyna disappears into the hall. Tyrump’s smile disappears.

“Love to watch her go, Leif. Can’t say I blame you, Old Boy. Stalk her, grab her, go for the throat. I always do. The brain is strong but the flesh is weak. Flesh loves flesh. Flesh loves to live large.”

Tyrump leans back in the chair and pats his barrel belly.

“My goal is to live as many lives as possible, Leif. Big days, big lives, big appetites, big grub. Big consumption — you know, not the dirty word the precious souls make it out to be. Consume all you can, I say. Devour the world. I damn well have. Lucky bastard that I am. Not like you, Leif. You’re a little guy, I’m a big guy, the Big Guy. We all know it. Do you have any goals, Son? Get the girl, then move on, you won’t be sorry. She’s a slippery one, I can tell. Girls like her don’t always like boys like you and me. They don’t always like boys at all. Be prepared to work your nuts off for that one.”

Leif studies the President. One of his main jobs for the Resistance is to drug President Tyrump into quiescence and inaction at his most manic and unhinged.

“I appreciate the insight, Sir. I’m happy most days just to get by on my own — free of all cares and concerns and commitments. In fact, I’m happy not to think much these days, about most things.”

Leif tries to bullshit with the best of them — to hide in plain sight.

“Excellent, my Boy. Don’t think too much! Don’t think at all! Do! That’s the philosophy! Especially for someone of your low station and marginal status. We can’t all be King. We can’t all be me. There can be only One.”

“It must be good to be King, Sir.”

“You’re goddamn right!” President Tyrump fondles his sword on the map of Texas. “Power breeds power, Son. I breed every day.”

Tyrump hoists a couple of TV remotes and clicks through the news channels on the TVs hung on the opposite wall as if searching for a sense of himself, for his very soul, in two dimensions, remote and electric, digitized and electronic, artificial and alien — Tyrumpist.

Leif looks again for the teratorn in the Rose Garden. He might as well be searching for summer, for the growing season’s carefully coiffed blooms and the few caterpillars and songbirds who seem to show up just to spite the pesticides and insecticides.

Dhyna warned Leif to “Beware the Sword” but he thinks he knows to be aware, both geopolitical and literal. The actual blade of the sword is killer sharp, and as of this morning, everyone can see that President Tyrump is so far gone from reality that he feels free to announce an imminent invasion of Texas and Mexico, as if somehow these lands and peoples must be his by right. As if these lands are not already domineered by Tyrump and his ilk, by Empire, moneyocracy, capitalism.

The professional classes are afraid: Would Tyrump stop at bombing the cartels and drug labs in Mexico, or would he do what America often does throughout the world, western Asia not least — occupy and infiltrate the whole damn country? Would Tyrump attack Mexican military units that sell guns to the cartels? Would he attack the President of Mexico in Mexico City for not destroying the cartels? Would Tyrump sell off Mexican oil and gas, mines and agricultural lands to the highest bidder, or simply bequeath them to himself?

And why on Earth does Tyrump plan to attack Texas? To destroy its meth labs and marijuana sites? Hell, Tyrump would need to bomb the whole of America, the whole continent, to try to obliterate DIY drugs. And anyhow, Texas was conquered by America two centuries ago.

Beware the sword indeed. Texas is full of military bases. And armed religious zealots and cults. It’s itching to fight back. Mexico too has long felt the red blade of the American Empire at its throat, ready to slash on any given day. Things could go badly for Tyrump and for America. Alamo badly. Like the first time, only with nuclear missiles now. Who can know. Mexico and Texas — both powerful and with even more powerful allies. And Texas is nuclear armed.

But what the fuck can Leif do about it? Despite every mix of medicine at his ready disposal for times of Presidential crisis, Leif Oak, covert resister extraordinaire, can render tyrant Tyrump comatose for only so long before suspicions arise.

Leif grabs his own neck and cranks it. He presses his other hand against his lower back, office yoga, static exercise supreme for relieving stress — release your fascia, brace your body, flood your brain with endorphins.

Leif tries to think. Should he and Dhyna put in a full day of work today or leave at noon and just hit the road — get to the farm safe and sound cross country where they can begin life anew?

Either way, Leif is thrilled that his world in DC is coming to an end. Dhyna said “Yes” and so tomorrow — tomorrow, Leif thinks — tomorrow will be their great new life, soon to arrive. Dhyna and Leif, free to bathe in the perpetual sun and the cool winds and the warm scent of the evergreen forest in the Chuska mountains high on the Colorado plateau that spans four states and five tribes — Leif’s ancestral home.

Leif holds his yoga pose as if his life depends on it. He thinks back to better times — far from the center of power — far from the squalor and depravity of the Oval Office, far from Tyrump and the belly of the beast of Empire.

---

New Mexico Route 12. Swift across the sun-brilliant sand-art of the beautiful Navajo Nation, Leif drives north with Dhyna. They cruise in a rental hybrid CUV past stunning red sandstone cliffs and buttes, towering and defiant alive. An otherworldly open-air cathedral. The smooth paved road winds into Arizona then back into New Mexico, and they arrive at the tiny remote town of Navajo. At the front entrance of Navajo Pine High School, Leif embraces a few former Diné teachers. He introduces Dhyna who has traveled so very far from her Atlantic island Caribbean Sea home of Puerto Rico. Here too the sky is ocean-wide, broad and blue. So much light, the land of sand and rock and stubborn green is immense.

Leif and Dhyna enjoy a simple lunch of fry bread, pinto beans, and a big leafy salad outdoors at a picnic table with Dhyna and his parents in the shadow of their small modern ranch house, beside their traditional Navajo hogan, amid the seemingly infinite high desert. Laughter. They may as well be on another planet from Washington DC there amid the hackberry, the saltbush, the willow, the mesquite, and pinyon pine. Piercing sand cuts and blows on what seems to be forever winds. The European invaders-become-Americans, they were only able to take so much from the Diné, and they were finally rejected, as if by the land, in favor of the native inhabitants. It was as if the red rocks themselves held out against those who might take over until the Diné could better fight back. As they must still fight today.

Dhyna and Leif walk through a greenhouse full of garden implements and a mere few plants. Leif rearranges hoses, tools, pots, trays, a wheelbarrow. The neglected bare framework of three hoop houses sprawls nearby. A lot of work is needed. Good work.

The lovers ramble amid the red sandstone rocks and cliffs and spires of the mighty and incredibly majestic Canyon de Chelly. A thousand feet up from the valley floor, beyond the sheer rock rim of the vast and final redoubt of the Diné during the wars against the American army, Leif and Dhyna join in the centuries-long tradition of picking pinyon pines, among other families of Diné.

Leif shows Dhyna his favorite places. They hike the sand drifts and dunes and the rock flows of Red Rock Park and the streambeds and lively stands of emerald conifers in the Chuska mountains, amazingly evergreen in such a rocky and sun-burned land. Pines, firs, spruces, junipers — each more hardy and impressive than the other.

They visit the Navajo Nation Zoo in Window Rock Arizona full of injured and orphaned creatures large and small. It’s here that Dhyna points to a giant bird, circling high in sky. She asks Leif what kind it is. No idea at the time, but eventually, back in DC, Leif would think of the giant teratorn and wonder how long it might have watched them.

Leif shows Dhyna too the distressed and industrial rural areas in and around the Navajo Nation, the impoverished homes and grounds, abandoned warehouses, Earth-killing active coal mines, and the uranium mine tailing burial pits and mounds.

They drive along the city of Gallup’s desert municipal golf course, over railroad tracks, through a dusty worn neighborhood, and into downtown historic Gallup, past stores and restaurants. In a shop selling Navajo jewelry and pottery, Leif buys Dhyna a silver and turquoise necklace, and Dhyna buys Leif a glazed ceramic spirit bear.

Stepping outside onto old Route 66, the lovers laugh, hug, and kiss. Dhyna’s family has spread out in all directions from their native Puerto Rico, living now in Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York. So why not New Mexico, Arizona, the Navajo Nation? Leif uses his phone to record Dhyna’s exploration of historic El Rancho hotel and many other features along Route 66, in front of vintage signs and native murals, in jewelry shops, and at native art supply and trading company stores, by the dance grounds, and in the bars.

---

Leif feels he can almost forget to live this strange day in the Oval Office. He feels half gone to his next life, his real life, far from any desperate role in the White House trying to tame a lunatic on behalf of the Resistance that failed to stop Con Don’s rise to power, and failed to bring their own leaders into office — against heavy odds. Leif and Dhyna need a break. They feel too sick to continue, too ineffectual in their covert roles, too appalled by what they hear and see and work through. They feel too powerless to do anything but endure the White House. They feel, like the great Jamaican-American poet and novelist Claude McKay, “sharp as steel with discontent.” They want out. Even as they think too that maybe they should continue to “face the murderous, cowardly pack /
Pressed to the wall, dying, but—fighting back!”

Unfortunately for Dhyna and Leif, the mighty teratorn that haunts the day in the Rose Garden seems to have a fixed idea about whether or not they may go. Dhyna and Leif freely came and went until the teratorn appeared, to Dhyna alone. Previously, the day had never reset but now it always does, for Dhyna. And so she researched why the giant teratorn — Argentavis magnificens — went extinct.

Climate Collapse.

Great. A sign of the times. Come alive. To haunt her.

It’s entirely unfair. What did Dhyna ever do to create the dire problems of the world. Why must it be up to her to fix them? Why is it that the rich white people who own the country and much of the world cannot end white Empire? Why is it that with all their wealth and resources, they won’t? And how can Dhyna and Leif do a damn thing about it?

---

“Leif, stand where I can see you!” Tyrump bellows.

Leif moves from the windows to the front of the President’s desk.

“When I take Texas, Leif, I’ll roll tanks right up to Dhyna’s doorstep — just for you, Old Boy,” says Tyrump. “Then you can have all the cabal time you want with that Dhyna girl.”

“Dhyna’s Puerto Rican, Sir. Tanks won’t do it. Lot of space between Puerto Rico and Texas.”

“Puerto Rican, Mexican, Texican — you’re all brown and you know it. And I own space, I assure you. ”

“Sir, if you order an invasion of Texas, you will be arrested and imprisoned.”

“Impossible! I own the police and the prisons!”

Tyrump pounds the huge map of Texas with his first. He strokes his right hand along the long blade of his family’s ancestral Bavarian sword. He rubs his fingers together in the manner of making money.

“Texas owes me its stinkin’ oil. Mexico owes me a border wall. America backs me, Leif. The military will give the media a big show. They love that shit.”

“Attack Texas and it will be civil war, Sir. Or worse. World War III — the Final War.”

“Anything for the Evangelicals, Leif! Gullible suckers! Anyone who believes in fake Gods will believe anything at all. War! Death! Dismemberment! Bankers need to bank. I’m with them and they’re with me.”

President Tyrump uses his well-fed fingers to trace invasion routes across the map of Texas. He positions toy soldier figurines and toy fighter planes and tanks at key points, geographic and military. He moves toy subs through the Gulf of Mexico.

“Sir, you’ve seen the snap polls this morning—”

“Fuck the polls! I could go down the hall and decapitate my Vice President — he deserves it! — and be glorified for ridding the country of a fool. Don’t be so charmless, Leif. Crazy is the New Normal!”

“The Old Normal, Sir, that was pretty crazy too.”

Tyrump pounds the map again with his fist. “Who will stop me, Leif?”

“Only Congress can declare war, Mr. President.”

“There’s no war! I’m simply bringing Texas deeper into the family. Like Russia with Ukraine. A clash of kin! A neighborly squabble. I might rename the place, Tyrumpas! How do you like it? Mexico — we adopt. Or dissolve. I should rename that sad little land too. How do you like — Texico! Tyrumpas and Texico! I’m simply clearing the prairie, Leif — like Israel in Gaza and the West Bank.”

“Sir—”

President Tryump taps the sword with his fingers. “You’re Navajo, right? Then you know what it means to be forced to adapt to changing circumstances throughout the course of time. Up from the dirt of history, Leif! Onward!”

“Sir, America already owns Texas. For a few years now. And America basically controls the Mexican economy — and always has.”

Tyrump shakes a tiny toy fighter plane in Leif’s face.

“Mexico got greedy, Young Man. Couldn’t keep its hands off the Alamo after all these years. How dare they bomb us again! Took them two centuries but they finally got around to it. I’ll make Mexico pay. And while I’m at it I’ll teach Texas who’s boss too.”

“Mexico would never bomb the Alamo, Sir. Not today. It must be — there must be some other explanation. A false flag attack. Some rogue element at home or abroad. Could be.”

“Tell it to Davy Crockett! Jim Bowie! Ask every other martyr of the Alamo what Mexico will and won’t bomb. Don’t be a dumbass, Leif! Don’t make me tweet it!”

Tyrump flings the toy plane across the Oval Office. It breaks against a portrait of Tyrump on the wall.

“Sometimes, you need to bomb what you own, Leif.”

“Sir, you admit then—”

“Nothing! I admit nothing and never will, not even to my idiot pack of lawyers! Speak plainly, Leif. Do you blame the CIA? FBI? NSA? QED? False flag, bullshit! How dare you! If not Texas and Mexico — where else can I aim my Empire? The Rust Belt is rusted out. The Atlantic Seaboard is sinking. Mar-y-Laguna is drowning. The glaciers are melting. Who knew?! The Pacific Coast is doomed, the interior torched. The Rocky Mountains are too mountainous. The Great Plains a desert. The South will never rise again. Never. That’s not for public consumption, Leif. Canada is still so fucking cold, and the rest of the world is too goddamn far away for me to make a new home away from home, where I can be safe — from wind, water, fire, and liberal media. I’m down to Mexico, Leif. My new sanctuary. And Texas. I take only what I need. What I’m owed.”

General Kilman strides into the Oval Office, slamming the door on a group of Cabinet members gathered in the hall.

“Here come the cops, Leif! Hands up!” shouts Tyrump.

Leif turns to face the striding General. Tyrump grabs his sword from the desk with both hands and tries to point it at General Kilman. Leif’s back is at the tip of the sword. Kilman can’t see the sword.

President Tyrump shouts: “Charge!”

“Leif, my man!” says General Kilman.

Tyrump sweeps the heavy sword up toward Kilman but struggles with its weight and falls forward as Kilman pops Leif on his shoulders. A sickening sound — Tyrump and Kilman accidentally run Leif through with the sword.

“Christ!” says Tyrump.

“Shit!” says General Kilman.

“My meds! My med man,” says Tyrump.

General Kilman grabs Leif by the arms, lifts him off the sword as Tyrump pulls back, falls into his chair, and drops the bloody sword on the map of Texas.

Leif staggers to wall, collapses to floor. Gasping.

“That guy supplies my meds!” says Tyrump.

“Medic!” shouts General Kilman.

Leif vomits blood, dies.

---

Leif stares at the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn spreads its wings.

Hands to belly, Leif checks his guts. And now he remembers the day for the first time.

He remembers his own death.

How is that possible? “Impossible,” he says to the teratorn. The teratorn thunders its wings and stomps the ground.

At the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump fondles his sword and simultaneously admires and glares at a clip of his most recent interview on TV.

Leif turns toward the President. “Did I get the sword down off the wall for you this morning, Sir?”

“No, it leaped by itself, Leif. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

A Wolfe News Moderator reports the shocking news of the day: “After last night’s mysterious bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif!” shouts Tyrump.

Leif checks his phone — the date, and time. It’s the same day and nearly the same time as the day and time he was killed by sword. “Soon, Sir.”

Leif looks outside again for the teratorn. It’s nowhere to be seen.

Leif whispers to himself: “Fucking daymare.”

“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”

“It’s just you, Sir.”

“That’s good.”

Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with his diet cola, napkin, and straw. Right on time. He fixates on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola,” says Dhyna.

Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day,” he says.

The President drinks and watches himself on TV.

On her way out, Dhyna circles over to Leif.

“He’s going to kill you. Beware the sword.”

Leif grabs Dhyna’s arm.

“He killed me yesterday!”

The world shifts into slow motion. Dhyna looks at Leif in disbelief. “He did?”

“Fucking stabbed me in the guts. From behind.”

Dhyna is no longer alone. She can hardly believe it. Leif remembers the day now — the endless, terrible, final day that Dhyna and Dhyna alone has been reliving over and over and over.

“You’re in the loop now.”

“What loop? I saw a giant teratorn. An extinct bird. I must be losing my mind,” says Leif.

Dhyna throws her arms around Leif. “It’s only you and me.”

Leif is baffled by her passion. They always play it cool in the White House, let alone in the Oval Office.

“I love you too,” he says. “How can a teratorn be extinct and in my face. And what fucking loop? What’s happening?”

“It’s life now. I tried,” says Dhyna. “I tried everything. I couldn’t get out of it. I can’t. We’re stuck. Everyone. And it’s been so fucking long. And here you are, now, finally. Oh, Leif, it’s terrible.”

“I’m right here, Dhyna. We’re both right here. It’s okay. We can leave soon. Today. What are you talking about?”

“No, we can’t. You don’t get it. I tried to feed the teratorn from the kitchen. It dissolves.”

“You’ve seen it too? It can’t be a teratorn.”

“Goddamn it!” Trump curses the TV. He pops the map of Texas with his first. “They ask me the stupidest questions. And I give such magnificent answers!”

Dhyna speaks quickly. “Stay away from the sword, Leif! If you need to reset the day, just die. Don’t trust anyone at any time. Don’t—”

“Reset the day? Die? What are you talking about—”

“Reset the day, Lief. If you need to. Die. Die again. There’s always tomorrow — which is today.”

“Hey, Lovebirds!” says Tyrump. “What’s the big cabal?”

President Tyrump turns around and looks at Leif and Dhyna lewdly.

Dhyna flatters the President with a smile.

“He’s bird watching, Sir. Let me put that sword away for you. Let me clear it from your desk. It’s going to be a big day.”

Dhyna reaches for the President’s sword.

“How dare you! This day is all about my big sword, Dhyna!” President Tyrump grabs the sword and stands with it, angry, screaming. “Goddamn it, no fucking cabals in my Oval Office! You can have my sword when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!”

President Tyrump swings the sword at Leif.

“Leif!” Dhyna screams and grabs Leif, trips him so that he falls beneath her. The sword misses Leif but shears off Dhyna’s head. Most of her skull is completely severed. Her long black hair with much of her cranium separates and flies to the floor like a bloody Frisbee with a mane.

“No! No! No!” shouts Leif.

President Tyrump hoists the sword again. Leif reacts in time to shove Tyrump into the wall by the windows. Leif wrestles the sword into his own grip. He holds it against the President’s neck but Tyrump grabs the hilt and blade and looms over him, bearing down with his massive bulk. Secret Service agents rush in.

“He killed her!” screams President Tyrump. “Fucking chopped her head off!”

“Drop the sword! Drop it! Drop it!” The Secret Service agents shout and form a semi-circular wall, guns drawn.

“Fuck,” says Leif.

“Drop it! Drop it!”

Leif looks down at the limp and decapitated body of Dhyna. He begins to dissociate. ‘Reset the day,’ she said. What could she possibly mean? Could she possibly mean — Reset the day?

“Drop it! Drop it! Drop it!” The Secret Service agents angle for a clear shot to spare and save the President. Leif keeps the sword and the President close to him, between the agents, as full body shield.

“A scalp for a scalp,” says Leif. “Like old times.”

Leif steps back behind Tyrump, swings the sword, and shears off the President’s head.

An explosion of bullets blasts Leif into the wall.

---

The day resets.

Exactly as Dhyna said it would.

Leif stares out the window at the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden.

“I should be extinct myself.”

The teratorn hisses. Then shakes its head.

“Not yet?”

Hands to face and chest, Leif checks his body.

At the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump admires himself on the TV news. He fondles his ancestral Bavarian sword where it lies on a huge map of Texas.

Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the goddamn Cabinet ready, Leif!”

“Getting there, Sir.”

“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”

“He’s long gone, Mr. President.”

“Good. I moved on too.”

Leif can hardly believe he was stabbed through the guts and died yesterday — and the day before — somehow both the same day as today. Makes no sense but there is no possible way to disbelieve. No time to doubt what he perceives, and no real space to get away. Not in the moment, at least.

President Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with his diet cola. He fixates on her shape. This time, Dhyna gazes at Leif.

She addresses the President: “Mr. President, your diet cola.”

Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day.”

Dhyna circles toward Leif. “You still with me?”

“I’m born again.”

“Kitchenette. Meet me there.”

“Let’s leave, Dhyna. This whole town. Not later. Today. Right now.”

“We can’t. Not yet.”

“Why kill ourselves here?”

“You have no idea.”

---

Dhyna thinks back.

She dodges between the white sandstone pillars of the North Portico and runs down the steps where she is shot and killed on the driveway by multiple Secret Service Agents.

Dhyna leaps from a White House window, and is gunned down on the East Lawn. She gets up and staggers to the black wrought iron fence, grabs the bars, pulls herself up and is shot dead on the fence.

Dhyna runs out from a bush and makes it halfway to the fountains in the South Lawn, where she tackled by security and choked out.

Dhyna runs from police along West Executive Avenue where she hides behind an elm tree. She tries to beat an oncoming delivery van across the street, trips, and is run over.

Dhyna sits handcuffed in the back seat of a police car looking out through a window at the lovely puffball clouds above the Potomac. And then the brutal flash of a nuclear blast obliterates all.

---

Dhyna tells Leif.

He stares into the the winter green boxwood and false holly bushes, the brightest spots of life in the Rose Garden during winter.

“A nuclear blast? You’re serious?” he says.

“It’s our fate now, Leif. Live, die, repeat. I mean we’ve been doing this ever since Columbus, in white Empire, right? 500 years of Conquest. More than that. The Conquest continues.”

“Welcome to the Rez.”

“Except now we do it all in one day. Today is the day we can’t escape. Ever. I’ve tried so many times.”

“Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?”

President Tyrump looks at them lewdly.

Dhyna whispers, “Kitchenette.”

Tyrump watches Dhyna walk out of the Oval Office.

“Love to watch her go, Leif. Love to watch her go. Get your sorry ass over here. Stand where I can see you.”

Leif moves cautiously to a side of the desk.

“Here! Stand here! You’re on the clock, Leif.” Tyrump points to the desk front. Leif is forced to move. “When I take Texas, I’ll roll tanks right up to Dhyna’s doorstep. Then you can have all the cabal time you want.”

“That would be great, Sir.”

Tyrump pounds the map of Texas with both fists.

“It’s destiny! Manifest! Sea to shining sea!”

“You’re serious then, Mr. President.”

“Plague serious, My Boy.” Tyrump gestures happily to the tiny figurines of soldiers, fighter jets, and tanks spread all around the map.

“The people of Texas and Mexico have enough problems, Sir. Living in economies wrecked by NAFTA. White Empire, they call it. NAFTA was great for wealthy investors but killer for workers on both sides of the border. The North American Free Trade Agreement gutted—”

“The illegals are conquistadors, Leif! They are trying to conquer my homeland! These alien outlaws would get rid of NAFTA and waste my money on themselves! It would be a tragedy, a crime against humanity! Against my planet! Against my way of life! Against my children. Why do you think the illegals take care of my children in my homes?”

“To survive, Sir.”

“To brainwash! That’s the invasion right there! The invasion of the mind snatchers! The invasion stops now! We need white people working these crap jobs, Leif. Not brown people. We seal off the border, take Texas to save it, keep America American! White makes right — makes might — makes — whatever. You know it’s true. History is ours, not theirs.”

“I’m not white, Sir. ”

“You’re not in charge, Leif! You are under my command and control! I get to make History because it’s mine by right! I’m white! And rich! I own you! Give it up, Leif. You’re no Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat! You’re merely my personal bottle aide! Your job is to get me my special nasal inhalers when I must have them! I don’t need you to stand there and dissect policy willy-nilly! Any fool can do that! You’ve seen my Cabinet! I need you to monitor my daily nasal inhaler needs. Nothing more!”

“I apologize, Sir. I don’t know why I was thinking.”

“Don’t make me fire you, Leif! You only just got on this show. No thinking allowed! It’s bad for the digestion. My digestion for sure. Not what it used to be.”

“Sir, your special medicine, it’s free health care. Other countries do it. Saves money. Helps so many. Pushes costs way down. People live better, longer.”

“Fuck the people, Leif! This isn’t a place for people! I’m a businessman, did you forget! The business of business is business! People have no business interfering in business! Who do you think you are talking to, right now? I’m in the trillionaire business! I’m the one who fokkks! I own the USA! I own the whole filching world!”

Tyrump slaps his hands on the map of Texas and crumples the paper in his grip. The martial figurines go flying.

“Shit!”

President Tyrump attempts to smooth the map back into position. He salvages a few tanks and planes.

“Sir, of course, Sir.” Leif picks up the play weapons and puts them back on the desk. “People like you own it all. Fifty percent of corporate wealth in the world is American. You buy almost all the politicians, but if politicians get free health care, why can’t—”

President Tyrump slaps the map of Texas like a drum to drown out Leif.

“There’s no money, Leif! You know my Cabinet. They’re billionaires, or soon to be! The majority of Congress — millionaires. That’s where the money goes. That’s where the money belongs. You clearly don’t know who you’re talking to, so let me clue you in. Do you think I’m your friend?”

“You’re my boss, Sir.”

“Boss is Dutch for ‘master’. Got it, Leif? Don’t forget. And ‘Sir’ means ‘Sire’ means ‘Master’ too! I own you! Have you lost all respect for the Incorporated Estates of America?! This is my country, not yours!”

“I’m native to this land, Sir.”

“You’re nothing, Leif. Nothing to money. Nothing to me.”

President Tyrump picks up his phone.

“I’m telling Twitter all about your sorry ass.”

President Tyrump tweets:

“MY LIPPY AID LEIF IS DUMB-DUMB A DUMBASS. BUT HE SERVS GOOD. FOR NOW.”

Tyrump shows the tweet to Leif.

“I have four billion followers. The most on the planet. Now they know exactly who you are, Leif. Thank me later. Say my name.”

“Sir?”

“Say my name.”

“You are President Tyrump, Sir.”

“Say it!”

“President Donbo King Tyrump! The President of the United States of America and the Incorporated Estates of Earth!”

“You’re goddamn right I am.”

Leif puts his fingers to his forehead.

General Kilman bursts into the Oval Office slamming the door on a group of Cabinet officials gathered in the hall.

“Here come the cops! Leif! Hands up! ”

Leif turns to face the striding General. Stressed, forgetful, Leif begins to raise his hands.

Tyrump grabs the sword with both hands, tries to hoist it toward Kilman. Again, Leif’s back is at the tip of the sword.

“Charge!”

“Leif, my man!”

Leif remembers. As General Kilman moves to pop him on the shoulders, Leif brushes off Kilman and steps to the side. Kilman and Tyrump lose their balance. Kilman is run through by the sword. He screams.

“Jesus Christ, Donbo!”

“Oh, Hell,” says Tyrump.

President Tyrump rips the sword out of General Kilman and holds it up bloody and menacing.

Horrified, in shock, Leif takes out his phone to dial 911.

“No pictures! No pictures!” shouts Tyrump.

“Medic! Medic!” says General Kilman grabbing for the Resolute Desk. Kilman slips off the desk, thumps onto the floor.

Secret Service agents rush in. Tyrump points the bloody sword at Leif.

“The brown guy killed General Kilman!”

The agents point their guns at Leif.

“Drop it! Drop it!”

Leif stands back against the wall, arms up, phone in hand.

“Don’t shoot. Don’t you fucking shoot.”

Leif is eviscerated by bullets and splattered onto the wall. He slides to the floor.

Screams echo in the adjacent office as bullets rip through, wounding and killing other White House workers. “Stop firing! You killed her! Stop firing!” Wailing.

Leif dies.

---

The teratorn in the Rose Garden cocks its head at Leif as if disappointed. Then it hisses and spreads its wings, stretching tall.

“It wasn’t my fault,” says Leif to the extinct bird.

The teratorn throws its wings down to its side, blowing up dead grass and leaves.

“White fucking Empire,” says Leif.

Hands to chest, he checks his body.

“All here.”

The teratorn folds its wings in fierce alignment, then spits at Leif, who steps back from the window.

At the Resolute Desk, Tyrump admires himself on the news. Fondles his sword.

Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it!”

“I’ll go check, Sir.”

“Hold it! You stay right where you are. Did my pushy little Chief of Staff die?”

“He’s six feet under, Sir.”

“Too pushy for his own good. You’re not pushy are you, Leif?”

“No, Sir.”

“Don’t think, Leif. ”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with the diet cola. She looks pissed. Tyrump fixates on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola.”

Dhyna sets the cola on the Resolute Desk. President Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day.”

He drinks deep, then watches himself on the news. Dhyna circles toward Leif.

“What happened?” she says. “This time.”

“We need to get out of here.”

“Goddamn it, Leif. You die, we lose. You live, we win. Simple.”

“His ancestral Bavarian sword — it’s cursed.”

“Will you stop fucking up, Leif? Bavaria was Nazi Ground Zero. And that sword is in your face. Wake up to it.”

“The teratorn. It’s angry. It’s prehistoric. It seems to think I owe it something.”

“The demands of the dead, Leif. Sign of the fucking times. We change the day or we go prehistoric ourselves.”

“Post-historic.”

“Same fucking difference. Nuclear bombs hit DC on the days we survive the President’s sword, okay? Nuclear bombs.”

“That can’t be.”

“Oh, I lived it — I mean, died it. We need to stop the nukes to survive the day. To end this terminal day. To live. To save the fucking world, really.”

“How?”

“Don’t go nuclear. There’s more to know, Leif. Get to the kitchenette. We’ll talk. Baby steps. I can’t do this without you. And you’re dead without me. We all are.”

“Lovebirds! What’s the big cabal?”

President Tyrump looks at them lewdly.

Dhyna says quietly to Leif, “Stop getting killed.” To President Tyrump: “He’s bird watching again, Mr. President. You need to keep an eye on this guy.”

President Tyrump smirks as if no truer words were spoken. “Leif is dumb,” he says. “Not like me.” Then he turns back to the TV. “But he’s got good meds.”

“Goddamn it,” Dhyna says to Leif.

As she exits the Oval Office, President Tyrump watches her go.

“This day is all about my big sword, Leif.”

Leif looks around the Rose Garden. The teratorn is gone.

“Get over here. Stand where I can see you.”

Leif walks to the front of the desk. Tyrump pounds the map of Texas.

“Who will stop the criminal border crossers, Leif? Who will stop the illegals? I will.”

“You mean the American forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Syria—” Leif begins to wonder if he can get himself kicked out of the Oval Office and White House today.

“That’s crazy talk, Leif. The border crossers are Evil! Migrants! When I liberate Texas, the Mexican President will beg me to hug her close, whether she wants to or not. And then we put all the Mexicans back where they belong.”

“Where’s that, Sir?”

“South of the border!”

“Sir, millions of immigrants have lived in Texas and the rest of this country for years and decades, working, paying taxes — sales taxes, gas taxes, user fees, this fee, that fee — while raising families. Hell, millions pay into social security and can’t collect. Even though they’re already home. How do you deport people from their own home? They make you money. They pay the government. And you know what they say, Sir, they didn’t cross the border. The border crossed them.”

“Fuck philosophy, Leif! I need the white vote. I’m here because white people are spooked by brown people. I’m their Uncle Whitey. You are trying to make the illegals sound as legit as white people. Not helping!”

“It’s just that when you’re home, Sir, you’re home.”

“Home is where the white people are! You make white people sound brown and brown people sound white! ”

“I didn’t mention color, Sir.”

“You don’t have to say it to say it! We all know what things mean. You need to get right with me and Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. He always clarifies things wonderfully. You need to get right with Bullshat, Leif.”

President Tyrump takes the TV remote and flips through the channels until he finds the one he wants. There front and center is Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat answering questions from reporters, beginning with Mareka Might of DareYou News, who stands tall.

Mareka Might: “Mr. Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat, all of us at DareYou News wonder how and why the administration decided to invade Texas and Mexico so quickly the morning after the bombing of the Alamo. There’s no proof who did it. We doubt it was Texas.”

“None of that is true,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “Every single word is fake, including ‘and’ and ‘the.’ There’s no less distance in this world between Mexico, Texas, and the Alamo than there is between a murderer and his gun. Don’t deny it.”

Mareka Might: “Mr. Bullshat, where’s the evidence that either Texas or Mexico bombed the Alamo?”

“Read history! Everyone knows Mexico attacked—”

“I mean this century.”

“It’s classified.”

“By all evidence the evidence is non-existent.”

“The proof exists. How could it be classified and not exist?”

“Mr. Bullshat, do you believe that the State has the right to lie to the People?”

“Am I under oath?”

“You should be.”

“Who’s next?”

A reporter seated nearby from Clapback News raises her arm and stands: “Mareka can ask all my questions.” She remains standing.

A male reporter from John Doe News gets up too: “And mine.”

Several corporate reporters from legacy media shout: “Sit down! Sit down!”

“There are facts and then there are alternative facts — not to mention alternate facts. You choose yours,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “We are free to choose ours. Freedom is in the facts.”

“Under oath, if you lie, you go to prison. With your alternative facts.”

“Depends on the judge,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat.

“You mean the level of corruption.”

“That’s your word for it.”

“What’s your word for it?” says Mareka Might. “Fascism? Tyranny?”

“I don’t speak Italian,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat.

“I’ll help. Fascism is Italian for ‘Police State’. Home grown tyranny. Violence. Racism. Big Money and Big Guns. All as one.”

“And one for all,” says Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat. “What are you, a Professor?”

“A simple scribe.”

“Exactly. The world is complex, and your views are not.”

“My words are truthful, and your words are bullshit.”

Leif nods at the scene on TV. “Mr. Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat has an incredible way with words, Sir.”

“I could listen to him all day, as he listens to me,” says President Tyrump. “The important thing to remember, Leif, is that in our great system—”

“Which some would say is even more efficient than a Police State—”

“—everyone is a suspect until proven innocent. Everyone except me. These are outlaw Mexicans, Texicans, Guatemalans, Salvadorans — who knows where they come from! These are world-class criminals, right on top of us! And we know what color they are! These are violent thug racists! They are nothing like us! Abusers of women! Sneaky law breakers! Greedy grabbers! Butchers! I look in the mirror, Leif, and I expect to see them crawling up behind me!”

The door to the Oval Office cracks opens and several white male Cabinet members clamor to be let in, practically crawling through the doorframe, as General Kilman slams the door on the mob and strides in.

“Here come the cops!” says President Tyrump. “Leif! Hands up! ”

This time Leif moves all the way to the wall.

Tyrump stands, grabs his sword with both hands as if it were part of his body. He points it at Kilman.

“Charge!” shouts President Tyrump.

General Kilman unclips his dress saber. “En garde!”

General Kilman slaps aside President Tyrump’s drooping sword. Then they face off again, newly invigorated, sword and saber.

“Mr. President, you’ve got our allies, the Texas Fundies and the Texas Secessionists, up in arms against us! Real arms. Real militias. They’re going crazy. Marching and circling. You threatened them.”

“Relax, Kilman. It’s the illegals I’m after. They will pay. In Texas and Mexico both.”

Tyrump jabs with his sword as news clips on multiple TVs cover the impending invasions of Texas and Mexico. Leif dares to retrieve the remote from the President’s desk and amps up the volume.

“Experts agree,” says a Wolfe News Moderator, “war on Texas and Mexico would be a disaster for people, land, and climate, further destroying hope of a livable future. One expert says the lucky ones will be those who die soonest.”

“Get me Secretary Bullshat!” shouts President Tyrump.

“Mr. President, Sir,” says General Kilman. “Mexico is for tequila. Margaritas. Mamacitas. Make vacations, Sir, not war.”

“Remember the Alamo!” screams President Tyrump. “You and the military will do as I say! The CIA could take Texas and Mexico in its sleep, but I’ll use you and the military instead, Kilman. More colorful that way, better highlights and bigger replays, great slow mos. My military will put on a grand performance. A glorious revolution. Anyone stands in the way, it’s their own fault. They know we’re coming. I told them.”

“It would be genocide,” says Leif. “Attacking people in their own home. Slaughtering them and driving them out.”

“That’s their problem,” says President Tyrump. “It’s Manifest Destiny. That’s what it is. That’s who we are. Home sweet home. Land of the free. Home of the brave. The brave, Leif, not the Braves.”

President Tyrump sets down his sword and relaxes in his seat behind the Resolute Desk. He slurps his diet cola through a straw.

“Mr. President, I object!” says General Kilman.

“Fuck you, Kilman! You obey!”

General Kilman raises his saber high and slams it point down into Tyrump’s desk. He releases it to stand upright.

“Sir, you cannot invade Texas or Mexico. We conquered those lands long ago.”

“Fuck, invade!” says Tyrump. “We don’t use that language in front of other people, General. We are not invading Texas and Mexico. We are saving Mexico. Freeing Mexico. Liberating Mexico. Defending ourselves. Reclaiming Mexico. Texas too. Texas first!”

Leif steps forward: “Mr. President, what if Texas and Mexico fight back? They’re armed to the teeth. Texas especially.”

“This guy is hilarious, General. You see why I keep him around. Leif, you remember the Alamo, I’m sure.”

“Not firsthand.”

“Texas got crushed. Losers. Big time. The Alamo is now a gift shop, okay? Texas and Mexico will be my gifts to myself. I will make Mexico great again for the first time. I’m calling it, Texico. Texico, America’s newest gift shop. It’s mine to own and to operate. Texico and Tyrumpas.”

Leif moves closer to General Kilman as if to align.

“People say, Sir, that they have every right to resist and—”

“Fuck the people, Leif! People are stupid. People want things like free health care and education, jobs, wages, houses, clothes, food. Green space. Good weather. It makes no sense. No one owes the people anything. The people owe me. I’m the President.”

“Where are you from, kid?” says General Kilman to Leif.

“The Navajo Nation.”

“He’s as Mexican as Speedy Gonzales, General. Look at him,” says Tyrump.

Suddenly a disembodied voice resounds through the Oval Office: “He’s going to kill you.”

Leif looks wildly around. The Oval Office walls, ceiling, and floor transform into raging video screens depicting endless apocalypse.

Leif sees skeletons. Burnt flesh. Blood oozing from screens and sky. And his phone. He sees brains dripping from skulls broken and hung on the ceiling. He sees a planet ripped in half by fires, floods, fear, terror, and bombs. He sees collapse, starvation, disease, despair, bullets, missiles, nuclear explosions. Viral outbreaks. Refugees. Noah’s ark in flames on churning seas. A burning moonscape of Earth.

Leif sees his own skeleton glide into the room. It moves toward him. The skeleton grins. Its bones glow gold.

---

“I’ll get your meds, Mr. President. It’s time. Past time.”

“Leave Texas to the Texans and Mexico to the Mexicans,” says General Kilman. “Just this once, Sir.”

“We never fucking have!”

Leif moves to the side of the Resolute Desk to unlock the President’s medicine from the special compartment.

“Leif, stay where you are!”

President Tyrump heaves out of his seat, picks up his ancestral Bavarian sword, then spikes it into the Resolute Desk beside General Kilman’s saber.

“Call the Generals, General! Get them the fuck in here right goddamn now!”

Military commanders burst into the Oval Office, followed by all other Cabinet members, including the Vice President, flanked by Secret Service Officers, along with the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate.

“Here come the cops!” shouts President Tyrump. “Leif! Hands up!”

General Kilman faces the onrushing officials. Tyrump grabs his sword and points it forward behind Kilman’s back.

“Charge!” screams Tyrump.

“Watch out, General!” says Leif.

Leif tries to push Kilman away from the sword. Surprised, indignant, General Kilman grabs Leif and throws him against the desk. Leif is shoved again onto the tip of President Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword and run through.

“Shit!” says General Kilman.

“My meds! My med man!” says President Tyrump.

Two officers grab Leif and pull him off the sword. Leif staggers. A Secret Service agent tasers him to the floor. Leif gasps for breath, crumpled.

“That guy supplies my meds!”

The leaders of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines ignore Leif and confront Tyrump, who keeps a tight grip on his bloody sword.

The Army Chief of Staff steps forward: “Mr. President, as your Army Chief, I ask you respectfully to reconsider. My wife’s family is from Texas and Mexico both.”

“Silence!” says Tyrump.

“Her family would disown me if we invade,” says the Army Chief.

“Shut up!” says Tyrump.

“Mexico is full of crooks and rocks, nasty stuff,” says the Army Chief. “Not at all like our great land. We don’t know what we’re getting into down there. Rogue viruses. Unlawful aliens. Javelinas.”

President Tyrump grabs the Army Chief’s cap, flings it. The cap skims off a sculpture of Tyrump and hits a poster of Tyrump by a portrait of Tyrump near other images of Tyrump.

“What I say goes, General. Have you no shame? Is there no justice? Are you insane? Who will save the White men?” says President Tyrump.

The Air Force Commander elbows the Army Chief.

“As the Commander of the Air Force, Mr. President, I vow to save the White House! I side with you, my President!”

The Air Force Commander punches the Army Chief.

The Navy Admiral attempts to restrain the Air Force Commander but is tackled by the Marine Commandant.

Non-uniformed members of the Cabinet push, shove, recoil.

Secret Service officers join the armed melee. The ensuing brawl leaves every leader of the military lying on the floor.

And then the Chief Executing Officer of Goldun Sichos investment bank enters the room flanked by the Treasury Secretary and the National Security Agency Director. Numerous other bank and corporate officials crowd in. A belligerent and repugnant CEO bulls forward.

“Mr. President,” says CEO Tweetie Trype Twit, “your great Secretary of the Treasury, Deadly Dollar Dealer and your equally great Director of the National Security Agency, Allsee Allhear Allspy are here with the Chief Executing Officer of Golden Sichos investment bank, Mr. Pittance Viper. Mr. Viper speaks for the nation, Sir.”

Pittance Viper glares at the military heads sprawled on the floor. “Get up, Boys.”

The military directors stand and salute Pittance Viper, who does not return their salute.

The Army Chief picks up his teeth from the floor, and pockets them.

“Mr. President,” says Pittance Viper. “Please, proceed. You call the shots as you see fit, as we selected you to do. These good men will bother you no more.” Pittance Viper inspects the military heads with a flat flick of his eyes. “They will do as you say. You have the support of the entire country. And world.”

“Mi casa, su casa, Pittance,” says President Tyrump. “My mansion is your mansion.”

“Pastor Jael Osteal will grant this grand occasion the blessing of his great God,” says CEO Viper.

Prominent megachurch Paster Jael Osteal steps forward.

Jael Osteal spreads wide his hands. “God did not create us to be average. We are God’s masterpiece. Every day is a gift. Mexico is a gift. Texas is a gift. No matter what happens, choose to be rich. ”

All gathered: “Amen.”

“No matter whose land and lives you must possess to further your great work, choose to be victorious,” says Pastor Jael Osteal.

All Gathered: “Amen.”

“No matter if the entire world will be destroyed in the course of your great work, a heaven of riches will be yours.”

All Gathered: “Amen.”

“No matter if little children die screaming in agony ripped from their mothers’ bosoms smashed to pieces on the hard rock of the blasted blood red—”

Pittance Viper steps forward. “Thank you, Pastor Jael Osteal.”

“My pleasure, Viper.” Osteal bows to Viper, and steps back.

“We good folks need to stick together,” says President Tyrump.

“I will be even more direct than President Tyrump and the good Pastor Jael Osteal,” says CEO Viper. “As Director of the dominant investment bank in the country and world, Goldun Sichos Incorporated, I am here to tell one and all that Finance must be feared. Or simply obeyed. The debtors must fall in line, and they will, and they do.”

All Gathered: “Amen.”

“Now go spiel them once more, President Tyrump. Do your little song and dance. Go boast to the sorry debtors about our power. And freedom! True Freedom! Our Freedom to live any way we like.” CEO Viper is not a large man but he seems to inflate as he speaks. The more he speaks the more his voice swells: “President Tyrump, remind the dear debtors of the needs and blessings of our power. Speak in their hokie-jokie way. Whatever tickles their supremacist fancies. Fool them good. Fool the wing-nuts, the cons, the libs, the fundies, the brainwashed white males and females and the mouthy people-of-color about the real way of the world. Our way. We know that you will say the Right Thing as President, as we have anointed you to do, forever-and-ever.”

All Gathered: “Amen!”

“Now!” shouts President Tyrump. “Let’s go kill some Texans!”

“Wait, what?” says the Marine Commandant.

“Too late,” says Leif, still crumpled on the floor.

Bleeding, Leif tries to rise. The officials trample him.

“First they came for the wretched of the Earth. Then they came for the Texans.” Leif covers up as the officials rush by.

“We’re fighting for the wretched of the Earth?” says the Marine Commandant.

“You’re fighting for the One Percent of the One Percent, you absolute canning jar,” says Leif.

“Semper No!” shouts the Marine Commandant.

“Don’t act so innocent, Pigshit!” says the Air Force Commander. He unsheathes a dagger and drives it into the back of the Marine Commandant and pushes him out of the Oval Office.

The Invasion of Texas is on.

Leif dies.

---

“Dhyna’s going to kill me if I keep getting killed,” says Leif to the window.

The teratorn is pissed.

Leif worries the winter hues of the Rose Garden as he looks out as far as he can into the world while standing behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.

President Tyrump enjoys watching himself on TV.

The teratorn flaps and leaps up from the lawn then lands with a thud and screams directly at Leif. The teratorn’s beak is wide and hooked and altogether intimidating. The prehistoric bird seems to threaten to break the glass and rip off Leif’s head.

The teratorn screams again.

Leif runs his hands over his body — belly, shoulders, neck, face. All there. The teratorn raises and cocks both wings as if it wants to hit something.

“Forgive me, Dhyna, for I know not what I do.”

The teratorn runs directly at Leif.

At the last moment before it might crash through the window and smash into the Oval Office, the teratorn screams once more then lifts up and flies away.

---

Death by Death — Chapter Three

At the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, Tyrump admires himself on the TV news and fondles his ancestral Bavarian sword lying on a huge map of Texas.

Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it?!” shouts Tyrump.

“Please excuse me, Sir, I’m needed in the kitchenette for a moment.”

President Tyrump grabs the sword by the hilt and points the blade straight up at the Great Seal of the United States of America on the Oval Office ceiling. “You’re on the clock, Leif! Make it fast!”

“Thank you, Sir.”

Leif hustles into hallway where Cabinet officials gather near the Cabinet Room, many showing off spy devices and covert weapons to one another.

Leif hurries into the kitchenette where he brushes by Karen Green and Jean blue, administrative aides talking and walking, having watered a potted plant, a peace lily. They are on their way back to the office of the President’s secretary.

“Crazy day already, Leif,” says Jean Blue.

“Worst I’ve seen,” says Leif.

“Are we really going to invade Texas and Mexico?” says Karen Green.

“My own Navajo Nation was overrun years ago. Texas too. Fucking White Empire,” says Leif.

Jean’s eyes widen. Karen’s eyes narrow. They hurry out of the kitchenette.

Leif takes bottled water from refrigerator. Near the doorway he watches the Cabinet members in the hall as Dhyna walks President Tyrump’s cola past them into the Oval Office. Leif retreats into the kitchenette, sits at the small table, and wonders what it will take to escape the day.

---

Dhyna approaches the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. President Tyrump fixates on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola,” says Dhyna.

Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in eye for a moment.

“Go find Loverboy, Dyna. Tell him I’m lonely. I’m sure he’s in the bathroom pumping himself and thinking of you. Tell him to get his happy ass back here.”

“Of course, Mr. President.”

In the hallway, male Cabinet members reach out to Dhyna with their hands and their tried and trite attempts at flattery as they pop her with the male gaze and hope to converse. Several reach out to touch her hair and shoulders, back and butt. Dhyna plays them off and dodges and ducks into the kitchenette.

Leif stands to greet Dhyna when she comes in. They clasp hands briefly, then sit at the counter.

“I’ve died repeatedly now,” says Leif.

“In my arms.”

“That too.”

“Slaughtered by White Empire, per usual, day in and day out.”

“How often have you died, Dhyna? Not in my arms.”

“Every day. For months now. Or years, I hardly know anymore.”

“This place is a nut palace. The All-White House. We need to go. We need to get out.”

“We can’t escape the day without saving it.”

Leif nods to a glossy framed poster on the wall with pictures of every white male President, and one black male. “It’s over. I’m done,” says Leif.

“We change the day or we die, Leif. Get real. Nuclear missiles will hit the White House within hours. They already have. I lived it. And died it.”

“I’m taking the next bus out of here, Dhyna.”

“It will run you over, Leif. We need to get the President away from the Oval Office. We need to lock him in the supply room. Make everyone believe he left. He’s the target.”

“What do you know that I don’t?”

“The President put a target on his back when he announced the invasion of Texas and Mexico. He’s too stupid to know it. Or too fearless to feel it. Or maybe too far gone to care.”

“A nuclear civil war. I called it. I told him. He doesn’t care. He won’t think.”

“We need to go beyond what anyone believes is possible to stop him, Leif — to change the day. We need to go beyond what we ourselves think is possible.”

“Let’s just go,” says Leif.

“There’s no way. We need to get the President out of the Oval Office. I’m telling you. We need to take over. Now.”

---

Dhyna’s deaths flash before her eyes. Chased and shot by police and federal agents, hit by vehicles on every street around the White House, slashed by the sword in the Oval Office, killed in mass shootings, fires, a broken elevator in freefall, a tornado, a lightning strike, and on and on and on. It feels as if something or someone is playing with her for their own barbaric pleasure, in her desperate fight to stay alive and defeat an unbearably cruel history.

Dhyna thinks of the teratorn and wonders — Why does it never die? Only her. And Leif. And the world.

Then she remembers: unlike herself and Leif and the world, the teratorn is already extinct.

“I remember each death as if it were today because it is today,” she tells Leif. “Yesterday is never far enough away.”

“The loop of eternal death,” says Leif.

“The barbaric age. Ages. A single day of unending death. A day we die forever and ever again. And yet this day of death is our only hope to survive.”

---

Dhyna gets all the way to the Bank of America on Pennsylvania Avenue, not for the first time. Originally, she had hoped to withdraw her life savings and buy her way out of the city. Never once worked. Today, half out of habit — she tries to think — she walks up to a nervous man hiding a gun as he stands outside the bank.

“Can I help? I know what you’re doing,” she says.

“I’m not doing anything,” says the man.

“You’re robbing this bank.”

“So?”

“You’ll be dead in five minutes. And so will I.” Dhyna walks away. “So won’t we all.”

The man shouts after her: “I’ve got nothing!”

Dhyna window shops. She goes into an expensive clothing store. Picks out the most pricey item she can quickly find. A young saleswoman watches her closely.

“I’d like to buy this before I die.”

“You and me both, Girl.”

“I’ll take it.”

“It’s not even your size. Not even—”

“Please hurry. I need—”

A nuclear explosion ends the world.

---

Dhyna reaches for Leif’s hands at the counter in the kitchenette by the Oval Office.

“The farther away I got from the White House, the more prolonged and ghastly my death,” she tells him. “Almost made it to the beltway once, then got stuck in traffic. Boom. Nuclear. Before dying, I learned that multiple nations thought they too were under attack, including Russia. They launched their own missiles. America responded to what it started. The entire planet was destroyed. I lived the end of Earth. I died with Earth. We all did.”

“So this is the way the world ends.”

“It ends now. It’s over. Unless we stop it. You and me.”

“No one else?”

“Look around. See the crazy. End Times.”

Leif stares at the Presidential Seal on a wall calendar.

He hears a dull thump in the Oval Office.

“What about the golden drone? Can’t they make it work? I thought Wikilooks would put that thing on the President to stop him from doing anything in secret ever again. When they get it going, we can quit babysitting the President ourselves.”

“What he does in public is bad enough. Anyway, the People’s Drone is not totally functional yet. They get some audio, no video.”

“Fuck.”

“We need to stop the Cabinet meeting. If it happens, it’s too late.”

Administrative Aide Jean Blue rushes into the kitchenette.

“The President needs his meds!”

Leif hurries into the Oval Office.

---

President Tyrump tries to pry his sword from a photo framed on the wall, where he slammed the sharp blade. The group photo includes Tyrump’s Vice President Rob Loot Thief, whom he fixates on, screaming, “Loot Thief, you traitor!”

“Okay! Mr. President! Time for your meds!”

“When I free this sword, Leif, I’m going to chop off your fucking head!”

“Been there, done that, Mr. President. Here we go.”

Leif taps keypad code on the side of the Resolute Desk, opens a compartment, selects a bottle.

At that moment, Tyrump gives another huge yank, the sword pops out of the photo frame, flies in a fast circle, and shears through Leif’s neck. Leif’s head thumps to the floor.

“My med man! Medic!” screams Tyrump.

Leif dies.

---

The giant teratorn in the Rose Garden screams at Leif. Spreads its wings.

“Just another day outside all history,” says Leif, staring through the window. “Red man scalped by white man.” Leif points at the teratorn. “Fuck you.”

The teratorn cocks its head as if its feelings are hurt.

“Leif!” shouts Tyrump, from behind, sitting at the Resolute Desk.

“Yes, Sir.”

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m here for you, Sir.”

“So do something useful for a change, Leif. Kill Wolfe News. Get me Kand News.”

Leif takes a remote from the President’s desk, mutes Wolfe News, and unmutes Kand News.

“Give it.” Tyrump extends his arm.

Leif hands the remote to the President.

“Mr. President, why did Mexico bomb the Alamo last night?” asks the Kand News moderator during an interview recorded the previous evening.

“They’ve done it before, why not again? There was local help too,” says Tyrump.

“How do you know, Sir?”

“NSA. CIA. FBI. Capiche? Lots of evidence. There’ll be Hell to pay, I promise you.”

“What evidence, Sir?”

“Don’t doubt me. I’m the President!”

Angrily, Tyrump mutes the interview.

“Stupid! Idiot! Losers! The illegals are killing us! I will make my America great again!” Tyrump pounds the map of Texas with the remote. “It’s destiny! Manifest! Whatever that means! There’s border land there, and I’m taking it all! Build a Great Wall of Texas and a border wall mall and casino resort. Never surrender! Remember the Alamo! I’ll line the Rio Grande with golf courses and Texas Hold ‘Em poker tables. I’ll build a brand new country: Tyrumplandia! Brand Tyrump! A great long land with the river all to itself, between Mexico renamed Tyrumpas and Texas renamed Texico!”

“Sir, Texas was taken years ago. The people who own that border land won’t give it up without a fight. I’m telling you, Sir. Not for a great wall, or a grand mall, or anything. Texas has lots of bombs. Big ones. Nuclear! What if they fight back?!”

“Then a fight they will get, Leif! I always win.”

“Native tribes along the border are dug in, Sir. Others have land rights going all the way back to Spain, the Spanish land grants.”

“So we bomb Spain too, big deal. Who cares if the Natives fight back. Natives are the biggest Losers in history. They can’t stop progress: my oil and gas pipelines in the Dakotas! My border wall in the Southwest! Gas fracking in my very own Empire State of New York?! The Natives fight and always lose. They are America’s first Losers! You’re Native, Leif. You adapted. Why don’t they?”

“There’s no fracking in New York state, Sir.”

“Only for the moment, Leif!”

“For years now, Mr. President. The people don’t always lose.”

“That’s why they must be overthrown! The Natives are fighting civilization tooth and nail! Babbling about their precious water rights, land, minerals! They’re uncivilized. Nothing like us. You should solve the problem, Leif, the Native problem!”

“The White Man problem. That’s how they see it. White Empire.”

“Whites are not the problem, Leif, don’t be stupid! Native Supremacy is the problem! And Black Supremacy! Brown Supremacy! Yellow Supremacy!”

“Yellow Supremacy, Mr. President?”

“Environmentalists! Nasty people. Always going on about the power of the sun. It gets fucking old.”

President Tyrump hears a slight humming sound and looks up. “Speak of the Devil! It’s back!” Tyrump points at a golden drone, a shimmering sphere, like a hologram, hovering near the ceiling. “Fuck you!”

Tyrump stands and throws the remote. It passes through the brilliant glowing sphere and ricochets off the ceiling and far wall.

“There’s the enemy. That fucking thing. Where in Hell is my NSA, CIA, Cyber Command? This fucking thing monitors my every move. Follows me into the bathroom. Records my every shit. No peace, no privacy. No respect. No fucking respect.”

The golden drone disappears.

“Fucking disappears!” shouts Tyrump.

“That’s Wikilooks, Sir. They’ve got their eyes on you.”

“I know who the fuck it is! Fucking treasonous traitorous trespassers!”

“Why not call off the invasion of Texas and maybe cut a deal with Wikilooks, Sir?”

“Fuck you, Leif, get me Press Secretary Bullcrap! I picked him for the job myself. Bullcrap and I see eye to eye. He always says the right thing. He has to or he’s history. Don’t be history, Leif! Make history! History loves winners. History hates Losers. Losers are haters, Leif. So sick.”

“Mr. President—”

“Oh fuck off, Leif. Get me Wolfe news. Those fuckers. At least they have the common decency to kiss my ass night and day.”

“Nothing like common decency,” says Leif. He retrieves the remote, turns on the news, hands the remote back to Tyrump who powers up the volume.

Wolfe News Moderator: “This morning after a mysterious nighttime bombing of the historic Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, Mr. President, what do you say to the American people?”

“I demand total payback against Mexico and whoever else bombed the Alamo!”

Wolfe News Moderator: “Who, Sir?”

“There was local help. Texicans. We’re still getting the facts. This is a horrible crime against one of the most sacred monuments on American soil. The Alamo is one of our oldest churches. Mexico bombed a church! With the help of Texicans!”

“Mr. President, how will the US respond?”

“Total payback against Texas and Mexico. It’s a cross-border uprising. Taking Texas is a must. All options are on all tables. We’ll reclaim Texas, then Mexico.”

“You mean fight, Sir? Using the military.”

“Texas and Mexico brought the war to us. We can’t have these two outlaw states working together.”

Wolfe News Moderator: “Working to do what, Sir?”

“They bombed the Alamo! They send poison and criminals into our country! Drugs! Illegals!”

“And Texas?”

“Them too! Texas receives the drugs and criminals with open arms! Then exports them to all America! All America invaded!”

“Sir, you’re telling Americans that the United States of America is on the eve of war with—”

“They attacked us!”

“You must be receiving advice from the military, from Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Kilman.”

“Hell, no. The military takes orders from me, their Commander-in-Chief. The gun boys are team players, and they play for Team Tyrump. No one else.” President Tyrump mutes the TV and shouts at the screen: “You’re goddamned right they do! Leif, where’s Dhyna? I need my diet cola.”

“Sir, let me help.”

Leif taps code into the side of President Tyrump’s desk, opens a compartment, selects a small nasal spray inhaler.

“Sir, your meds.”

“Gimme that.” Tyrump grabs the inhaler and shoots it into each nostril. Then he throws the bottle across the room. It ricochets off three busts — Martin Luther King sandwiched between Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant — narrowly missing a display of Native American pottery.

Leif retrieves the spray bottle and returns it to the special compartment, closes the small door, locks it. Tyrump feels better, admires himself on TV again.

“My sword, Leif!”

“Sir?”

“Hand it to me.”

Leif lifts the sword from the desk. Gives it to the President.

“Leif, face the door.”

“Mr. President?”

“On the count of three, when I say, ‘Go.’ You get the Cabinet. Do it, Leif. Now.”

“Sir, do you promise—”

“Oh, I do,” says President Tyrump.

Leif faces the door. He stares at the Native pottery and the busts of King, Lee, Grant. Tyrump swings the sword aimlessly behind Leif.

“History’s a bitch, Leif. So be it. Locker room talk, you understand. Ready, set—”

Tyrump swings the sword a few more times. Dhyna comes through the Oval Office door with President Tyrump’s cola. She stops as Tyrump swings the sword again.

“You’re late, Dhyna!” screams Tyrump. “I’m dying of thirst, you lazy ungrateful—”

With surprising speed, jamming his sword into the top of the desk to propel himself up, Tyrump steps onto his chair and then onto the Resolute Desk. He lifts the sword and holds it high pointing to the Great Seal of the United States of America on the Oval Office ceiling.

“Mr. President, careful, no, no!” says Dhyna.

She runs toward Leif and the Resolute Desk. Leif holds out his hands to shield Dhyna from the President.

“No more Brown Supremacy, Leif! Remember the Alamo!” screams President Tyrump.

The President jumps, swings down the sword, splits Leif’s head, spears Dhyna, and falls on top of them.

Leif dies.

---

Leif rubs his head. The teratorn hulks in the Rose Garden.

“That one hurt more than most,” says Leif to the teratorn. “The President is a monster.”

The teratorn daggers Leif with red glowing eyes.

“He’s not like you. He’s batshit crazy.”

---

Leif and Dhyna sit at the counter holding hands in the kitchenette by the Oval Office.

“Remind me again,” says Leif. “How did this lunatic get elected President of America, twice?”

Dhyna smiles sadly. “You know the answer, Leif. The two rich parties have been smashing people in the face for decades: no guaranteed health care, and almost every other human right violated. No guaranteed income or decent wage, no guaranteed college or parental leave. Not enough sick leave and personal time. Dangerous jobs, toxic food, lethal environments. Millions imprisoned. Police and military waging war all around the world. Almost everyone in debt. Fraud rampant. Brutality everywhere. Nothing affordable. Crap, expensive, or unavailable housing and transportation. In the richest country in the world, with money overflowing everywhere except into the pockets and lives of the people. And the people have money extracted from them hourly like teeth at involuntary, mandatory dental appointments. And then a carnival barker like Con Don Tyrump buys his way into view and rages and pretends to be on the people’s side. Come election, Tyrump offers hate, the other side offers crumbs, and the people choose to hate the crumbs. The people always choose the rebel against the Empire, but they are only allowed to choose fake rebels, while the real rebels are demonetized and demonized and destroyed by every last force of Empire. So far. But you know this, Leif. It’s what we fight. It’s why we’re here. It’s the way of the world—”

Administrative Aide Jean Blue bursts into the kitchenette.

“The President needs his meds!”

Dhyna presses Leif’s hands between her own. “Fucking kill him if you need to, Leif. We can die another day.”

Jean Blue’s eyes go wide.

“Figure of speech,” Leif tells Jean Blue. “Dhyna’s a pacifist.”

“No I am not,” says Dhyna.

Jean Blue touches Dhyna’s arm sympathetically. “Oh, Honey,” she says. “Rough day?”

“You could say that.”

“We’re all underpaid, Sweetheart,” says Jean Blue. Leif goes out.

“I’m a serial killer,” says Dhyna.

Jean Blue flinches and pulls back. Dhyna glares as if to acknowledge the evil.

“Here in the White House, brown people are very dangerous,” Dhyna tells Jean Blue. “Especially us women.”

Jean Blue crosses her arms on her chest and hugs herself.

Dhyna points to the massive poster with pictures of all the white male Presidents and one black male on the wall. “This is what has got to stop,” says Dhyna.

Jean Blue nods, very afraid.

---

Dhyna thinks back to one of her plays to survive the day.

Hand-in-hand, she leads President Tyrump to the White House main kitchen.

“Dhyna, you sneaky little Devil,” says Tyrump. “You don’t know how hard it was to lose the agents, even for a minute.”

“The police state never sleeps, Mr. President. You need to learn to ditch it. You could learn from me.”

“Yes, yes, show me,” Tyrump says eagerly.

In the middle of the empty kitchen, Dhyna stops and faces the President and strokes his suit and pretends she is about to enjoy offering herself to the most powerful man in the world. She lifts her arms and lays her hands on Tyrump as if she intends to kiss him — then she pushes away.

“Wait. I know a more private place.”

Dhyna takes Tyrump’s hand and leads him to the walk-in freezer. She opens the door. He hesitates. She shoves him inside and tries to close the door, but he grabs her and pulls her in with him. They struggle.

“Dhyna, you Devil! You little Devil!”

Tyrump slips and drags Dhyna down with his massive bulk. They fall hard onto the cement floor, banging their heads on metal shelves on the way down. Tyrump is knocked out.

Dhyna is dazed. She rolls away from Tyrump and watches him.

“If the Texas secessionists don’t know where the President is, how can they nuke him?” she says to the motionless form beside her.

Dhyna escapes and locks the freezer door.

Dizzy, she grabs the side of her head where it struck the shelf. She staggers along the edge of the kitchen, then passes out in a semi-hidden corner behind a sink.

---

Dhyna wakes, hazily. She finds herself face-to-face with scent dogs barking madly at her eyes and ears. Other dogs bark and paw at the freezer door. Secret Service agents break open the door and drag out the body of Tyrump, white-frosted and seemingly frozen solid.

And then suddenly the world goes white. DC is nuked again.

---

Another day, another death.

Dhyna holds the ancient Bavarian sword high over President Tyrump and lifts up onto her toes behind his chair where he sits at the Resolute Desk. Tyrump, oblivious, watches himself on TV.

“Sorry, Mr. President. I’ve tried everything else. Maybe if you’re dead, the Texas secessionists won’t nuke the city. Live by the sword—”

Tyrump hears without listening.

“Dhyna, shut up.” He pumps the volume on the remote and points at the TV. “I’m trying to watch myself. This is my glorious day.”

Dhyna hacks off his head.

“Live by it, die by it.”

Horrified, fearful of what she has done, Dhyna flees.

---

Dhyna Durango is a progressive populist, not a chaotic populist. She only means to save the day, not attack it. And she is far from a fake populist like Tyrump, let alone a bigoted populist. If the President is already dead, she thinks, then there is no reason for the Texas secessionists to launch the nukes that destroy DC and cause a chain reaction that obliterates the world. There is no reason. There is no reason.

She calmly gets outside. Then she races along a sidewalk to the streets. Capitol police officers and DC police are alerted by Secret Service and chase on foot. A malicious-looking agent calmly targets her with a rifle. He shoots. Dhyna is bullet-punched forward. She sprawls onto the pavement. She spits blood.

And the world goes white. DC is nuked, as ever before. There is no time this time even to say, “Fuck!”

Death has come for Dhyna and the day again.

---

In the Oval Office, Leif Oak finds Tyrump trying to pry his sword out of the portrait frame on the wall, where he slammed it.

“Okay, Sir, let me help with that!”

Leif muscles in on Tyrump and successfully wiggles the sword free.

“Shall I hang up the sword, Sir?”

You know I can have you killed anytime I like, Leif,” says President Tyrump.

“You would never do that, Sir.”

“Hand me the sword.”

Leif carefully gives the sword to Tyrump and steps far back.

Tyrump lifts the sword above his head and admires it.

“Beautiful.”

Tyrump looks out a window into the Rose Garden.

“Look, a bird! A bird!”

Startled, Leif walks toward the window to try to see what he assumes is the giant teratorn. Can the President possibly see the fearsome creature now too?

Tyrump is bullshitting.

Tyrump leaps forward and swings the sword down onto Leif, chopping off one arm as Leif tries to get away.

Leif crumples to the floor. Tyrump stands over him.

“My meds. My med man! Agents!”

Military and Secret Service agents rush in. Tyrump points the sword at Leif on the floor clinging to life, his cell phone partly visible beneath his remaining hand.

“He attacked me,” screams President Tyrump. “That criminal attacked me!”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” says the nearest agent.

“Gun!” shouts President Tyrump. “Under his hand!”

A bit of phone is visible.

“Gun! Gun!” Tyrump screams.

“Gun?” says the first agent.

“Gun?!” says the second.

The third agent mishears. “Gun! Gun!”

“Gun,” says Leif, fatalistic.

The Secret Service agents empty their guns of bullets in a tremendous explosion of steel and fire. Leif is killed.

---

The teratorn in the Rose Garden stands with its wings crooked and bent to the taper of its back. The teratorn cocks its head to one side.

“Life in White Empire,” says Leif, staring out the window. “What can you say?”

The teratorn cocks its head to the other side.

“Another day, another dollar, another death.”

The teratorn cocks its head back the other way.

“This time I kill them all,” says Leif.

The teratorn screams, leaps up, shows it claws, thumps down.

Leif focuses on the sword on Tyrump’s desk.

---

Texas Governor Gassy “Tank” Wells glares at the TV news in his office with his Chief of Staff Petrol Geyser. Much speculation on TV about the invasion of Texas: bombing targets, attack routes, gas and oil takeovers. Governor Wells thumps a massive forearm and fist on his desk.

“President Tyrump will take my oil over my dead body! What do you say, Geyser?”

“Governor, the President deserves to burn. Bam is ready. Just say the word.”

“Tell Bam it’s a fucking ‘Go’!”

Chief of Staff Petrol Geyser taps his handheld.

Bam answers in a west Texas accent. “Yes, Sir, Mr. Geyser.”

Geyser hands the phone to the Governor.

“Bam, this is Texas Governor Gassy Tank Wells. It’s a fucking ‘Go’!”

“Sir, yes, Sir!” says Bam.

The Governor slams down the phone and glares at President Tyrump on TV.

“Let’s see how President Tyrump likes his own goddamn nuclear medicine, Geyser.”

Petrol Geyser nods. “Oh, I think he’ll glow.”

---

At the Resolute Desk, President Tyrump watches himself on TV. Fondles his sword.

Wolfe News Moderator: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it?!”

“All too soon, Sir.”

“Did my Chief of Staff die, Leif?”

“It’s just you, Sir.”

“That’s good. All me.”

Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach, fixated on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola.”

Dhyna sets the cola on the map of Texas on the Resolute Desk. President Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day. ”

Tyrump watches himself swagger on TV. He toasts himself.

Dhyna glances quickly at Leif, then exits the Oval Office.

---

In the kitchenette, Leif and Dhyna sit at the table and consider options.

“What living Hell is this?” says Leif.

“The world as we know it. As it knows us.”

Dhyna takes Leif’s hand. He takes hers. Then they kiss.

Dhyna pushes away. “Listen. My plan. We get Tyrump into the supply room in his secretary’s office and lock the door. We tell everyone he left for Camp David. Let the Texans bomb there. It’s forest. It’s horrific. But it’s maybe thousands dead instead of millions.”

“We survive? Do you think we survive?”

“We do. Then we get lost in your homeland. The high desert. A high life. For a change.”

“We start a family.”

“We build a good civilization. And live. Live with the people, like people live.”

“Away from the lunatics.”

“We can dream.”

“The Native Dream.”

Dhyna nods. “First we dream. Then we do. To live.”

“Does it need to be in that order, Dhyna?”

“I think it does now.”

Hands clasped, Leif Oak and Dhyna Durango discuss their plan to decoy the President.

---

Leif strides into the Oval Office from the kitchenette. He walks to the President’s desk, takes the sword off the desk.

“Leif! What the fuck are you doing?!”

“Mr. President, come with me. Sorry for the short notice. Photo op with the sword next door. ”

“What’s the big idea, Leif?!”

“Sorry, Sir, they want you brandishing a sword at the map of Texas. We have another map, Sir.”

“Let’s do it here!”

“It’s all set up next door. Come on, Sir.”

Angry, President Tyrump follows Leif into his secretary’s office.

Jean Blue and Karen Green are surprised to see Leif lead the President to the back of their office with the sword.

Leif opens the supply room door.

“Come on in, Mr. President. The photographer wants to do it here.”

“This will be a photo op for the ages, Leif, or I’ll use this sword on your head.”

“No doubt, Sir.”

President Tyrump enters the supply room. Leif follows, slams the door shut. With the sword, Leif smacks Tyrump broadside on the back of his head, dropping him to the floor. Leif kneels on the President’s back and presses the sword against his neck.

“Do you see what I’m doing here, Mr. President? Not a peep. You peep, you die. I’ll cut off your fucking head. Don’t think I won’t. I’ve had practice.”

Leif duct tapes Tyrump’s mouth, hands, and ankles.

Then Leif exits the supply room with the sword. He holds it strong in front of him. He walks across the room and points it at Karen Green then at Jean Blue.

“I need you to announce to the Cabinet members that President Tyrump is not coming in today and that he has gone to Camp David instead. Not coming in. Gone to Camp David.”

Dhyna Durango walks into the office with a cloth bag. She pulls out a meat cleaver from within it. She brandishes the big sharp and shiny blade at Karen Green and Jean Blue.

“Fucking do it, Jean.”

Jean Blue is stricken. She goes into the hallway.

“Please! Please! Everyone!” Jean Blue announces to the Cabinet members gathered in the hallway. “I’m sorry to tell you that plans have changed. The President is not coming in today. He has gone to Camp David instead. I’m sorry. The meeting is canceled.”

Jean Blue steps into the Cabinet room as if to make the same announcement to the Cabinet members inside. Instead, she runs to General Krushin Karvin Kilman who is chatting with other armed officials.

“General! The President has been taken hostage in the supply room! Hostage, next door! In the office!”

Half in disbelief, half ballistic, the armed men rush to the office. There they find Leif and Dhyna holding the sword and cleaver to the throat of Karen Green.

“Where’s the President?!” shouts Joint Chiefs Chairman General Kilman.

“Fuck,” says Dhyna. She turns wearily to Leif. “We’ll get it right next time.” She shoves Karen Green to the side.

Then Leif and Dhyna raise their weapons and charge the officials and are shot dead.

---

The teratorn is pissed. It glares at Leif through the Oval Office window.

“Fuck you, Bird,” says Leif. “I don’t see you saving the day.”

The death-hook beak of the teratorn gapes, and the giant creature shrieks. The grinding and piercing sound seems to all but shatter the glass in the windows of the Oval Office.

Leif steps back. He knows now how fierce he will need to be to save the day.

---

Bentcan — Chapter Four

Leif and Dhyna clasp hands. They sit at the corner table in the kitchenette by the Oval Office where they both ponder their most recent deaths — pulverized by the handheld killing machines of President Tyrump’s armed officials. Dhyna’s abduction plan — binding and stashing Tyrump in the supply closest — did not go quite as planned.

“Now what?” says Leif.

“Brilliant,” says Dhyna. “Fucking genius. Jean Blue killed us both. Ratted us out to the Cabinet.”

“It had a chance,” says Leif. “This time, I stay with Jean and keep a hidden knife to her back.”

Dhyna shakes her head. “Jean Blue is the weak link. Let’s go another way.”

Dhyna thinks back to how many times she tried to stop President Tyrump — how many ways she failed to stop nuclear missiles from hitting Washington DC. Who knows — maybe one in a million days she and Leif could succeed — or a million years. Do they have a million days, a million years left in this crazy time loop? Or even a hundred more days? Or ten? Or one? Maybe the world is already history. Maybe she and Leif are doomed to watch the end of their lives, the end of all life, play out forever. The final movie — Terminal — forced to live it over and over and over again. Maybe there is a Hell after all, and they’ve arrived. The White House is Hell. The Oval Office is the inner sanctum of Hell. And Leif and Dhyna doomed to work there. Forever.

If the White House is Hell, then President Tyrump is Satan. The Great Satan.

And Leif and Dhyna are spies in Hell.

So then what is the teratorn?

An angry bird.

Dhyna takes her smartphone from her pocket and stares into its sheen and void. Why power on the thing ever again? It’s completely useless now, beyond all history. Who you gonna call to arrest the President? Who you gonna call to thwart an imminent nuclear attack? Who you gonna call to stop climate collapse? Who you gonna call to bring human rights to all? Who you gonna call to save the world? To win the day?

Dhyna looks to Leif. She squeezes Leif’s hand within her own. “Come with me,” she says.

Dhyna leads Leif to the President’s Secretary’s office. They stop by the desk of Jean Blue.

“Jean, the President requested that Leif and I move boxes of paper from the supply room to the Oval Office. Something about making paper airplanes.”

“Sounds like fun! Need help?”

“We’re good, thanks,” says Dhyna.

Leif follows Dhyna to the supply room. Inside, Dhyna shuts and locks door. She puts her arms around Leif and kisses him.

Dhyna and Leif make love.

They are passionate. Absorbed in one another, they fall out of time and the universe — or seem to. They disappear from the world in singular clasp.

Fuck the time loop.

They don’t mean to be loud. They don’t try to be quiet.

Afterwards Dhyna and Leif gather their bodies and their gear and their minds, and they hunt for pieces of clothing strewn here and there throughout the supply room. And then they realize how still it is in the office outside the door. Oh well, the good workers of the Incorporated Estates of America can deal.

---

Leif and Dhyna exit the supply room. They are emptyhanded. They don’t bother with any boxes of paper for airplanes, or whatever Dhyna told Jean. Everyone in the office stares at them.

“Won’t happen again. Sorry,” Leif says to Jean.

“Not in your lifetime,” Dhyna says to Karen, brushing past.

Karen shoves Dhyna, who catches herself. “Back to the kitchen, where you belong,” says Karen.

Dhyna pivots and confronts her. “Fuck off, Karen. I’ve chopped off people’s heads for less.”

Karen picks up the phone from her desk. Dhyna grabs Karen’s hand and slams her hand and the phone back down.

“Bitch,” says Karen. “I already called Security. They’ll be here any second.”

Dhyna grabs the stringy mane of Karen’s blonde hair and rips her head back. “I am Security,” says Dhyna. Karen’s eyes and throat bulge as Dhyna brings her face close to Karen’s. “Bitch.” Dhyna yanks Karen down to her seat behind her desk. “Get back to work for your Master,” says Dhyna. She releases her grip on Karen, though not the vice of her eyes.

Then Dhyna looks to Leif and offers him her arm. Leif takes Dhyna’s arm and escorts her from the office.

---

In the hallway, Dhyna and Leif surprise two Secret Service agents by grabbing their holstered guns. They level the guns at the agents. “Back up!” says Dhyna, as she and Leif edge away.

The agents don’t move.

“Fucking now!” says Leif. “Or crutches for you!” He aims at the agents’ legs. The officers begin to move back.

Dhyna and Leif race down the hall like it’s high school and they’re in the 100 meter dash, but with lethal weapons. Other agents come into the hall. Leif and Dhyna hear bullets. They turn a corner. They turn another corner.

And then they run straight at the guns raised against them without raising their own guns. They are killed by a brutal wall of bullets.

---

“I am become Teratorn.” Leif spreads his arms wide in face of the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn flaps its wings, cries out. “Gonna get you,” says Leif in mock threat.

The teratorn flexes and flaps both wings, then points a wingtip at Leif, and stares past him into the Oval Office.

Leif considers that the teratorn would eat the bald eagle in the Official Seal on the ceiling of the Oval Office like a pigeon for breakfast if it could.

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it!” says Tyrump.

The teratorn hisses.

“Fuck the Cabinet,” says Leif.

“Yes, fuck the Cabinet, Leif! But get their billionaire asses in here first — okay, Leif! Is that too much to ask of my personal bottle aide! I want to see my Cabinet’s goddamn miserable criminal billionaire faces up close and festive when I tell them how hard to fuck off before we invade Texas and Mexico! Do I care how many of their pretty portfolios I torch for the greater glory of my own?! No!”

“Right away, Sir. Your Cabinet is gathering as you speak.”

The teratorn hisses and beats its wings. Stray feathers fly off.

“Leif, my Chief of Staff—”

“Is no longer with us, Sir.”

“Pushy fucker. He won’t be missed.”

“Not by you, Sir.”

“It’s good to be King, Leif. The people love me because they hate my enemies even worse.”

“Who can be King and not be despised, Sir?”

“You’re goddamn right.” President Tyrump pats his golden comb-over and gawks at himself in an interview on the television hung on the opposite wall. He grimaces like a vampire after too many snacks of blood — more human blood than can be easily digested.

---

Soon President Tyrump watches Dhyna Durango approach with his diet cola, napkin, and straw. Right on time. He fixates on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola,” says Dhyna.

Dhyna sets the cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day,” says Tyrump.

The President drinks and continues to watch himself on TV.

On her way out, Dhyna circles over to Leif.

“What’s it gonna to be this time, Loverboy?”

“Meet you in the kitchenette.”

“Only if you’re lucky.” Dhyna moves to the exit.

President Tyrump watches her go. “Today is my big day, Leif. First I take Texas, then Mexico.”

The giant teratorn leaps up and thunders from the Rose Garden. Leif watches the ancient bird shrink in the distance. The teratorn loops around the Washington Monument spiking the sky — a pale spike in a gray sky.

“Everyday is your big day, Sir.”

Though how much longer will it last? This day? This Empire? Leif knows the beginning of the end will come no quicker for the wondering, for failing to act. He vows that today will be an even bigger day for President Tyrump than he could ever know.

---

By the time Leif gets to the kitchenette, Dhyna is standing in front of the sink puking.

She turns up the water as high as it will go to drown out the sounds of her vomit.

She pukes repeatedly. A baritone puke, full-chested.

“You throw up like a champ,” says Leif. He is truly impressed. He stands back, wondering how he can possibly help.

Eventually, Leif pulls Dhyna’s hair back from her face. Puke dribbles from her lips. She looks lovely to Leif.

Dhyna uses paper towels and soap to clean her skin. She rinses her mouth.

Then she turns to Leif.

“I’m pregnant.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t change anything.”

“How?”

“You know how.”

Leif hugs her.

“That’s wonderful,” says Leif.

“It’s terrible,” says Dhyna. “The world is ending and I am with child. To what point?”

Is there a morning after pill in the White House? Does Dhyna want a baby? And now? How? How did the pregnancy not get time looped out of existence?

“We need to save the day,” says Dhyna.

“First things first,” says Leif.

“Easy for you to say,” says Dhyna.

Leif sits down. “Maybe we can handle two things at once.”

“Well, we need too, don’t we? I do.”

“Let’s think — the day reset. The loop should have, uh, terminated things. I thought we used the most fool-proof pregnancy protection possible — the time loop, the teratorn, this whole crazy situation. Or maybe things are changed now. Is the loop over? If we die, this time, are we dead? Finally?”

Dhyna shrugs. “We need to survive the day.”

“What if getting pregnant killed the loop?”

“We don’t know that,” says Dhyna. “We can’t know that.”

“I thought we died each day, and everything with us.”

“My pregnancy is me,” says Dhyna. “My pregnancy is me. Part of me. And no other.”

“Tell that to the Fundamentalists.”

“Unteachable. By definition. Believers. They don’t learn, can’t learn, because they refuse to learn. Reality goes one way, and they go another.”

“And you don’t die.”

“We don’t die, Leif. Not yet. Not that we know of.”

“But you didn’t conceive today. That was yesterday. And yesterday doesn’t exist.”

“A co-worker in the kitchen has a pregnancy test, and I took it this morning, and I’m pregnant. Like it or not. Teratorn or no. Time loop or bust.”

“Were you always pregnant?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But you don’t know.”

“No one knows anything, Leif!”

Leif is suddenly terrified. “Nine months from now you could be giving birth on the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office.”

Dhyna turns away. She walks in circles around the kitchenette. “Or in the kitchen downstairs more likely. But that will never happen.” She stops and stares at all the Presidents in the framed poster on the wall.

“Holy shit,” says Leif.

“Forget it. Listen — one of the top officials is not in the Cabinet meeting when the nukes hit — Navy Chief, Rear Admiral Bunkie Bilgie Bentcan.”

“Okay.” Leif shifts gears. “So what? Admiral Bentcan is not a Cabinet official. He’s not expected to be in the meeting.”

“Except all the other military leaders are in this meeting to discuss the President’s plan to invade Texas and Mexico. As are several top leaders of Congress. And Bentcan is here too in the White House. At first. He leaves early. Gets safe outside DC. Then missiles from one of his submarines destroy the city. You see? Bentcan confirms the President’s location, and gets the Hell out of Dodge. He wants to be President. He teased a run for office earlier this year.”

“He can’t be. The Navy Chief is not in the Order of Succession for President.”

“Think, Leif. The entire Cabinet gone, plus the Senate and House leaders and all other top military commanders, dead. Admiral Bentcan would be the highest ranking surviving official in the entire country. Assuming someone assassinates the Designated Survivor. And they do.”

“You lived long enough to know?”

“Repeatedly. I confirmed every key detail over a span of time that I have long since tried to forget.”

Leif sits down at the table. He begins to wonder what else Dhyna knows that she has yet to reveal.

“Dhyna, how many times did we make love — in the time loop?”

Dhyna paces again. “I hold all kinds of secrets.”

Leif nods. And worries.

Dhyna stops beside Leif. “Mostly good ones,” she says.

“You’ve lived entire lives in the loop.”

Dhyna touches his cheek. “I’m ready to break the loop to live one life and one life only with you,” she says. Dhyna sits on Leif’s lap, even through she looks like she is about to throw up again.

“Dhyna, how many times did you get pregnant in the loop — with or without me.”

Dhyna looks away.

“What would you do, Leif, through endless cycles of death? I’ve been dead for years. And you were nowhere. No one was anywhere except locked in their own stupid heads. They couldn’t see the world to save their lives. They can’t see what total doom-scrolling they do with their lives each and every day. They still can’t. Except for you, finally. Things are different now, Leif. Like — our lives are more the same than ever before. We’re closer now.”

“So you’re saying things are situational.”

“Things are more than situational, Leif.”

It feels suddenly to Leif as if Dhyna has lived many lives, and that he has lived few. But now it seems that the one true meaning of life points at them both point blank between their eyes.

“Leif, it’s no fun to die every day alone forever.”

Leif can begin to understand.

Dhyna draws Leif’s eyes into her own. Leif holds the gaze.

“Admiral Bentcan is Texan,” says Dhyna. “You know that, right? Bentcan jokes about relocating the US capital to Texas, if he runs and wins.”

“Texas?” Leif tries to refocus.

“Dallas, Texas. Center of banking, business, oil. Bentcan even said the Governor of Texas would be his Vice President. What’s his name — Gassy Tank Wells. Bentcan is not joking, Leif. He will go all the way. And he will impose Martial Law — a full-blown police state top-to-bottom, fascism bold and blatant. And Goldun Sichos CEO Pittance Viper and the other big banksters and executives will back him like they already back this bloody police state — to the hilt. You know that. The more captive the nation, the more the profit. But they blew up the world trying to conquer it, and now here we are — by some miracle given another chance. We need to disappear the President, Leif, stop those missiles. Convince everyone that Tyrump went to Camp David. We need to survive if only to die another day.”

“Why bother?”

“If we try, there’s a chance. If we don’t try — you know this — there’s no chance.”

“What if there’s really no chance?”

“We don’t know that. We can’t know that. Besides, I’m pregnant.”

“An immaculate conception.”

“Don’t go religious on me now, Leif. Even if it felt immaculate at the time.” She holds his arm. “Not so much anymore.” Dhyna holds her stomach. “We need to nail Bentcan. To the ground.”

“And disappear the President. How? We need a magician.”

“We’re all we’ve got, Leif.”

Dhyna stares again at all the white Presidents framed on the wall — with one minority exception, though born of a white mother.

“Leif, if you can take down the President, I can take down the Admiral. The Resolute desk. Does it ever look like a coffin to you?”

“A funeral coffin?” Leif considers the idea. “I might see where you’re going with this.”

“What a trick it would be, to disappear the President. To save the world.”

Dhyna explains her new plan. It’s very simple — few moving parts — and even fewer as it progresses.

“If we fail today, we might succeed the next,” says Dhyna. “If there is another. One can hope. The point is to try.”

Try and hope, they must. Leif listens carefully. The could use some help. If only they could work with someone like Allspy, the NSA Director. A bad man but with lots of skills. Leif considers the idea. “Allspy knows everyone and everything. Endless contacts and communications. There’s so much power in communication. What if—”

“He doesn’t know us, Leif. Not who we really are. The National Security Agency is not on our side. There’s no fucking community in that form of communication.”

“That’s what needs to change.”

“It won’t — not today. We’re alone. Totally on our own. We need to get it done ourselves.” Dhyna clutches her stomach. “Fuck.” She moves to the sink and leans over it.

Jean Blue rushes into the kitchenette. “The President needs his meds!”

Jean sees Dhyna, face in sink.

Dhyna vomits.

“Oh no!” Jean Blue comes to Dhyna and puts her hands on her shoulders.

“So, it’s a go, now, today, Dhyna?” says Leif.

Jean looks at him strangely.

Dhyna speaks into the drain. “Do it, Leif. Do it now.”

“Take care of her, Jean. She throws up like a champ.” Leif moves to the door. Dhyna vomits again.

---

Leif finds President Tyrump with the sword, screaming in a frenzy up against the wall in the Oval Office.

“Mr. President! Time for your meds!” says Leif.

Tyrump clutches the hilt of his ancestral Bavarian sword with the blade stuck in the portrait of several officials, one of whom is his Vice President Rob Loot Thief. “You goddamn traitor!” the President shouts at the plastic smile of Loot Thief.

Tyrump feels better angry — he feels energized and creative. Anger gives him all his best ideas — like invading Texas and Mexico. Anger is his wealth — and wealth is his anger.

Tyrump shifts the ire of his expression to Leif. “Did you have a nice vacation, Leif! You fucker! Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing! Slurping my cola girl! You’ll never get her away from me, Leif. She’s too loyal! Loyal to power. Loyal to me and my money, to money itself, to power above all — not to you and your pathetic nothingness, Leif!”

“Dhyna has a mind of her own, Sir.”

“Her mind is mine, Leif. I’m the real fantasy of her mind and eye. And where the eyes and mind wander, Leif, the body comes.”

“Okay, Sir. Come on over to your desk now. It’s med time. Let go your sword. It will be there for you when you need it most. I’ll get your special mix ready.” Leif smooths the great map of Texas on the Resolute Desk. The map is woven of fine linen and dotted with mini toy tanks, planes, and submarines that mark the President’s preferred routes of invasion.

Tyrump considers. He licks his lips. “Fuck Rob Loot Thief.” He releases the hilt of the sword, leaving the blade stuck in the photo and wall. He lumbers to the Resolute Desk. “Don’t sweat that galley girl, Leif. Lots of fish in the sea, cats in my House. I’m a great fisherman myself.” Tyrump drops onto his chair behind his desk from where he watches Leif with great anticipation.

Leif taps code on the side of desk, opens the compartment, takes out a small glass bottle and syringe.

“I don’t have all day to sit around while you fumble your donkey ass, Leif!”

Leif extracts fluid from the bottle and injects it into a nasal spray inhaler. Then he hands the inhaler to Tyrump.

“This should do the trick, Sir.”

Tyrump sprays the potion into both nostrils. Almost immediately he relaxes and falls asleep in the chair.

Leif moves fast. He drags Tyrump in the chair backwards away from the desk. He yanks the sword out of the photo and wall. Then he climbs under the massive Resolute Desk with the sword and knocks out two interior side panels.

Leif drags Tyrump off the chair and shoves him into the long enclosed interior of the Resolute Desk. Leif drapes part of the map of Texas over the desk opening by the chair and pushes in the chair. Tyrump is buried and gone. Entirely disappeared.

Leif hangs the sword on the rack on the wall, for safety and ready access both.

---

Jean Blue helps Dhyna clean vomit off her face in the kitchenette.

Dhyna reassures Jean that it’s just a stomach bug. She walks Jean back to the President’s office on the other side of the Oval.

Dhyna searches and finds Rear Admiral Bentcan in the hallway, among a cluster of Cabinet members and other high-ranking officials. Bentcan speaks to a subordinate officer. Dhyna moves close. She summons her prettiest smile. She easily catches the Admiral’s eye.

“Admiral Bentcan, excuse me. Can I interrupt and bother you for a minute, Sir? My daughter Maggie is twelve years old and she has fallen in love with ships. She talks about joining the navy to sail around the world.”

“Really! How wonderful! I must say, young lady, you hardly look old enough to have a daughter that age.”

Dhyna’s smile broadens. “Early start, I guess. I’ve got more time than you might think, Sir. It would mean so much to my Maggie if I could bring her your autograph.”

Admiral Bentcan is captivated. “Certainly. Where do I sign?”

“Oh, spectacular! Please, where I work — there’s fancy embroidered napkins in the kitchenette right here. Maggie would absolutely frame a napkin signed by you, Sir. I’m sure there’s a pen around her somewhere.”

Admiral Bentcan pulls a pen from a pocket of his uniform. “You supply the fancy napkin, young lady, and I’ll supply the pen!”

“Oh, thank you so much, Sir. It means so much. Truly.”

---

Rear Admiral Bentcan follows Dhyna Durango into the kitchenette. And there is Leif Oak.

“Admiral. What a surprise,” says Leif. “Welcome to the Oval Office kitchenette!”

“Leif, I need a napkin so I can get the admiral’s signature for my daughter,” says Dhyna.

“We can do much better than that, Sir. There’s offical stationery in the Oval.”

“Oh, could we?!” says Dhyna. “Could I get a picture with the President and the Admiral, both?! My Maggie would pass out if she could take a photo like that to school.”

Dhyna grabs the sleeve of the Admiral’s uniform and pulls herself to him.

Bentcan is plainly disappointed not to be alone with Dhyna in the kitchenette. And he isn’t exactly to thrilled to impose on President Tyrump. He checks his watch. “I wouldn’t want to intrude,” he says.

“No bother, Sir. President Tyrump is in the best mood I’ve ever seen. Something about invasion seems to agree with him. So then — one quick photo!” Leif appears all smiles himself.

Dhyna clings to the Admiral’s arm and pleads with her eyes.

Bentcan pats Dhyna’s hands. “Works for me.”

”Thank you!” Dhyna hugs Admiral Bentcan. She could not seem more grateful.

The Admiral glows. “Outstanding!” he says.

Leif leads the Admiral and Dhyna through the side door into the empty Oval Office. “Now where is he?” says Leif. They walk over to the Resolute Desk. “The President must have stepped into his secretary’s office. I’m sure he would want to show you this thing of beauty, Admiral.”

Leif takes Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword from the wall and holds it up before Bentcan as Dhyna drops to her hands and knees sideways on the floor behind the Admiral. Leif winds up and hammers Bentcan with the flat of the sword, slicing the sleeves of his uniform as Bentcan tries to deflect the blade. Bentcan is knocked over Dhyna and falls flat on his back, banging his head on the floor.

Leif presses the tip of the sword painfully into Bentcan’s chest.

“One sound and you’re dead. You’re as good dead to me as alive.”

Dhyna grabs a plastic plum from the bowl of plastic fruit on the coffee table and attempts to shove the plum into Bentcan’s mouth. He resists.

Leif shoves the sword further through Bentcan’s uniform into his flesh.

“You’re ruining my day, Bentcan,” says Leif.

Bentcan winces and writhes, then opens his mouth wide.

Dhyna shoves in the plum. Then she takes medical tape out of a desk compartment that Leif has left unlocked. She wraps tape repeatedly around Bentcan’s head to secure the plum in his mouth. She tapes Bentcan’s wrists and ankles together. Next, she tapes his arms to his body.

“Wait. Let’s give him the treatment,” says Leif.

He retrieves the nasal inhaler and sprays it into Bentcan’s nose. Soon Bentcan drifts unconsciousness.

Leif and Dhyna drag Bentcan’s decorated uniformed body behind the desk. They shove him under the map of Texas and inside the desk next to President Tyrump. Leif wipes blood off the sword and sets the cleaned weapon onto the map of Texas.

At that moment, General Kilman strides into the Oval Office, slamming the door on the Cabinet members in the hall.

“Here come the cops! Dhyna! Hands up!” says Leif.

Dhyna ignores Leif’s stab at humor. She picks up Tyrump’s half-finished diet cola and napkin from the Resolute Desk and goes past General Kilman on her way out. Leif taps the sword on the desk with his fingers.

“Charge! Sir!”

“Leif, my man!” says Joint Chiefs General Krushin Karvin Kilman.

“You missed him, General. President Tyrump has gone to Camp David.”

“Wait! What! When! He can’t do that! He declared war on Texas!”

“I’m sorry, Sir. The President was furious, swearing. Something about the Cabinet, Sir.”

“Spit it out, Son. Exact words.”

“‘Crazy Clown Fucking Cabinet Motherfuckers.’ Sir.”

“What the fuck is he doing at Camp David? Bear hunt? I hear they shot one of the world’s largest black bears there last fall. Wouldn’t mind getting a rifle up on that mountain myself.”

“Sir, the President said he plans to direct the invasion of Texas from Camp David. A kind of war vacation, he said. Not a vacation from war — the opposite. He took an advisor. Wouldn’t tell me who. I don’t think he trusts me entirely, General. I don’t know why.”

“Power, Kid. Those in power trust no one. You will never know how lonely it can be at the top.”

“Yes, Sir. I expect not, Sir.”

“Then the Cabinet meeting is canceled! Has this been announced?”

“Not yet, Sir.”

“I’ll do it. Let people think I’m in charge here — why not? I’m no presumptuous fool like that pathetic General Haig. I’m the real deal! It’s a great day to be alive, Leif, is it not?”

“It certainly is, Sir. A day like no other.”

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Kilman strides from the Oval Office into the hallway by the Cabinet Room. He gathers the Cabinet members and other top officials, and he announces how important he is by informing them that the President is gone to Camp David, and from there he will direct the invasion of Texas and Mexico.

Members of the Cabinet and other high officials roar and scream, “He can’t! We won’t allow it! It’s Unconstitutional!”

“Too late!” shouts General Kilman. “None of you are the President!”

“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” The panicked mob of millionaire and billionaire officials punch their phones and rush off to shout at their preferred media hacks and tools.

The White House empties quickly.

---

Leif meets Dhyna near the West Wing exit. From there they make their way quickly to the Mall.

They get as far as the Museum of Natural History before Dhyna feels sick again. They go inside. Dhyna throws up in the bathroom.

She comes back into the Rotunda by the main entrance and takes Leif’s hand. “Something feels off. I don’t know what,” she says. “Maybe it’s a good thing.”

“You’re puking. That’s what.”

“Something more. I want to show you, Leif. Follow me.”

Dhyna leads Leif across the first floor to the Deep Time Fossil Hall. She takes him directly to the display of the Giant Teratorn.

Leif studies the looming inanimate object — stuffed and feathered and seemingly not too far off the real deal of the mighty bird that mocks, and threatens, and haunts him daily. Leif considers the life reconstruction sculpture of the teratorn warily — its dark eyes that he fears might burn red at any moment — its body bursting to terrifying life.

Dhyna reads aloud the display sign: “‘Teratorn Argentavis Magnificens or Giant Teratorn. Heaviest flying bird of all time. Extinct for 5 million years.’”

“That’s an old bird.”

“‘Skull structure suggests that it ate most of its prey whole rather than tearing off pieces of flesh,’” Dhyna reads.

“Let’s hope this beast is on our side. Truly,” says Leif.

“Can’t be long now till they find the President,” says Dhyna.

She reaches for Leif. They embrace.

“If the city doesn’t blow up on us, Leif, how far to your home in the high desert?”

“A thirty hour drive.”

They kiss.

“If the city doesn’t blow up—”

---

The world goes white. Navy missiles obliterate Washington DC.

For a moment, though, Leif, Dhyna, and the teratorn are suspended in time, each free of all harm, as if caught in some magic bubble of eternal life.

Leif sees the sculpture in the moment of the explosion. The teratorn appears to be in tears.

“It’s a great day to be alive,” says Leif.

And with that the giant teratorn bursts from stillness and spreads its wings. The ancient beast bares its heavy beak like a weapon and screams.

And instantly the teratorn is vaporized. Extinct, again.

As are Dhyna and Leif.

Each and all — wiped out by the infernal heat and the shock blast of the great hate that obliterates Earth.

---

Wikilooks Against Empire — Chapter Five

A giant map of Texas covers the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. The ancestral Bavarian sword of President Donbo King Tyrump lies on the map. Tyrump strokes the sword and watches a television on the opposite wall.

A Wolfe News Moderator reports in disbelief: “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump is planning an invasion of both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

Presidential aide Leif Oak stands behind the President. He stares into the Rose Garden where a massive bird lands with an impressive thud. The giant teratorn. It spreads its wings and roars at Leif.

Tyrump taps his billion dollar nails on the burnish of the steel blade of his sword. “My glorious invasion,” he says. “My lovely incursion. I have made my America great again. I have renamed the Gulf of Mexico as Gulf of America. The Gulf of Conquistadors! Gulf of Empire! I am the King of the Realm. The King of Real Estate! I have restored Mount McKinley and wiped out Mount Denali. It’s 1950s America all over again, deep in the coldest of the cold wars, when the Klan ran loose and wild all across the land, like ICE today! White hoods traded for white masks! Robes for badges! The slave patrols are back — about time! Give it a year, and I will rename the mighty mountain as Mount Tyrump — tallest mountain in North America — all of which I must own. Canada we’ll call New Trump. Greenland can be New Alaska, or Mineralandia. Do I offend your Native ancestors, Leif? Too bad! Losers! Annex Canada and Mexico! Buy Greenland. On to Panama! Get the Canal back where it belongs. To America! The American Canal. America! Land of Conquest and Profit! Hemispheric, global, universal!”

Land of Pillage. “Whatever you say, Sir.”

“President McKinley — McKingsley! What a man! The gold standard! The tariffs! The conquistador of the Philippines and Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba! The annexer of Hawaii! Victor of the Spanish-American War! Manifest Destinies galore! A great King of Empire! It’s a good thing we’re a peaceful people, Leif.”

“How’s that, Sir?”

“Otherwise imagine the terrors we would inflict.”

“Empire all in, Sir.”

The teratorn roars at Leif, who imagines flames shooting from its frightening maw, flames like dragon fire, engulfing the Oval Office and incinerating the seat of power. Epic uncontrolled power.

All the recent polls find America — with its behemoth and angry and attacking global Empire — to be the greatest threat to peace in the world. So much legal, martial, financial, and cultural power weaponized by the fierce assault of the plutocracy.

Imagine the terrors.

Imperial America — Coup America.

The teratorn screams at Leif a final time, then leaps up and flies off, as if in disgust.

“McKinley was shot and assassinated in his second term by an anarchist, was he not, Mr. President? A gruesome event that kicked off the Progressive Era.”

“The great ones dodge bullets, Leif. I should know. We dodge bullets and we dodge our wives — the whole lot of them. McKingsley died by infection — not by any low-class bullet. We make better medicines today, Leif. Much better. You should know. That’s why I keep you around — the sad, sad example of poor McKinley.”

“I’ll get your meds soon, Sir.”

“Later, Leif, much later. First we conquer the continent! Mexico! Canada! Texas! Greenland! Panama! Antarctica!”

“Texas is yours already, Sir. Maybe go easy there. Texans are a tough bunch. Quick on the trigger.”

“Who in Hell do you think you are, Leif?! My Chief of Staff, Lyin Lewybody Lyar?! That no good son of a bankster—”

“Lyin Lewy died, Sir. It’s just you now.”

“It’s good to be King, Leif. At least Lewybody had the good sense to invest in my great deals in the Antarctic before he kicked off. When Earth burns to a crisp, Antarctica will be my tropical paradise. Palm trees from shore to polar shore. Collapse here is great for business there. I’ve sold Antarctic time shares for decades, Leif, my whole life. Future shares for future cares. Get ‘em before it gets too hot. All the richies snapped up their shares first thing to get a place in my future golf resort, site of the prestigious Antarctic Open. The future is polar, Leif! Bipolar! Brilliant!”

“It would seem so, Sir. It’s not only the planet heating up exponentially. It’s the people too. They are getting all hot and bothered.”

“Fuck the people, Leif. God I love saying that! In private of course. The future goes at one speed only. Fast! My speed. Catch it while you can. I need more investors for my Bipolar Express! My pole to pole glory road!”

“To race through and away from the burning fires of the world, Sir?”

“Leave race out of it, Leif. How dare you! Those were the days. The only problem with the good old days was no crypto! Antarctic crypto coin will fund my Bipolar Express! It’s the real deal. Polar currency! Bipolar! No Losers allowed! No losing! But first we take Texas! And Mexico! We need to dispose of the Evil Queen who currently rules that Communist land of gobbledygook. What’s her face.”

“President Solari Socialista of Mexico, Sir. She’s raising living standards and wages. Improving literacy levels and health. Building shelter and protecting the vulnerable. Securing peace—”

“A traitor to Empire! Evil unleashed! Call the Generals! Speaking of Losers — is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it!”

“Soon, Sir.”

“Now, Leif! Heil now! Heil yes! Get my carpetbagging Cabinet in here once and for all, Leif — let’s be done with them! And bring on the Generals! We’ve got worlds to conquer! Poles to mount! People to pound! Profits to pocket!”

---

President Donbo King Tyrump is not the only one who will have his say on the verge of his war with Texas and Mexico and lands beyond. All the other high officials gather in the halls and Cabinet Room near the Oval Office where they show off their most advanced spy gadgets and gossip about the wars of the past, present, and future. Far be it from the plutocratic elite to refuse any invite to war, even if some of the military commanders are somewhat less than enthusiastic, given that the plan is insane even by their merciless and bomb-crazed standards.

The military commanders burst from the hall into the Oval Office, followed by all the Cabinet members, alongside leaders of both the House and Senate and assorted other high officials.

“Here come the cops, Leif! Hands up!”

Leif backs against the wall.

The officials are there in the Oval because they are important, and they are important because they are there in the Oval. Rich too. They gather round to say what they can and get what they can in the latest bloody profiteering emergency of the day. Most are forced to stand, given too few chairs and couches in the cramped space.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman is first to the Resolute Desk. “Mr. President, there’s much better seating in the Cabinet Room. Shall I lead the charge?” He unsheathes his dress saber and points to the hall.

“Fuck you, Kilman. And fuck the Cabinet Room. Fuck the Cabinet. Let the fuckers stand. Everybody up!”

All the seated officials rise and stand with the others. President Tyrump alone remains seated.

He points to the ceiling where a spherical golden drone hovers silent, shimmering, as if a bright hologram.

“It’s back! Somebody do something about this horrible monster!” Tyrump slaps the Resolute desk with both hands. “This terrible object aims directly at me and my bank accounts! For weeks on end this godawful menace invades my private realm!”

“Public realm!” says Vice President Rob Loot Thief. “The White House and Oval Office are public spaces, Sir. I have the right to be here! You can’t kick me out!”

“You Ass, Loot Thief! I’m the President! What I say goes! And what you say blows, you thirsty-fingered Devil!”

The golden drone bounces through a neat geometric formation — as if to laugh, flex, or mock.

“Look how that terrible thing dances on my head!” says President Tyrump. “Who let the drone in! Who? Who? Who?!”

“Catchy! Snoop Dogg!” says Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich. He tries to elbow his way to the Resolute Desk alongside VP Loot Thief. “Who let the drones in! Who! Who! Who!”

“Shut up, Richi!”

“If a drone can enter the Oval, then so can I,” says Vice President Loot Thief. “You chose me to be here, Mr. President. You know you did! Don’t deny it!”

“I should have named Snoop Dogg my Vice President, Loot Thief! And maybe I will. At least he sings for his supper. Better his crypto rapping than your hellacious yapping!” President Tyrump screams at the room: “Who let the drone in!”

All the high officials point at one another, blaming everyone but themselves. Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman, CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat, FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory, NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy, and Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer — these five top officials of the insecurity and surveilance state stand closest to the seated President and try to block everyone else out.

“This goddamned drone is smarter than all you cadaverous clowns combined! I’m the one who approves drone bombings and spying and blood pissing across every part of the planet! How am I a target? Goddamn it!”

“We believe the drone is unarmed, Sir,” says General Kilman.

“And no legs, either,” says Senator Rich.

“Fuck you all!” shouts President Tyrump. “The People love me! The People love me like a God on high!”

“A very naughty God,” says Loot Thief. “Unlike me.”

“Nothing like you, Loot Thief!” screams Tyrump.

“That’s the power of propaganda, Sir,” says NSA Director Allspy. He winks and nods at the President.

“They hate you! They hate your guts, you murderous shits! They love me!” says the President.

“Tell it to the drone,” says Director Cutthroat. “The drone defies you, Mr. President. We blame Wikilooks for the drone.”

“Get this thing out of my goddamn office!” screams Tyrump.

“My apologies, Sir. The tech is beyond us, I’m afraid,” says Director Cutthroat.

“Your apologies.”

“My apologies. I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Be afraid, Cutthroat, be very, very afraid. You and your apologies.”

The brilliant orb gleams.

“Leif, goddamn it!” shouts President Tyrump.

“Mr. President.” Leif steps forward.

“These worthless tools in my Cabinet and in my Congress and in my military are after one thing only. Tell me what it is, Leif.” President Tyrump speaks to Leif as if he and Leif are alone, as if the high officials are not gathered directly in front of him, as if the more elevated and inflated egos and pride he can smash the better.

“I would hesitate to guess, Sir. Money?”

“Power! They want my power! I am the greatest most powerful person in the world — in history! — ever! — and they want to carve me up and eat my body and drink my blood all day everyday — and splash it on the news. They would do it if they could. They want to rule the world themselves like happy hucksters, like klepto killers, like crypto conquistadors, like—

“Pillagers, Sir?”

“Like Pillagers, Leif! You Natives know pillagers, right?”

“We certainly do, Sir.”

“They want me out! Impeached, persecuted, imprisoned, executed! My own Cabinet!”

Leif glances around the room at the powerful conglomeration of officials who are accustomed to the rants, the insults, the accusations — which they ignore. A few seem captivated by the drone. Senator Rich straightens his tie and looks up and poses as if to impress the golden orb.

“Sit down! You sniveling twats, you tawdry twits, you twisted teets! Down with you all!” says the President.

Like a mad armed game of Musical Chairs, the high officials scramble for seats — pulling chairs out from under one another, body checking, and lunging. The slowest crash on their spines to the floor as chairs are yanked from beneath them. Most are forced, unceremoniously despite their regal finery, to sit beneath the feet of the President. They peer over and around end tables and the coffee table decorated with fake flowers in gold vases and silver bowls of fake fruit.

Leif sits alone, back against the wall.

Meanwhile, the drone shines above all. Leif looks up and wishes the awesome drone had taken his place already as the eyes and ears of the socialist Resistance in the Oval Office. If only the drone were fully operational, then Leif and his lover Dhyna Durango would have fled the plutocratic cesspool of the Oval for the sunlit land of the high desert long ago. A great pity that the Peoples’ Drone was not at full power and in action everyday.

A great pity that Leif and Dhyna were trapped in a doomsday time loop at the end of the world. Late stage, last stage Earth — the final extermination — the extermination of exterminations. Trapped to die over and over again with the impossible extinct giant Teratorn — come to haunt them both with the endless and eternal demands of the dead.

---

“Get rid of this monster!” screams President Tyrump. “Then we take Texas!” The President flips off the brilliant sphere above. “The Texans and Mexicans and Texicans will know we are coming!”

“They already know, Sir,” says Director Allspy. “You told them.”

“I told nothing!” says President Tyrump.

“No — you did, Sir. You’re all over the news saying it.”

“Fake news!” says President Tyrump.

“But it’s you, Sir.”

“Fake news!”

The Cabinet argues all at once. Everyone talks, no one listens.

“You clinical imbeciles! Shut up! No one speaks until I call on you by name!”

The drone glitters and bounces again near the ceiling center. Various officials raise their hands to speak. Tyrump picks on them one by one, raised hand or not.

“My splendid village idiot, Vice President Rob Loot Thief — how will you earn your keep for once and get rid of this horrid drone?”

“Call the cops! We’ve been bugged! Targeted! Fruited!” says Loot Thief.

“We are the cops!” screams Tyrump.

“Call the billionaires!”

“You idiot, Loot Thief. No one asks anything of the billionaires — the billionaires demand everything of everyone else! This drone should target you not me! We are the billionaires! More than a dozen in my Cabinet alone!” President Tyrump throws forward his little hands as if to strangle his Vice President.

“The drone will never get me. I have my own security detail,” says Loot Thief.

“That can change,” says Tyrump. He glances around. “FBI Director Payne Pillory. You’re the top cop. Your advice?”

“I can confirm, Sir. We are the cops. And the billionaires.”

“Just cuff yourself, Pillory,” says Tyrump. “Why is this drone not behind bars!”

“No prison will hold it, Sir. Not for lack of trying.”

“Cry me a river, Pillory. Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Krushin Karvin Kilman — I order you: Kill the drone!”

General Kilman rises to his feet and shadow boxes beneath the drone. The gold orb pulsates then pops a series of dazzling camera flashes, blinding Kilman. He shields his eyes, too late, and hollers, “I’ll kill you with my bare hands! I’ll carve you in half, chew you to a nub, and shit you out!”

“Disgusting, Kilman,” says President Tyrump. “Sit down.”

Secretary of Education Shammi Shilling Sharlatan pulls Kilman back to the floor beside her. “I’ll teach the drone a lesson it will never forget,” Shammi whispers in his ear. “I’ll dim its lights permanently.”

“CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat,” says President Tyrump. “Your astounding insight.”

“We need to uncover the drone’s hostile point of origin, Sir. We need to hit it where it lives — who, what, why, when, how, where. Once we know that, we will obliterate the guilty parties. The Agency’s own drones are lined up and ready to go.”

“It’s been fucking weeks, Coupy! No rush! Attorney General Lawkemup Libelem Lawless — your terrible take?”

“It’s criminal, Sir, whatever it is. I condemn it to death,” says AG Lawless. “Show me where to sign.”

“Lawless, when you get literate enough to spell your own name, you let me know.” Tyrump taps his fingers on the heavy blade of the sword as if he thinks about using it on the pale collar-and-tied neck of the Attorney General. “Secretary of Education, Shammi Shilling Sharlatan.”

“Like I told General Kilman, Sir, I’ll teach that uppity little drone a lesson it will never forget. Send it to my office, and I will put out its light permanently.”

“How terribly instructive, Shammi! Why don’t you get a rope and drag the thing into your zone of brilliance all by yourself? House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun — your solution to my great problem? Let me guess — a pistol and a prayer group.”

“Give the drone a taste of its own metal, Sir. Guns, bullets, and blessings. Blast it to Smithereens. Blow it to Hell. That’s what a Godly man does.”

“Without a doubt, Thuggy. For now, though, keep all guns holstered in my presence. My safety first, last, and forevermore.”

“Blessings and bullets to you, Sir.”

The drone gleams and flashes. Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich instinctively smiles for a photo.

Leif texts Dhyna. Hard to imagine, but the day seems even more hopeless than usual.

Tyrump catches him.

“Got a hot date, Leif? Don’t let us keep you.”

“I’m checking your med schedule, Sir. All good.”

“All bad, Leif! Can you not hear my incompetent Cabinet!? If my great and magnificent head could not hold all the world in a single thought it would absolutely explode in face of these madmen!”

“What is the single thought, Sir?” says Leif.

“What?!”

“Your thought, Sir, about the world. You said—”

“Shut the fuck up, Leif. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Absolutely, Sir.”

The drone pulses and dances along the ceiling.

“Turn me loose — I’ll kill it!” shouts Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun. He cocks his fingers like guns and pretends to shoot the drone.

“Keep it in your pants, Thuggy!” says President Tyrump.

Speaker Thuggun jams both hands into the pockets of his slacks. With his right hand, he grabs something that looks suspiciously like a pistol.

Tyrump scans the room again. “NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy! Speak, you Moron!”

“The red hand of China, Sir. It’s all over this drone. See how it laughs! At us, Sir! Like a Communist fruit from Asia. A big spy pomelo. Very yellow, Sir.”

“Chinese? Allspy? Think Wikilese. Wikilooks has claimed credit for this Evil Eye in the sky for months now! Are you sure you’re not Chinese yourself, Allspy? A sneaky app from the other side of the world? A multibillionaire double agent?” Tyrump scans the room. “What good is a Police State, if you can’t smash the enemy! I will make my Police State Great Again! This is no proper White Empire! You are all too weak! Sieg Weak! Sieg Weak! You would make America a Piece of Shit State — to secure your fantasy of glory and gold, each and every one of you!” Tyrump shakes his puny fist. “I’ve got choir girls for a Cabinet! Flower children for a military! Soiled infants for Congress! Billionaire bloodsuckers all!”

The drone pulses.

President Tyrump waves little obscene hand gestures at the drone.

The drone shimmers.

“Fuck you too!” shouts President Tyrump.

---

Kitchen aide Dhyna Durango maneuvers through the sitting mob of high officials. She carries President Tyrump’s diet cola. She glances at the drone and feels hopeful for a moment.

Tyrump watches Dhyna approach with his drink, napkin, and straw. He fixates on her shape. She is a sight moving through the crowd of officials, some of whom have discreetly taken seats on the floor. More than a few lean over and cock their heads as if to look up under a skirt, though she is wearing work pants.

“Mr. President, your cola.” Dhyna sets the cola on the desk.

Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment. “To my great and glorious day,” he says.

Dhyna walks back through the mob of officials. She looks to Leif who has moved to the wall. She shakes her head. Not today. He gets it. They are probably too late.

Leif refuses to give up. Not because he feels noble. He wants out of this place, this cult trap of death, as soon as possible, before he and Dhyna meet their ultimate fate.

President Tyrump sets down the cola, smacks his lips, then flips off everyone in the room with both hands.

CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat, fearless and smug, flips off the President in return.

Dominoes fall and everyone flips off everyone else. Kilman and Allspy, Shammi and Thuggy, Richi and Rob, AG Lawless flips off Deadly Dollar Dealer, the Marine Commandant flips off the Army Chief. The Air Force Chief flips off the Navy Admiral.

Tyrump is sourly amused. “Shit really does rise to the top,” he says. “Stand up, Idiots! You look ridiculous sitting on the floor!”

Everybody rises upon the President’s command. Leif weaves behind the officials to meet Dhyna by the exit farthest from the Resolute Desk.

He takes her hand. “We’re too late today, aren’t we?”

“I told you. No Cabinet meeting.”

“Look at them. Look at him. He’s like a bullsnake eating its dinner in the weeds. I saw a creature like him, once, back home, at the Window Rock Zoo for injured and orphaned animals. That was before the zoo sent the snakes packing because they’re a bad omen among the people.”

“Snake pit full here today,” says Dhyna.

“Maybe we can still win.”

“I should kill you now, Leif. Get the day over with. Try again tomorrow.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Admiral Bentcan is loose. He’s fully armed. We’ll be dead before dawn. Long before.”

Leif watches Admiral Bentcan standing nearby. “He’s still here. We’re still here. And you’re still pregnant.”

“Pregnant women can kill, Leif.”

“Don’t do it.”

“Give me a weapon.”

“What if there’s another way?”

“There’s not.”

---

Deep in an arroyo in the high mountain desert, Leif and Dhyna are intimate, pressed as one against each other, flush with the scalding hot red sandstone ledge. Everything solid feels liquid, so full of the intense energy of the sun. Leif and Dhyna melt together body, mind, emotion. Rock and flesh, hot fluid, melding one into the other, stone into skin and blood, skin and blood into stone. The novel day, the vibrant moment burns through them, floods their bones. Dhyna and Leif are heat and blood drunk in the energy of the high desert sun — sky and rock become as liquid as the water of their muscles and skin. Hot stone flesh fused into a new creature, a new act, a new hour of Earth.

Quavering, quivering, quick air rises, smolders above red rocks. The hot energy appears and disappears and heals all in its touch before vanishing to sun and sky.

Leif and Dhyna separate and rearrange and reconnect and melt again into the liquid stone of their day.

---

Leif wakes from his daydream.

Trapped in the Oval Office — deadly and dated, quaint church of Empire.

“Let’s get to the supply room.” Leif squeezes Dhyna’s hand. “We can be alone there.”

“Not today, Leif.”

“Only today.”

Admiral Bentcan exits the Oval.

“There he goes,” says Dhyna. “Off to Texas. We lose him and the nukes fly into the Oval. And then more nukes, and we lose the world.”

“What’s wrong with Texas?” says Leif. “They love their guns more than their own mothers.”

“Stolen Texas,” says Dhyna. “It’s a sick history they’re so proud of. They teach a twisted version of it in all the schools. Mandatory brainwashing of the people. Fake texts of Empire. The romance of the holy gun for blood and theft.”

Dhyna thinks back. Then she tells Leif that one cycle, one day, she tried to convince President Tyrump to invade Greenland instead of Texas since he hoped to anyway. Fewer nukes to fire back in Greenland. Maybe some at America’s Thule Air Force base. Plus the one the Air Force lost in the ice, decades ago. Nothing compared to the hundreds of nukes refurbished every year at the Pantex plant in Amarillo, Texas. Not to mention the many massive military bases throughout Texas that are locked and loaded and ready to fight any attack by any invader, including President Tyrump.

“Anyway,” Dhyna tells Leif, “I thought that if the President could be convinced Thule was under attack—”

“By seals and walruses?”

“Natives. Always the Natives. Brown people. Us. The Inuit in Greenland. Get him fixated on Greenland, then maybe he forgets about invading Texas and Mexico, and there’s no nuclear war. You and I survive and escape to the high desert. Greenland would be screwed but at least the world survives.”

“He didn’t go for it?”

“Fuck no,” says Dhyna. “He thinks he can take Greenland without a war. Thinks he can simply write a check. Probably can.” She stares at the Resolute Desk. “We’re still trapped here, because Tyrump prefers his own day of death. And it’s always coming. Coming for us all.”

---

Tyrump holds up his arms for silence — flexes his stubby fingers. “Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer! You control the money of the world! How do we kill this contemptuous villain who dares hover over me!”

“Hard cash,” says Deadly. “Trade the drone for hard cash. Make big bank on Wall Street. Buyer beware. Give me two calls. My commission on the sale alone would be worth—”

“Fuck you, Deadly, you filcher! I take commissions, not you! No enemy of mine will get this drone! Not you and your klepto crypto cronies!” President Tyrump surveys the room. “Senator Rich, your views I’m sure will be abnormally enlightening.”

“Willing buyer here.” Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich raises his right hand. “I would advertise the drone, mark it up, list it online, sell it, buy it back, polish it, then resell it for trillions more. Or maybe you could trade the thing for the entire country of Canada.”

“Fuck Canada. Cold air is Canada’s only export. No one values Canada, not even Canadians, especially not them. They don’t dare be a great Empire like America! I wouldn’t pay two pennies for Canada. Canada will pay for its own annexation into our great country!”

“Sell the drone to the Chinese,” says CIA Director Cutthroat. “We buy enough shit from them. Let them deal with the thing.”

“Fuck the Chinese! Fuck the Russians! Fuck the Iranians! Fuck Greenland! Fuck Venezuela!” shouts Tyrump. “Fuck Canada! Fuck the drone! No sales. I want destruction first, sales later, you Proverbial Idiots!”

“He makes fun of us, I believe,” says Vice President Rob Loot Thief.

“Canada! Greenland! Panama!” shouts Tyrump. “Venezuela! Syria! Palestine! Yemen! Lebanon! Iraq! Iran! India! Brazil! Sudan! Congo! Cuba! Ecuador! Bolivia! Honduras! Brazil! We’ll take them all!”

“Russia! China! Russia! China!” The officials chime in.

“Our Manifest Destiny! Drones above all! Go full McKinley!” shouts President Tyrump. “But I want Texas and Mexico first! Border wars are the best wars, especially where it’s warm. We will stop the illegals once and for all!”

“Not Texas, Mr. President.” Leif steps forward. “Sir, might I suggest — any invasion of Texas would be met with deadly—”

“Jump right in, Leif! You’re a big part of the brain trust here!” says President Tyrump. “Somebody hit him.”

The officials nearest Leif turn with their fists jacked. Dhyna steps in front to protect her lover. The officials hit Dhyna instead — direct into her pregnancy. She crumples to the floor. Leif falls with her, and covers her body with his own. The officials don’t miss the opportunity. They kick Leif while he’s down.

“That’s better.” President Tyrump slaps his hands on the map of Texas on his desk. He rattles his ancestral Bavarian sword. He glares at his Cabinet. “Did this drone swim the Rio Grande, clamber up my magnificent border wall, then fly into the Oval!? CIA Director Cutthroat? I demand your final answer!”

“I’ll capture it and rendition its ass to a black site, Mr. President. I’ll strip it naked and use wires and pliers. Drills and fire. Water. Ice. Gas. Chemicals. I’ve got every way the world ends in my little shop of tortures— I mean, horrors— I mean — I will get this damned insurgent thing to say whatever you want it to say, Sir, even if I need to pull its balls up through its throat with my own bare hands and bite them off with my very white teeth!”

The entire room stares in silence at CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat.

“No offense, Director Cutthroat,” says President Tyrump. “But we may need to render you to a black site.”

“Not funny, Sir,” says Cutthroat.

Director Cutthroat taps an encrypted note to himself on his handheld: “OVERTHROW PRESIDENT.”

Standing next to Cutthroat, NSA Director Allspy oversees and runs a program on his handheld that hacks and deciphers Cutthroat’s note. Allspy scowls, smacks Cutthroat on the shoulder.

“No coups, Coupy. Not here. Not yet. Not today. Later.”

“If torture gets you off, Coupy, far be it from me to intervene,” says President Tyrump. “But please, don’t destroy the world for a bit of fun, Coupy. Okay, Coupy? Thanks, Coupy.”

“You hurt?” Leif asks Dhyna.

Of course she is. Dhyna struggles to speak. “We are so dead,” she says. “This country is so brutal, so deadly. All the live-long, die-long day.”

“It’s not the country, at its best,” says Leif. “It’s the system. The bigotry, the gunocracy, the plutocracy.” Leif is furious. He stands and faces the President.

“Mr. President, if anyone in this room were tortured, the first thing they would do is have a heart attack. The second thing they would do is tell their torturers whatever they think they want to hear. Torture makes truth irrelevant, Sir. People lie like mad to try to save themselves whether they know anything or not. It’s human nature. Plus, torture is completely monstrous, Sir. And how dare you hit Dhyna, Sir!”

Tyrump jumps up and leans over the Resolute Desk. He roars at Leif: “How dare that cola dealer persist in my right domain! Shut up, Leif!”

CIA Director Cutthroat steps toward Leif and appraises him. “Are you trying to confess something, young man? I’ll give you every chance to confess whatever you wish once we’re done with this little song and dance in the Oval Office.”

“He’s a mere bottle aide, Coupy. Ignore him,” says NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy. “He knows nothing. Believe me. I scanned his retina. There’s nothing there.”

President Tyrump points up at the drone. “You billionaire beasts! You base bores! Kill the drone!”

“We don’t understand its source of power, Sir,” says Allspy. “Once we know that, we’ll take it down. Trust me.”

Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer leans forward. “We don’t know who funds it, Sir. Once we know that, we freeze its funds — it ceases to operate.”

FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory taps his phone. “I’ll order the arrest of ten thousand people who might or might not know something.”

“Make it twenty thousand,” says Director Cutthroat.

“Fifty thousand!” says Allspy.

Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich raises his right hand: “Do I hear one hundred thousand?!”

Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily steps forward. “We must force this drone to surrender! Sanction it! Expel it! Hit it where it lives! If worse comes to worse, we bomb it, destroy its homeland and all its kindred drones! Where is War Secretary Warren War War when we need him? Get him off his bazooka to finally do something worthwhile!”

“Secretary War, to the front!” screams President Tyrump.

General War shoves his way through the officials to the Resolute Desk. He points at Secretary Oily. “What now, Oily? We’re bombing the shit out of most of the world as it is!”

Oily points right back at him. “We need you to move the 4th Fleet into position, General. At least three aircraft carriers and plenty of submarines. Time for the big guns to get involved! Target the drone!”

“I’m the President, goddamn it, Oily! I give the orders around here, not you!” President Tyrump sniffs, wipes his nose. “Go ahead, General War. What he said.”

Vice President Rob Loot Thief waves his right hand at the President. Tyrump tries to ignore him. Loot Thief won’t stop.

“My favorite person in the whole wide world,” says President Tyrump. “Speak now Loot Thief, then forever shut your yap.”

“Should we really target the Oval Office with the 4th Fleet, Mr. President? I’m standing here. Right here. We all are.”

“The military knows what it’s doing, you Bitty-Brain,” says General Kilman. “Don’t be insulting.”

House Speaker Thuggy Thuggun raises both hands, fingers cocked like guns. “Oily is right! The Generals are right! Guns are the only answer! Let’s splat the fruit!” Thuggun aims his hands again like pistols at the drone.

“Holster your ass, Thuggy! You’re not going to splat anything all over my high-end carpet,” says President Tyrump. “Director Allspy! Can this thing see, hear, smell, cry, or shit? What does it do? What can we make it do?”

“We told you everything we know, Sir. The drone tracks you like prey and exposes you to the world. It’s on the blink now, but when working it releases audio and video everywhere you go. It captures everything you do, every coin you count, every weapon you buy and sell, every stock, every weapon stock, every dinner you dine with white supremacists, every classified document you hide at your resort in Florida and—”

“Shut up, Allspy!”

“Every hour you hulk on the toilet, tweeting furiously — no shame, Mr. President. It make for a spectacular live-stream. The media loves it. Ratings go through the roof. Some call it, the Peoples’ Drone. And you, the Peoples’ Prey.”

“Fuck the People’s Drone! Snuff it out! Blind it, drug it, deafen it, maim it, decapitate it! Brainwash it! Make it go berserk! The usual business.”

“The CIA is hard at work, Sir.”

“Don’t strain yourself, Coupy! Waterboard it, electrocute it, hang the drone upside down by its genitals! What are you waiting for? We gave you explicit permission during the Iraq wars, and implicit approval long before! Torture away!”

House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun yells at the drone in a Mexican accent, “Do you speak Eeenglish?! Eeenglish!”

“That’s right!” says President Tyrump. “English only in the Oval Office. If the drone can’t speak English, kick it out! Lay down the law, Lawless!”

Attorney General Lawless shrugs. “Protecting the rights of the President is the preeminent problem in legal circles today, Mr. President. The public has no right to transparency in the Presidency. And of course nothing but the English language in the Oval. We are Americans after all! English only!”

House Speaker Thuggun looks confused. “We should all speak American, Goddamn it! We are Americans! We do not Make England Great Again. We are not MEGA, we are MAGA! You know, like, Majestic!”

“Like maggots,” says Dhyna.

“You’re too nice,” says Leif.

“I know.” Dhyna sighs, rubs her belly.

“Just show me where to sign!” says Attorney General Lockemup Libelem Lawless.

“This drone looks suspiciously gender neutral to me!” says Speaker Thuggun.

“More laws! More laws! We need more laws! We are a lawful nation or we are nothing!” says AG Lawless.

“No truer words,” says Dhyna. “Death is upon us.”

“Thou shalt not have gender neutrality and gender complexity in the Oval Office! Nor anywhere else!” says Thuggy Thuggun. “We are men and we are women or we are nothing! We are righteous straight shooters! We must defend ourselves from the unholy invasion of the LGBTQ-PMS alphabet stew — the sacrilegious trans takeover of the World!”

“Get them out of my bathrooms!” screams Secretary of Education Shammi Shilling Sharlatan. “No alphabet stew on my watch! They are uncivilized — unlike all of us.”

“Amen!” All the high officials in the room join hands. “Amen!”

---

Suddenly the brilliant drone marks the forehead of President Tyrump with a bloody capital letter A.

ASSASSIN occasionally flashes in place of the single letter. ASSASSIN alternates with another word that begins with A. A dirty word. A shitty word.

Officials gasp at the bloody branding. Tyrump uses his handheld as mirror to inspect his forehead. He sees A and ASSASSIN and ASSHOLE flash bright red on his pale skin.

“I’m branded for life!”

“And death. Mostly death,” says Dhyna. She looks up from the floor. She feels better. She could stand again with the others. She could go back to the kitchen. She considers the options and remains where she is, for now — with Leif standing by her side.

Tyrump ducks under his desk to escape the bloody branding, but the red letter A glows on the desktop marking the precise location where the President attempts to hide.

General Kilman unclips his saber and slashes up at the drone, to no effect.

Director Cutthroat steps onto the coffee table and swats at the drone with his phone — also to no effect.

Director Allspy powers off the lights in the Oval via his handheld. The drone gleams brighter, the bloody letter A glows bloodier. Then power restores to the Oval. Allspy punches his handheld. “Time to upgrade.”

“Goddamn it!” House Speaker Thuggun rips off his right shoe and throws it at the drone. The shoe misses wildly and bounces off a granite bust of Martin Luther King, then smashes through a collection of Native American pottery.

“Good shot, Thuggy,” says FBI Director Pillory.

Thuggy grins. “Good old-fashioned police work, Pillory.”

President Tyrump clambers up from under the desk and gets back into his chair where he sits disconsolate, a marked man. He points at the shards of Native American pottery next to Thuggun’s shoe. “That’s what Speaker Thuggun thinks of you and your kin, Leif. How do you like it? That’s our Thuggy. No control. He’ll pay for that.”

“In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue,” Dhyna says to Leif. “500 years of conquest coming for you, and you, and you.” She stands and pokes Leif in the chest three times. “But we’re still here. If sometimes only barely.”

Leif whispers in Dhyna’s ear: “Thuggy’s nuts.”

“What say you, Leif?!” says President Tyrump.

Leif considers the shards of Native pottery. “The conquest continues,” he says.

“We can all thank God for that,” says House Speaker Thuggun.

Attorney General Lawkemup Libelem Lawless steps forward and holds his smartphone near Tyrump’s forehead to try to block the bloody letter A — to no avail.

“Goddamn it!” screams Tyrump. “Get me Press Secretary Bullcrap Baloney Bullshat! He can talk anything out of existence.”

Like genocide, thinks Leif. And theft. And homicide, tribalcide. Omnicide.

“Poof! Gone like it never happened. Even when you’re staring directly at it. That’s his job! Get Bullshat here right now!” screams Tyrump. “Where’s Bullshat?!”

“Out sick, Sir. Laryngitis,” says Leif.

“My speaker can’t speak! Who will explain the world to the losers!” Tyrump throws both hands into the air and hollers at the drone, “You lousy scum Socialist! You dirty axis of Resistance! You cowardly Communist! Come down here and fight us all like a man, at once!”

“The Drone is a Socialist?” says the Vice President Rob Loot Thief. “I thought all the drones were Capitalist — on our side!”

“Shut the fuck up, Loot Thief!” says Tyrump.

“It’s the end of the world as we know it — if the drones are against us!” says Loot Thief.

“Shut the Hell up, Loot Thief!”

Suddenly, House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun pulls from his pants pocket a fully working plastic pistol that he smuggled past the metal detectors and the Secret Service. He waves it at the drone.

“Hold your fire, Thuggy!” shouts Tyrump.

“No yellow drone will take away my God-given right to use a killing machine!” Thuggun aims at the radiant drone. “Got you now, you traitor! Stick ‘em up!”

The drone beams.

“If video of this gets out, we’re doomed. Droned,” says Attorney General Lawless. “Everyone turn off your handhelds!”

No one does, including Attorney General Lawless.

President Tyrump tries to rub the scarlet letter A off his forehead with his bare hands. “Help me!” screams Tyrump. “I don’t deserve this!”

“The drone has come home to roost,” says Dhyna.

“Was only a matter of time,” says Leif.

“Surrender! Hands up!” shouts Thuggun, still aiming at the drone. Suddenly upon Speaker Thuggun’s forehead glistens the phosphorescent image of the buttocks of an enormous man.

In a panic, all the officials use their handhelds to examine their own foreheads.

“There’s a butt on my head!” says Thuggun.

“Just noticed?” says Dhyna.

Senate Leader Richi Rich opens his arms to the drone. “How much for your services?”

“Shut up, Richi!” shouts Tyrump. “Director Pillory, arrest this drone once and for all! Do what must be done! Read the drone its fucking rights!”

“Drones have rights, Sir?”

“Just do it, Pillory!”

FBI Director Pillory points at the drone. “You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during interrogation. If you are rendered to a black site, no law applies. We will do with you whatever we want, in any prison, anywhere, so help your goddamned Soul, goddamn it! I order you to surrender to the law!”

The drone speaks: “Go to Hell, FBI Guy.”

“It’s alive! It speaks! It gives orders!” says Tyrump. “Kill it! Kill it!”

“This thing grows more valuable by the minute,” says Senator Leader Richi Rich Rich.

Vice President Rob Loot Thief fouls his pants. The dark stain is obvious, as is the stench that permeates the room. Officials hold their noses, wave at the air, and back away. Loot Thief slinks through the room and exits.

The Drone speaks again: “Vice President Rob Loot Thief is not the only one among you who is completely full of shit.”

“I know that voice!” says Secretary Sharlatan. “It’s What’s-His-Name!”

“What’s-His-Name! What’s-His-Name!” The officials chorus.

“Who’s What’s-His-Name?!”

“It’s What’s-His-Name! What’s-His-Name!”

“Holy fuck, shut up!” says President Tyrump. “You colossal tools! You gilded no-nothings! Who’s What’s-His-Name?”

“I know it! I can’t think of it,” says NSA Director Allspy. The Director taps rapidly on his handheld.

“It’s Justice Assured,” says Leif.

“Of Wikilooks,” says Dhyna.

The drone shimmers. The voice of Justice Assured speaks from the brilliant orb: “Got you! You Billionaire Bad Boys, you Executers of Empire, you Gods of Genocide, you Killers of Climate, you High Priests and Banksters of the most militant and destructive country in the history of the world — in all the galaxies known and unknown!”

“You can’t say that! People will get mad!” President Tyrump lurches to his feet. “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”

“Oh, you certainly are,” says Justice Assured. “The People have decreed. You must be watched, contained, and dismissed.”

“It’s time to call Wikilooks what it really is,” says Director Cutthroat. “A hostile spy agency aligned with enemy states like Russia, China, Iran, and California.”

“And Chicago, Boston, and New York!” shouts Speaker Thuggun.

Justice Assured: “It’s time to call the CIA what it really is: the world’s most notorious state terrorist agency, drone bombing civilians overseas night and day — and supporting genocide. And the President in the White House is the hands-on boss of the Director of the CIA — responsible, irresponsible for it all.”

President Tyrump panics. “He says things out loud! You can’t say that! Who told him! I blame you all!”

Attorney General Lawless wags his finger at the drone. “Justice Assured, you could have been a simple fake rebel journalist. But no. You screwed the pooch. You went all-out revolutionary. Signed your own death warrant. Don’t think we won’t get you! Again! And again!”

“You goddamn fool!” screams President Tyrump. “It’s us who he’s got!” Tyrump scratches at the bright letter A on his forehead. “You Entirely Useless Trillion Dollar Thieves! I’ll do it myself!”

President Tyrump grabs his sword and attempts to stand on his chair but slips and falls off. He knocks his head on the oak edge of the desk, then thuds to the floor.

Secret Service agents rush to his still form.

Senator Rich opens his arms to the drone. “My dear golden friend, I’m sure we can come to some mutually rewarding arrangement.”

“How dare you, Senator Rich! Traitor!” screams House Speaker Thuggy Thuggun. He aims his plastic handgun and shoots Senator Rich in the chest.

Senator Rich collapses onto the Oval rug in the Oval Office.

Several officials turn on Thuggun. “I was aiming at the drone!” Thuggun belatedly waves his gun at the drone and fires a shot that passes through. The drone sparkles as the bullet rips through the Presidential Seal on the ceiling. Thuggun pivots and shoots the marble bust of Martin Luther King. The bullet ricochets off the marble and blasts Leif in his left thigh.

“Of course,” says Leif.

Leif falls back against the wall, clutching his leg. Dhyna catches Leif. Then she tries to pry open Leif’s hands to see the wound.

“Stop shooting, Thuggy!” screams General Kilman. He tackles Speaker Thuggun and drives him to the floor.

NSA Director Allspy taps a quick note on his handheld. “High Alert! All ground, sea, air, and space forces — the White House is under attack, possibly by Russians, Chinese, Iranians, jihadis, or Californians. Go to High Alert.”

Secret Service agents and Special Forces rush into the Oval Office shouting, “Get down! Get down!”

The high officials scream and duck, crouch and dive to the floor.

Leif, as nearly the only person of color among many armed white men, raises his hands.

“Don’t shoot! I’ve already been shot!”

Leif and Dhyna are tackled and slammed into the wall.

“I can’t breathe!” says Leif.

“Where have I heard that before?” says the Secret Service agent crushing him. “You shot the Senator, you criminal!”

“Wasn’t me!”

“Thought you said you can’t breathe!”

“Can’t! Not in. Only out.”

And not for long.

Leif loses consciousness pinned upright against the wall. His head droops. Dhyna screams and rips at the agent, trying to pull him off Leif.

Secret Service agents continue to swarm the room and surround President Tyrump lying unconscious on the floor.

The agents are so crowded as more flood in that the agent choking Leif is accidentally knocked aside. Leif drops to the floor. Dhyna goes with him.

---

When Leif regains consciousness at the base of the wall, he finds himself pressed against Dhyna who examines his bleeding wound.

“Have you lived this day before?” Leif asks Dhyna.

“Feels like it,” she says.

“Different day, same death,” says Leif.

“Same day, different death,” says Dhyna.

“Let’s go to the kitchenette, Dhyna. Let’s bar the door. Then maybe we contact Bentcan. If we threaten him with the truth—”

“Tried that,” says Dhyna. “Bentcan will laugh in your face. It’s too late anyhow. Soon the missiles will hit. We need to stop Bentcan and the rest another way. But we’re lucky this time, Leif — we will die instantly, you and I. No lingering.”

---

Dhyna thinks back to a less lucky day.

Post nuclear bombing of the White House, traffic blocked on the beltway, Dhyna and the other travelers open their car doors and fall out, blinded, burnt, drowning in smoke and fire, reaching to slug any drink at hand, screaming for anyone who might help. But there is no one to respond to apocalypse.

---

President Tyrump lies unconscious by the Resolute Desk while agents try to revive him.

Flat on the rug in the center of the Oval, Senator Rich lies bleeding out. Agents work his wounds, call for water.

Nearby, General Kilman kneels on Speaker Thuggun, whose four limbs are wrapped behind his back in a pretzel of impossible angles.

Kilman binds Thuggun with zip ties and belts to make an example of him.

Panicked agents continue to work on the prone President. They yell at their radios for assistance.

Leif pulls himself up by the bullet-chipped bust of Martin Luther King. He sees the President down, the agents frightened, the officials — some scared, others excited, thinking toward an evermore profitable future.

“I can help,” says Leif.

“Don’t,” says Dhyna.

“We can learn more about the day.”

“We know enough already, Leif. We need to act — but tomorrow. Not now. Tomorrow will be today.”

“I can do this,” says Leif. He puts both hands in the air. “I’ve got this!” Leif hobbles, hands held high, toward the President. His left leg feels like a pillar of fire. “The President needs his meds! The medicine! I’m the one who gives the President his meds. There in the desk. It’s locked.”

Secret Service agents allow Leif to limp through their gauntlet of guns — hands to sky.

The agent who tackled him leans in. “One wrong move, Brownie, and you’re toast.”

At the desk, Leif taps code, unlocks the special compartment. His coding seems to impress the agents who give him space to work. Leif preps the meds then squirts liquid magic into the nostrils of President Tyrump, who smiles, weakly, but remains unconscious.

“Come on, Mr. President, wake up. Just another day at the office.”

Leif rocks Tyrump gently and selects a second bottle of nasal spray.

Secret Service agents crowd Leif again, while others work furiously on a problem at each of the four entrances to the Oval. The doors are locked and will not open. The security system has been hacked and used against itself.

Leif slips another bottle into the nose of Tyrump.

The President’s arms flail. He screams, “You’re killing me, Leif!”

Leif backs away as fast as he can. Not fast enough. The agent of Leif’s nightmares hauls him off, then hoists him, and flings Leif at the wall.

Leif lies crumpled at its base. He imagines a trail of blood and tears if he would try to crawl out of the Oval now. He also imagines returning on foot, or maybe on horse, with a spear. Or maybe a tank. Or flying a plane. He thinks of the missiles that will soon end the day, and he knows there must be another way.

Dhyna comes beside him. She holds Leif’s face in her hands. “I told you,” she says.

“Don’t kill me now,” he says.

“Not yet maybe.”

“The teratorn will be more pissed than ever.”

“No more than you and I.”

“Empire All In,” says Leif.

Dhyna holds Leif.

The day holds them both.

Dhyna and Leif stare across the room at the chaos by the Resolute Desk.

By some miracle, they are still alive, deep in the doomsday time loop of it all.

For once, they rest. They leave the world alone. They’ve done enough for now. Everything they could do. The day will soon reset, they think. And maybe it will. It cannot come too soon.

---

Oval of Death — Chapter Six

Dhyna Durango and Leif Oak huddle against the east wall on the floor of the Oval Office.

At the Resolute Desk President Tyrump screams at Secret Service agents who steady him where he totters, revived and confused.

“You were right, Leif,” says Dhyna. “We should have gone to the supply closet for privacy, intimacy, anything but this killer clown show.”

“At least I wasn’t stun-gunned today,” says Leif.

“What the fuck is going on?!” shouts Tyrump.

Still disoriented and feeling threatened, President Tyrump lashes out with a wild punch, a desperate right hook to the gut of the agent who helped him off the floor.

The punch has no effect, other than to cause the agent to let go of Tyrump, who wobbles but remains upright.

“What in Hell happened!” Tyrump squints up at the golden drone of Wikilooks. “You Devil! You caused this!”

CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat sidles up to the center of power. “Mr. President, Speaker Thuggun shot Senator Rich with a smuggled pistol. Richi may live, he may not.”

“I’ll live!” shouts Senator Richi Rich Rich, blood-soaked on the rug in the center of the Oval.

Loud smashing sounds echo around the perimeter of the Oval Office, as Secret Service agents try to bash open the sealed doors.

“Speaker Thuggun shot Richi and the drone to no real effect, a pity,” says FBI Director Payne Pillory. Thuggy shot the bust of Martin Luther King too — as if by instinct, and to re-enact history.

Concussed, Tyrump gazes at the official throng, hoping to make sense of the high and mighty gathering of his Cabinet and more. For a moment he forgets all about his plan to invade Texas and Mexico, but Navy Admiral Bunkie Bilgie Bentcan has not forgotten. He has vacated the premises. Tyrump touches the bump on his skull and his wild hair, tries to fix it.

“I was attacked!” says Tyrump.

“You tripped, Sir, with the sword, and hit your head,” says CIA Director Cutthroat. “Your aide brought you back with those little bottles of his. I don’t trust him.”

“Relax, Coupy. One suspect at a time,” says Director Allspy.

Tyrump’s head aches. “Stop hammering the doors! Who the Hell is in charge here?! Who killed the Senator?!”

“I’m okay, I’ll be okay!” shouts Senator Rich.

“Shut up, Richi!” says Tyrump.

“One agenda item at a time!” says Allspy.

Senator Rich points weakly at US House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun. “It was that guy! He shot me!”

“I swear I aimed at the drone!” Tied up on the floor, House Speaker Thuggun points his bloody nose up at the People’s drone, which glimmers and sparkles.

General Kilman kneels on Thuggun and secures the belt binding him. “Shut up, Thuggy! I control the guns around here!”

“You’ll pay for this, Thuggy!” shouts Senator Rich.

“We’re all going to pay for this,” says Dhyna.

“One! Two! Three!” Secret Service agents use the marble bust of MLK to batter the locked Oval Office doors, to no effect.

“Everyone out of my office!” says Tyrump.

“I’m afraid the doors are locked, Mr. President,” says Director Allspy.

“Unlock the doors!” says Tyrump.

“The agents are trying hard, Sir.” Director Allspy looks distressed — glancing from his handheld to the President.

“Allspy, what the fuck is your problem?!” says Tyrump. “Don’t tell me you’ve been noodling my wife?!”

“Mr. President, remember when you ordered the 4th Fleet to target the drone in the Oval Office, before you tripped and knocked yourself unconscious?” says Director Allspy.

“To scare the drone, Allspy,” says Tyrump. “To put it in its place.”

NSA Director Allspy worries his handheld. “Yes, Sir. Well, Sir, the 4th Fleet felt compelled to follow your orders. The Fleet targeted the Oval Office, Sir.”

“That shows those military boys know exactly who is in charge here, Allspy. Me! President Tyrump! I am the ultimate commander as President. The Commander-in-Chief of the United States of America and its Armed Forces!”

“Yes, Sir. Anyway, I suppose it’s not their fault. While General Kilman was busy securing House Speaker Thuggun, Navy Rear Admiral Bunkie Bilgie Bentcan, your Commander of the 4th Fleet, Sir — he informed me that one of the fleet’s nuclear submarines was hacked and sabotaged. As a consequence, a nuclear ballistic missile was launched, Sir, a Trident II. It will destroy everything here in Washington DC. It will arrive in 15 minutes, Sir.” Director Allspy studies his handheld with great sorrow. “It will strike the Oval Office. It will destroy the entire city.”

“Come again, Allspy? A US Trident missile launched at my own ass? A nuclear missile? Like Hiroshima? Nagasaki?”

“Precisely, Sir. Only — much worse.”

“Launched by fucking who?! I’ll kill him! I’ll see him hung! I’ll have his head on a pike!”

“A terrible thing, Sir. The submarine carries 24 missiles. One Trident II missile was launched and shot at the Oval here. That missile has four nuclear warheads that can be targeted at four different locations, like the fingers of God descending from the sky, Sir, but instead these four warheads have all been targeted here, at the Oval Office. Each of these four nukes on this one missile is thirty times more powerful than the nuclear bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Japan, Sir. That power is going to destroy Washington DC. And then some.”

“But that’s insane!”

“That’s our policy. Our strategy. Very effective. A great deterrent. Mutually Assured Destruction. It’s quite MAD, Sir. Totally lethal. Very legal. It’s cutting edge. I’m sorry, Sir.”

“Shoot it down!”

“Impossible.”

“Disable it!”

“These missiles are designed to not be disabled, Sir. How pointless would that be? These missiles cannot be stopped nor destroyed before reaching the target. This missile will detonate immediately above this office and destroy the city. Washington DC is gone. I’m sorry, Sir.”

“You’re ‘sorry’! You destroy this city, you kill all of us, the leader of the free world, me! and you’re ‘sorry,’ Director Allspy!”

“I did not hack the launch system, Sir!”

“I’m glad to hear that, Director! Goddamn it! Who hacked the nukes?! The Russians?! The Chinese?! My wife?! Some punk sixteen year old in Australia?!”

“It was the Texans, Sir.”

“The Texans?! Our Texans?!”

“The Texans, of Texas, USA. Yes, Sir,” says Director Allspy. “The Great Texas Fundamentalist Republic as Independent Polity — Texas RIP. Director Pillory — tell him.”

“That’s what they call themselves,” says FBI Director Payne Pillory. “The FBI has been battling these white supremacist Texas secessionists for many years now. The Secessionist Fundies. Director Cutthroat—tell him.”

“Apparently the Texas Fundies believe that you, Mr. President, intend to attack Texas,” says CIA Director Coupy Cutthroat. “The Texas Fundies are a people of great belief, Sir. Terrorists, true. Great believers. Very devout. They love their Texas. Completely nuts.”

“We are building the Great Wall of Texas, you grand motherfuckers!” screams Tyrump. “Gas and oil are God! We’ve got to take Texas and build that wall to secure my oil! The Texas Fundies, we were counting on them to help us, not to kill us! What a godawful mix-up! It’s a joke! My great plan for the invasion of Texico was nothing but a joke. That’s how I would pass it off, if it met with too much resistance. That’s what I would say! Nothing serious! Fool the People! Never let them know what you really think, what you really might do! Until its done! What you really want! That’s The Great Fog of the Art of War, Idiots! I wrote the book myself. How could it go so wrong?!”

“Good thinking, Sir,” says Director Allspy. He refers to his handheld. “Well, it’s too late. The Texas Fundies issued a statement to the media claiming that they must destroy Washington DC to save themselves, to save the country. An act of defense, liberty, and justice, they say. God’s war. Mass homicide, it looks to me. They claim that you, Sir, are perpetrating great terror, an invasion of Texas. They believed you, Sir, when you declared war on Texas and Mexico. They say you left them no choice. You renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. They thought Texas was next to be renamed. Tyrumpas! Claimed by you.”

“Fuck,” says the President. “I should have invaded Greenland and the Eskimos and left it at that.”

“The Inuit, Sir?”

“Fuck you, Allspy!” says President Tyrump. “How is it possible that my nuclear system can be hacked? But then not re-hacked? You can’t have nuclear weapons that can be hacked, Director! Or else that’s exactly what you need!”

“They are not my weapons, Sir,” says Allspy. “They are his—” Allspy points at General Kilman who kneels on House Speaker Thuggun. “And they are your weapons, Mr. President, as the Commander-in-Chief of the American military.”

“I don’t care whose fucking weapons they are, Allspy! If someone, anyone, can hack, launch, and destroy whoever they want without my say-so, then what the Hell am I doing here in this dinky little, shitty little Oval goddamned Office as Commander of anything except filling my own filthy grave!”

“What the Hell, indeed, Sir.”

“If computers can be fooled, systems rigged, launch personnel tricked, then no one is safe anywhere anytime ever!”

“Certainly not us, Sir.”

Leif moves close to the intense discussion by the Resolute Desk. “Mr. President, no one was ever safe with nuclear weapons. Computers malfunction. The world was nearly blown up repeatedly these past decades.” Leif moves even closer to the President. “If there is nuclear retaliation to this bombing of DC and if enough bombs go off, then nuclear winter will destroy all the rest of the world, even the parts the bombers may love.”

“That’s not my problem!” says Tyrump.

“We did our best, Sir,” says General Kilman. “These are electronic computerized systems operated by fallible personnel. All such systems can be breached. And simply malfunction. It’s a hazard of duty, Sir.”

“A ‘hazard’ of fucking ‘duty’!” screams President Tyrump. “I hate ‘duty’! I forbid it!”

“How did that turn out?” Dhyna Durango walks in among the men. “At least once a decade from the start of the nuclear age, computer glitches and malfunctions caused both America and Russia to think they were under immediate nuclear attack. We got lucky until now. Disaster was barely avoided each time by gutsy and risky decision-making by a few officers and officials — who had to guess at what was going on — or not. People had to guess about the computer readings. And guess correctly.”

Dhyna explained to President Tyrump that the world came close to the terminal ultimate on multiple occasions, including the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when American President John Kennedy recklessly gambled the fate of the planet while moving like a tough guy against Cuba, threatening invasion, and pressing Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to remove Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba, which had been placed there to both protect Cuba from American invasion and as retaliation for American nuclear missiles placed near the Soviet Union in Turkey.

During this crisis, the American navy encircling Cuba bombed a nuclear-armed Soviet submarine in the area. The only reason the world didn’t blow up that day is that Vasili Arkhipov was the only one of three officers on the Soviet submarine required to approve nuclear missile launch who, instead, alone refused consent to do so amid the American bombing. Thus it has been widely noted (though little known in America) that Vasili Arkhipov is very possibly the most important person to have ever lived, saving the world from total nuclear destruction. The American Navy, aggressive and belligerent on the seas as so often, had no idea what they were doing, bombing a nuclear armed sub. And Kennedy — the bomber-invader of Vietnam, as belligerent as any American President — also had no idea what he was doing menacing and bullying Cuba and the Soviets. Kennedy and badly blinkered American intelligence had no idea about the quantity of nuclear weapons already in Cuba or how close they came to compelling the Soviets to launch those nukes at America.

“President Kennedy and American intelligence thought they knew, but they were not even close to knowing,” Dhyna tells Tyrump. “They were certain they knew the truth with certainty about all things nuclear. They didn’t know that they didn’t know.”

“There’s no uncertainty this time. Multiple sources confirm,” says Director Allspy. “Immediate eye-witnesses too.”

Dhyna backs away to the wall of the office. What is time to her? She feels all the horror of the history of it all every day. It is with her all the time now. So it has gone — the sheer insanity, gambling with obliteration — ever since the Cuban missile crisis, not least when decades later the American naval ship the USS Vincennes — accidentally? — shot down an Iranian airliner in the Persian Gulf when the plane was 12 miles off the coast of Iran. The USS Vincennes, a U.S. Navy guided-missile cruiser, was inside Iranian territorial waters, even closer to the coast of Iran than the Iranian passenger plane, that summer of 1988 when it shot down the Iranian airliner killing 299 people including 66 children.

Iran retaliated 5 months later by blowing up an American airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland, Pan Am Flight 103, killing 270 people — though both America and Iran, intent upon deflecting blame for their own actions, continue to tacitly conspire to deny the tit-for-tat sequence, all the way to the present. A year later, a report from the U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings noted that the American Navy was too reckless and dangerous to be allowed to operate where it pleased — let alone, unlawfully, within the territorial waters of other countries.

During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 that would inspire the two great anti-nuclear weapons movies in 1964 — Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove and Sidney Lumet’s gut-ripping Fail-Safe — the American Navy got lucky. President Kennedy got lucky, and the world did not blow up. That kind of dumb luck runs out, and eventually the world will blow up — as Dhyna has seen, lived, and died time and time again, caught wraith-like in this horrific time loop — unless nuclear weapons are abolished — entirely. Other times, computers have malfunctioned, showing false incoming attacks forcing officials to make desperate wholesale life and death decisions based on faulty and incomplete information.

War, war, war — Dhyna knows now that the public doesn’t know as she has had infinite time to learn that the empire loves to obscure the real financial reasons for war and myriad other conflicts — the better to cloak its brutal actions in noble rhetoric — not least in Ukraine today and Palestine and all across Asia, Latin America, Africa, and everywhere else.

How much of the public knows, for example, that the ghastly war between Russia and Ukraine is basically a proxy battle between America and Russia over the flow of fossil fuels, both Ukraine’s and Russia’s — that it’s America with its military installations advanced everywhere across the globe trying to shape and control that flow? This actual basis of the war in Ukraine is all-but-never discussed openly, not even by President Tyrump except incidentally when he speaks plainly of trying to extort Ukraine of its precious mineral wealth.

American economic hitman type manipulation and interference in Ukraine’s politics, economics, and government leading up to the military war with Russia was America’s attempt to interfere with and cripple Russia’s economy, based on fossil fuels. Russia responded by invading Ukraine to protect its economy, and America responded to that by secretly blowing up Russia’s Nordstream 1 and Nordstream 2 undersea natural gas pipelines to western Europe, crucial for sales. America, naturally, denies doing this.

These are all crimes, international crimes, domestic crimes, war crimes, Russian and American, and Ukraine is caught in the middle committing crimes of its own, while America pushes the war to be fought to the last Ukrainian, more than a million dead on all sides of the war in mere few years.

Meanwhile, the politics and economics of the American-Israeli genocide of Palestinians are equally distorted by establishment newspeak and doublespeak proclamations and reporting, going so far as to deny genocide in the first place, let alone American responsibility for it — armed, funded, and authorized. And so it goes, the lies of empire, aided, abetted, ignored by Empire media, publishing, and politics.

Dhyna has had cause to learn that real history of her country, that America is the most aggressive imperials nation, the global empire, and always has been from its founding, and before. Dhyna has had cause to learn that America is Coup Nation, the uncontested leading coup nation in the world.

Dhyna did a bit of research from her laptop in the White House kitchen these past unending days of a day. She discovered much of the depredation and many of the coups of sovereign leaders carried out by America — by the CIA, the American military, and its proxies — a partial list since the 1950s:

• 2026 Nicolás Maduro – Venezuela – currently in prison

• 2021 Joe Biden (arguably) – USA – attempted block of transfer of power

• 2014 Viktor Yanukovych – Ukraine – exiled, sentenced to prison

• 2011 Muammar Gaddafi – Libya – murdered

• 2009 Manuel Zelaya – Honduras – exiled for two years

• 2003 Saddam Hussein – Iraq – imprisoned, then executed

• 2002 Hugo Chavez – Venezuela – arrested and held for three days

• 1991 & 2004 Jean-Bertrand Aristide – Haiti – exiled twice

• 1990 Manuel Noriega – Panama – imprisoned till death

• 1983 Hudson Austin – Grenada – imprisoned for 25 years

• 1981 Anwar Sadat (apparently) – Egypt – murdered

• 1975 Gough Whitlam – Australia – no other severe punishment

• 1975 Francisco Xavier do Amaral – East Timor – exiled for more than two decades

• 1973 Salvador Allende – Chile – murdered

• 1971 Juan José Torres – Bolivia – exiled, then assassinated

• 1967 Panagiotis Kanellopoulos – Greece – imprisoned for seven years

• 1966 Kwame Nkrumah – Ghana – exiled

• 1965 Sukarno – Indonesia – house arrest till death

• 1964 João Goulart – Brazil – exiled

• 1963 John F. Kennedy (apparently) – USA – murdered

• 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem – South Vietnam – murdered

• 1963 Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy – Ecuador – exiled

• 1961 Patrice Lumumba – Congo – assassinated

• 1954 Jacob Árbenz – Guatemala – exiled

• 1953 Mohammad Mossadegh – Iran – imprisoned, then house arrest till death

Dhyna learned that America couped these sovereign leaders and countries directly, or attacked by proxy, militarily or financially, along with many other countries and officials, for profit and power.

This partial list of coups are all right-wing coups, ousting left or more liberal leaders, or where a rare tyrant, at great cost of life and other harm to the people, to the benefit of American plutocrats and the plutocracy in general — basically blood and bodies for money.

In addition to these American-orchestrated and backed right-wing anti-democracy and profiteering coups, America and its proxies assassinated many others leaders, officials, and human rights workers, and interfered in elections in virtually every country in the world, typically at great harm to the peoples and for great profit to American plutocrats, high finance, big corporations, and other profiteers.

America — the so-called security state, the military and police state — similarly crushed many left or liberal governments and popular human rights movements in virtually every country in the world, including its own, repeatedly and constantly.

Internal to America, the CIA, FBI, and other politicized police forces consistently killed directly or by proxy leftists, liberals, the poor, people of color, and human rights workers and environmentalists, while falsifying or blocking investigations, typically to the benefit of the right-wing and the plutocracy. Dhyna knew some of this originally. These were the reaons that she and Leif got involved with the socialist resistance in the first place, and then got put in the White House to do what they could to watch, learn, and listen. To try to keep things in somewhat in check.

Of course, the American military-police state works to coup additional countries everyday, while continuing its other attacks at home and abroad, a notorious tradition that goes all the way back to the founding of the imperial country, from sea to shining sea, “manifest destiny,” Native “exterminating,” African enslaving, and Mexico invading from the start. America has always been an imperial aggressor, and long since the most destructive and aggressive country by far, with military installations and forces in most places in the world and throughout all the oceans and seas. Also space.

America collaborated at times with Nazis (and fascists) against popular movements during and after World War II, both at home and abroad. The country is deeply white (male) supremacist, and it shows in its Presidency throughout time, in the structurally anti-democracy Senate, in the racist Constitution, in its bigoted and brutal prison system and many such social systems, and in many of its policies and laws ongoing.

Sovereign coups are terrible but little different from much of the rest of America’s pillaging tyranny and bloodshed both at home and abroad. Dhyna, like Leif, was never one to look away:

• Hundreds of thousands of North Koreans killed by American invasion in the 1950s.

• Millions killed by American invasion in the 1960s and 1970s in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand.

• Up to a million or more killed in Indonesia in the 1960s by American-backed forces.

• And up to 200,000 killed in East Timor in the following decades.

• Hundreds of thousands killed in Central America in the 1980s by American trained, backed, and armed forces.

• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children killed by American economic sanctions in the 1990s.

• Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis slaughtered during the American invasion and occupation in the twenty-first century.

• Hundreds of thousands more Afghans killed by American invasion.

• Constant drone strikes worldwide.

• Today, since 2023 ongoing, the American-Israeli genocide of Palestinians – hundreds of thousands dead, millions displaced.

• And since 2022 ongoing, the American instigation and arming and prolonging of the war between Ukraine and Russia – more than a million dead.

• Massive refugee flight and deaths in Latin America for many decades, due to killer American sanctions, other pillaging economic policies, and war.

And this is only a very partial list of American assault and pillaging worldwide, including in North America itself.

Fundamentally, Dhyna and Leif are fully aware that the fight for the future is democracy and human rights pitted against plutocracy and bigotry, and it always has been. Meanwhile, plutocracy and bigotry wage their wars like never before.

The real, true, and full Great American Novel — the consciousness and conditions it would depict, reveal, and dramatize — shudder to think.

Imagine it in circulation.

“This one got away from us, Mr. President. I’m sorry. One time is all,” says Director Allspy. “These Texan crazies are not under our control. It has happened, Sir. My deepest apologies.”

“Filch you, Allspy! You’re as crazy as the Texas Fundies! I bet you’re from Texas yourself!”

“I did not bomb myself, Sir.”

“I think you did! You may as well have! I think this whole nuclear weapons setup is batshit crazy! It can be set off by mistake! And by goddamn hack and sabotage! Our fate is in the hands of punk terror gamers!”

“As it long has been,” says Leif Oak. “Like Dhyna said — sheer luck got us this far. It’s a miracle we’re alive to die today.”

“Well so much for that happy-ass moment in time! Now blissfully gone!”

“The only way to keep from getting blown up by nuclear weapons is to get rid of them in the first place,” says Dhyna, coming back to the huddle at the Resolute Desk.

“True,” says Leif. “If nuclear weapons are not abolished, then we will all die by nuclear weapons one day, sooner or later. You can’t keep getting lucky forever. It’s statistically impossible. We’ll all be killed, either by accident or on purpose, the world, the planet, the globe, everyone will someday be killed by nuclear bombs. Unless we nix the nukes. All of them. We’ll be killed by the blasts, by the radiation, by the fires, and by nuclear winter. Everyone. Nuclear winter will kill almost all creatures large and small, everywhere. Maybe all. All humans will die.”

“What in Satan’s name is ‘nuclear winter’?” says President Tyrump.

“Firestorms,” says Director Allspy. “Firestorms set off by dozens of nuclear blasts that would throw enough soot and smoke into the air to block out ninety-nine percent of the sun, for years. The human species would be snuffed out entirely.”

House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun shouts from the floor: “God’s plan! This is the work of the Lord our God! His Divine Plan for all!”

“Fuck you, Thuggun!” says President Tyrump. “If nuclear obliteration is the Lord your God’s Devilish plan, then the Lord your God is a complete psycho and sicko. I blame the Texas Fundies!”

“God is no sicko, Mr. President! No psycho! How dare you?!”

“Kilman! Stomp his ass!” says Tyrump.

General Kilman gets off the back of House Speaker Thuggun, then jumps up, and comes down with both boots on Thuggun’s contorted rump.

Thuggun screams. The golden drone shimmers.

“No Gods, no masters,” says Justice Assured. “Your God is make-believe. All Gods are make-believe. I’m sorry. That’s the reality. No Gods, the reality. No masters, the goal.”

“He can’t say that! People will get mad!” squeals President Tyrump. “I’m mad! Mad as the Mad Hatter! Does anyone else here in this godforsaken wasteland of an imperial headquarters have any more happy thoughts that they would like to share with this perverse and poisonous group before we are all blown to bits and Smithereens?!”

President Tyrump looks around at the sudden sea of silence.

“Leif! My sword!” shouts Tyrump.

Leif hesitates.

“Leif!” Tyrump screams.

Leif Oak picks up President Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword from the floor where it landed when Tyrump fell. Leif hands it to Tyrump, then steps back quickly.

President Tyrump slams the sword point into the desktop. “Are you all from Neptune, you crazy lunatics! I thought I was the most likely candidate for lunacy around here! I ran my crazy election campaign, my kooky carnival for the pimp media, to fool the masses, goddamn it! But now I learn that I’m not even close to the King of the loony bin compared to you oh so respectable executing officers! How in the world did I get elected to this godforsaken Hellhole! You goddamn executing officers who control these batshit nuclear weapons are even crazier than I am! I just wanted to make more and more money, Honey! And get more and more power! Power! I never wanted to kill off the entire world! Okay, I don’t care who lives or who dies — in all honesty. I refuse to even think about it. But who would think a group of loose hacker nuts could incinerate the whole planet if they so choose!”

“By ‘loose hacker nuts’ you mean the American military, Sir,” says Dhyna.

“Cola girl, shut up!” Tyrump pounds the desk with his sword.

“Climate collapse is torching the planet, right now,” says Justice Assured. “If the Texas Fundies and nukes don’t get you, Dear Leader Con Don Ty-rump-ass, then climate collapse will end you and all, given your terminal policies. Or some other capitalist anti-biological implosion will end things. Different timeframe. This is the Road to Hell, Boys. Enjoy it while you can! Not long now! You are the Deluge! The Great Deluge! Whatever your idea of Hell, climate collapse and nukes were a sure way to get there. You’ve arrived! Oh, by the way, ‘climate change’ is carefully polled propaganda. ‘Climate collapse’ is reality.”

Suddenly financial titan Ecrap Mucky Muck runs in tight circles around the edge of the Oval Office. Who knew he was here? He’s everywhere. He taps his idiotic Make America Godawful White Again! ballcap and sucks his supremacist thumb. “Somebody change my diaper!” he screams. “I’m a baby! A baby! Someone was mean to me once! A long time ago but I remember! They hate my Whitey ways! Baby! Baby! Me! Me! Me! Kill government! Kill the public! All money and power to Me! Me! Me!”

“What the fuck is wrong with you!” shouts Tyrump as Muck barges by. “All money and power to Me! Not you!”

“What is wrong with that guy?” says Dhyna to Leif. “Nothing against immigrants — except for that ghastly, deathly, White Supremacist Creep.”

“Supremacist race disease,” says Leif. “Ecrap Muck is the Great Satan of identity politics. White manly man above all. As the richest bloodsucker, he’s the Ultimate Loser in the great TV show of life. One of the biggest embarrassments to humankind. That’s the one guy I would deport back to the clutches of his compatriots — though I can think of a few more Toxic Titan Tyrants who should have their asses one hundred percent nationalized and booted — homegrown or not. I mean — I’m Native. What are they?”

“I know he’s a Supremacist,” says Dhyna. “But how on Earth do they get that way?”

Leif shrugs. “Some people are bloody disgusting sickos because they want to be.” Leif glances around the Oval Office full of Mad Hatter officials. “Plus, you know — they’re shallow little think-alikes, though they think they’re not. They’re walking idiot talking points — most of which they don’t even believe. Look at them here in this great echo chamber of their sociopath delusion. They all have one idea — and it’s wrong. They will cling to their guns and their fortunes, their thefts and their murders, until they can cling no more. Some people worship their pompous arrogance or are even afraid of them and their pus-filled faces. But, you know, if you step back and take a close look, they all look like they’re more homeless than the homeless, and more lobotomized than someone who blew their brains out with a shotgun to the mouth.”

The next time Ecrap Mucky Muck loops wailing around the office, Leif sticks him with a syringe full of one of President Tyrump’s most powerful downers, and Ecrap is instantly sedated, collapsing into a bulbous lump on the floor and slobbering on the base of the wall.

“To Hell with Hell Road!” shouts President Tyrump. “I’m beginning to think we sit at the very center of Hell itself, right here in the Oval Office!”

“No doubt,” says Dhyna.

“You can’t say that!” mocks Justice Assured from the Wikilooks drone of transparency. “People will get mad!”

“That would make you the Devil, Mr. President,” says CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat.

Tyrump shrugs. “I’m fine with that. And you are the Devil’s idiot mole, you fiend! One of very fucking many! Wingnuts all and everywhere. It wasn’t supposed to end this way! Where’s my golden shower?!”

NSA Director Allspy taps his handheld. “Don’t worry, Mr. President. I’ve alerted every country with nuclear weapons. I told them we bombed ourselves, so that they don’t think that we think that it’s any of them bombing us and that we would then mistakenly retaliate against any or all them with our entire nuclear arsenal. I hope they believe us, so that they don’t launch a mistaken pre-emptive strike our way.”

“No need to worry then!” screams Tyrump. “How could they possibly understand you! Let alone believe you! But you’ve got it all under control, Allspy! Right up to the point where we go up in a cloud of radioactive smoke!”

“It’s true, the other nuclear powers may get nervous and nuke us out of fear,” says Director Allspy. “How can they be sure what’s going on? But it’s the best we can do, for the limited time being. I’ve alerted all our nuclear commanders about the fate of DC, so that they don’t think we’re under attack from abroad and launch God knows where in retaliation. I hope they understand. We don’t want the Russians to panic and shoot their own arsenal at us — skimpy though it is compared to ours. It would still destroy the planet. Then there’s the Israelis. And the Pakistanis. And fucking France and the crazy Italians — my God — and the others. Cooler heads have prevailed in the past. We can take comfort in that.”

“Oh what a relief!” says Tyrump. “It takes only one mistake to destroy everything that ever existed. One loss of temper. One goddamned hacker! So don’t worry about giant stockpiles of nuclear weapons lying around, primed to launch, waiting to be fucking filched and hacked or mistakenly set off! We have systems and protocols for that! Security galore! If I had it in my power right now, Allspy, I would destroy you, and all of you, before the goddamn nukes do!” President Tryump sweeps his sword and glares at everyone in the room.

“You don’t mean that, Sir. Everyone is under a lot of stress here.”

“Stress? Allspy, are you referring to the unavoidable fact of our immediate obliteration?! Then yes, we are undergoing a bit of a trial at the moment. You filching filcher!”

“Our nuclear commanders are conferring as we speak, Sir. It’s up to the military to handle this,” says Allspy. “It’s not my job.”

“Clearly! The military can handle it. What was I thinking? The fucking military has done such a bang-up job to this point, keeping us safe! Look around. No lives lost here. At the moment!”

“Sir, no, Sir!” General Krushin Karvin Kilman randomly salutes the President.

President Tyrump swings the sword at General Kilman, which Kilman dodges per training.

“Oh, and by the way, Director Allspy, and General Kilman, and Director Cutthroat, and all you other slices of insanity, good job on 9-11. Keeping us safe. You really did a bang-up job there!” says Tyrump. “Real bang-up work. Great job! Fucking morons.”

“Sir, that was before our time,” says Director Allspy.

“Oh, no, I don’t think it was, Director. It seems to be totally of your time. And now you will add the vaporization of the capital of America and my global fucking Empire to your fine efforts!”

“That’s on all of you, President Tyrump. And so are the nukes,” says Justice Assured. “9-11 was a monstrous retaliation for your monstrous imperialism in western Asia, what you call the Middle East, and beyond. Bin Laden wanted the American military out of his home country of Saudi Arabia. And after 9-11, he got it. Who here denies that, by now? Your own CIA reported it.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” says President Tyrump. “I was building resorts, hotels, golf courses, restaurants, fish ponds.”

“Fish ponds?” says Senator Rich from the floor. “There’s money in that?”

“People like fish, Richi!”

“Be that as it may, Mr. President,” says NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy. “Rear Admiral Bentcan reports that his intelligence officers believe the hack has been limited to just one submarine and only one missile on that sub.”

“Oh, they believe, do they, Allspy? Well, thank God for belief! But do they know?”

“Yes, Sir. I believe so, Sir,” says Allspy. “Merely one of 24 nuclear missiles on that sub has been launched against us, Sir. A nearly perfect record! Unfortunately that one missile contains multiple nuclear warheads. It’s the one that got away, Sir. A pity. The only one.”

President Tyrump tries to kill NSA Director Allspy with his bare hands. He drops his ancestral Bavarian sword and grabs the Director around the throat with both hands in an attempt to cut off air and blood to his brain. “One missile is not such a bad number, Allspy,” Tyrump screams. “Until you realize that even one single submarine missile with multiple warheads can destroy multiple cities at once! A trivial fact. You colossal brain suck!”

CIA Director Cutthroat and FBI Director Pillory grab Tyrump each by an arm and pull him away from Allspy. Together they restrain the President where he stands.

“Let go!” screams Tyrump.

Director Cutthroat and Director Pillory ease their grip. They dust lint off the President and straighten his suit and tie.

“It’s not my sub,” says Director Allspy.

The drone speaks: “You’ll all be dead in ten minutes, Assholes.”

“I for one will not miss this shit,” says Dhyna.

“The fucking cola girl!” President Tyrump turns to a Secret Service agent. “Fucking hit her.”

“She’s pregnant!” Leif steps in front of Dhyna.

“You dirty dog,” says President Tyrump. He appears to reconsider. “Well, hit her anyway,” he orders.

The agent throws aside Leif and grabs Dhyna.

FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory steps up and slaps Dhyna in the face. “It’s just your face,” he says. “Now leave her be,” he tells the agent. “That’s justice.”

Leif escorts Dhyna to the side wall and stays with her there.

“Thank you, Director. Fuck,” says the President. “I have several families myself. Not all here. Someone needs to survive to carry on my glorious name.”

“Good thinking, Sir. Multiple families, will do it,” says Director Allspy.

“I have lived like a God!” says Tyrump.

“You will die a Devil,” says Justice Assured.

Ecrap Mucky Muck attempts to get up from the base of the wall before collapsing again. “Defund them! Defund them all!” he wails. “Defund the public! Defund everyone but the police, and the military, and the plutocracy! Fire them! Fire everyone but Me! Me! Me! Me! Me!”

“What a loose nuke,” says Dhyna.

“It’s like watching a lethal virus infect itself — over and over and over again,” says Leif. “It’s like watching shit decompose. He truly is from the Department of Godawful Effects.”

“I’m told all four warheads from the rogue missile are aimed directly at you, Mr. President,” says Director Allspy. “Of course, everything from the Atlantic Ocean to Hagerstown, Maryland will be radioactive. And beyond. After the strike. Much of the radiation should drift out to sea, if the wind picks up. Then scatter across Europe.”

“Lucky them,” says President Tyrump. “Thanks for that huge dose of comfort and consolation, Director Allspy. I’ll try not to worry much more before we are incinerated, and the city is razed, and the whole region poisoned. How much time left?”

Allspy checks his handheld. He shrugs. “What the drone said. Ten minutes.”

“Outstanding. Ten minutes. Condemned to spend it with you absolute Losers.”

Seeing that President Tyrump has returned to his good senses, CIA Director Cutthroat and FBI Director Pillory back off and relax.

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Kilman walks to the center of the room and kicks House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun who remains bound on the floor.

Blood-soaked on the floor nearby, Senator Rich looks to Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer. “How will the stock market react to our bombing ourselves, Deadly? Not bad, I hope.”

Deadly smiles. “That’s the good news in all this bit of kerfuffle, Richi. Weapons sales are great for business. Best to be invested sooner rather than later.”

“Especially given the circumstances of our imminent death,” says Director Allspy. “Thank the Heavens — our Great Investments will live on. Eternal, Immortal, Infinite. Carved into the very physics of the universe itself, blazing around the celesphere at the speed of light.”

“Get me my broker!” cries Richi Rich Rich.

“On the other hand, a final war could tank everything,” says Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer.

“Get me my broker!” screams Senator Rich.

“Black gold from the ground!” hollers Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily. “Invest in that first. Guns are only good for getting the black gold. The economics of Empire!”

“You all are so insane,” says Dhyna Durango.

“Inane insane,” says Leif Oak. “These are the last people in the world who should be in charge of anything but their own feces.”

“An Empire of Madness,” says Justice Assured from the golden sphere that shimmers above. “Their minds are imprisoned in an idea of everyone’s imprisonment but their own. To great profit.”

“Psychopaths,” says Dhyna.

“Sociopaths,” says Leif.

“Sickos!” cries Ecrap Mucky Muck, slobbering on the floor. “You’re all a bunch of sickos!”

“Project much?” says Dhyna.

“I’m merely the Secretary of Education!” screams Shammi Shilling Sharlatan. “I have nothing to do with this unholy fiasco! Why should I die among men who can’t keep their own missiles and warheads in their pants?! It’s disgusting, I tell you! Unfair! I just wanted to funnel public school funds into the deep pockets of my family and friends in the private sector. I don’t deserve to be terminated now! We’ve only just begun to wipe out public education and make this whole thing payoff as pay for play — like in the good old days of firm discipline and obedience, conformity and unquestioned authority and strict propriety, Goddamn it!”

“Shammi Shilling Sharlatan,” says Justice Assured from the drone of transparency. “Your brilliance is unbounded, your noble light unparalleled, your intelligence — beyond compare. It will soon be eternally so.”

General Kilman steps into the tight circle of power. “How did it happen that we are about to be blasted to Hell?! One minute I’m strangling my good friend House Speaker Thuggun for shooting off in the Oval Office, the next—”

“By your own military, General!” Tyrump screams. “One of your missiles slipped through your fingers. Outstanding work. Are you not Texan, by any chance? Lots of Texas Fundies in the military these days. Loose lips used to sink ships. Now loose cannons blow up the whole world! Me first!”

“Usually the guns point the other way. Don’t they,” says Justice Assured.

“This situation is less than ideal,” says NSA Director Allspy.

Two Secret Service agents step in quickly and block President Tyrump from attacking Director Allspy again with his bare hands.

“What are we waiting for?” says Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman. “Let’s get into the fortified bunker right now — the underground command and control post below this office. Right here! Let’s go!” General Kilman points at the floor. “It’s far underground — designed to withstand a direct nuclear strike. We can ride this thing out. We can save ourselves and strike back.”

“Damn straight!” says President Tyrump. “Why are we thinking! Let’s move!”

“I’m sorry, Sir. It can’t be done,” says Director Allspy.

“You’re goddamn right you’re sorry, Allspy! Why in God’s name not?!”

“The Texas Fundies not only hacked the nuclear submarine, Sir, they hacked the Oval Office. We are locked in, I’m sorry, Sir. Look around. Your Secret Service agents are trying to break out. It’s impossible. The Oval Office was retrofitted this past year. No one can break in. We’ve been jammed, Sir. No one can get out. We are sealed and trapped in an oval vessel. Impregnable, Sir. A great design.”

President Tyrump launches himself at Allspy. The agents hold Tyrump in place as much as possible.

“We have returned to the egg,” says Leif. “By our own hands. By lunatics. By officialdom. By the military industrial complex. By the One Tenth of One Percent who profiteer above all, forever and ever, in financial fascism’s name — Amen.”

“The walls, floor, and ceiling are lined and webbed with concrete and steel,” says Allspy. “The windows here behind your desk, Mr. President, are bullet-proof, shatter-proof, blast-proof, impregnable. The escape door to the bunker is sealed. The biometric and coded information required to break the seal has been hacked, altered, scrambled. There is no physical or electronic way in or out. Only a direct nuclear blast can break the seal. And that blast will kill us all, Sir. Again, I do apologize.”

“God damn you, Allspy! If you aren’t the most useless criminal know-it-all around here, I don’t know who is! My God! You’re Death with a handheld!” Tyrump screams at General Kilman and the others: “And you! And you! And you! And you! All of you! Fucking war criminals!”

The golden drone shimmers. “Look in the mirror,” says Justice Assured.

“My vote is for Thuggy Thuggun!” shouts Senator Rich. “He’s the real Devil here! He fired the first shot! At me!”

“If they hacked us in here, can we not hack our way back out?” General Kilman asks Director Allspy.

“Working on it, General.” Allspy glances at his handheld. “It can be done of course. There is a problem. It may take several hours. It will take more time than we have.”

“Live by the missile, die by the missile,” says Justice Assured. “You are all the walking dead. You long have been.”

“Kill it! Kill it now!” President Tyrump screams, pointing at the drone of transparency. “A secure bunker on-site that we can’t enter! Brilliant! I should have stuck with casinos, bars, hotels — land grabs galore! I only wanted a mighty dollar Empire! Greenland! Venezuela! Palestine! Texas! Mexico! Cuba! Ukraine! Russia! The world! I never cared about all this blood and shit. Not on me! How could all this blood and shit come back on me?! How much time left, Allspy!”

“It’s a big mistake, is all,” says Director Allspy. “Eight minutes, Sir.”

“Eight minutes left with you terrible Losers! I blame you, Drone!” The President shouts at the glowing bright orb that hovers near the ceiling. “I blame you, Wikilooks! I blame you, Justice Assured! I blame you all!”

“Blame yourself,” says Dhyna. “You’re a dead man walking and talking, and you always have been. You’re nothing but a bloody purse and a gun made of gold and body parts.”

“This madness, we tried to stop it many times over. Wikilooks and many others,” says Justice Assured. “We tried to stop you suicidal officials and pathological executives with your insane violent systems of bigoted blood and money theft and killing. We tried to stop you from destroying everyone, everything, set to auto-explode. Exactly as you have sown, so now do you reap. We put everything we had into trying to stop your insanity.”

“You’ll never get away from us, Justice Assured!” screams President Tyrump. “You too will be blasted, when the nukes hit!”

“Not this time,” intones the golden drone. “You forced me to disembody myself, to keep away from the dungeons you would throw me deepest into. You did your very best, or I should say your very worst, to capture me, tie me up, drag me down, torture me, to be killed by you. You almost succeeded. You lied about me non-stop, and many people believed those lies. So I drone you with the truth. Forever. Even though I’m not here, I’m everywhere. It’s always me against you pillagers of people and the planet. Always and forever against you and your death cult, your police state plutocracy, your supremacist planet-ending plutarchy.”

“Goddamn you!” screams president Tyrump. “I mean it.”

“You don’t believe in any God, you colossal liar. And why should you? It’s not God that stuffs your pockets with money and blood. It’s you, and yours. Your ilk. No God has any say here in the Oval or anywhere else,” says Justice Assured. “You Evil Minions of the Darkest Notions brought oblivion upon yourselves and everyone. You can thank yourselves for that. There’s not much left to see here in this Oval cesspool of an infernal oriface. Your true day is upon you. You are doom and death — death and doom.”

“Tell us how you really feel,” says President Tyrump.

“Fuck you Con Don,” says Dhyna Durango. “Your day is done. And it couldn’t happen a moment too soon. It’s all over now, Baby Blue.”

---

“There may be one thing though,” says Leif Oak. “There may be one thing we can do.”

“What is it, Leif?!” cries President Tyrump. Suddenly Tyrump wonders if maybe his med man can fix things, his bottle boy. He has always done what he could before. “Think fast, man, think fast! More meds?!”

“No time to think, Sir. We must act,” says Leif. “You must order the abolition of nuclear weapons. Ban the nukes, Mr. President. We know too well that if we don’t abolish nuclear weapons we will die by nuclear weapons. Everyone. Today, it’s the Texas Fundies who are incinerating a vast city. Tomorrow it could be — him!” Leif points at the mangled figure of House Speaker Thuggun. “It could be CEO Viper or Ecrap Muck who hacks and launches the American nuclear arsenal against the world. Or causes a launch from anywhere. It could be you, Sir. Or your successor. Live by nukes, die by nukes. No species, no people, can survive the existence of nuclear weapons. Mistakes happen. Madness reigns. You can’t leave species-lethal weaponry lying around under any conditions. We are the dying proof.”

“Impossible,” says Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily. “There’s no way to verify any country eliminating nuclear weapons. We could get rid of our nukes while Russia and China only pretend to and hide theirs instead. Then we’d be sitting ducks. We’d never know until too late.”

“It’s too late now,” says Leif.

“Not true, Oily,” says Director Allspy. “We would know. I would know. The National Security Council would know. Our satellites would know. The directors, contractors, and workers of more than a dozen American intelligence agencies would know who has nukes and who doesn’t. These things can be known, if you really want to know and not guess.”

“Why should we give up our huge nuclear advantage?” says General Kilman. “We are the greatest country in the world, we should have the greatest weapons in the world! The Russian systems are old, they malfunction, they project incoming attacks that don’t exist. If they launch in retaliation thinking they are under attack, then we launch before their nukes land. And we launch with far more firepower than they could ever throw at us.”

“But then we are all dead!” screams President Tyrump. “Everyone in the world including me! You stupid motherfucker!”

“That’s the price you pay for power!” says General Kilman. “The point is that we win even though we are all dead. For those keeping score at home, we struck with the biggest punch! We win, though we die doing so. It has to be declared a victory!”

“By who — you Moron!” screams Tyrump. “Who will be left to declare victory?! The earthworms in the fucking ground!”

“It’s not even clear the earthworms will survive, Sir,” says Leif.

“Oh, for God’s sake, Leif. Will you stop with the fucking nature-hugging shit! I’m trying to talk to my maniac General Kilman who defends nuclear extermination! And then there’s this greasy stooge, the Secretary of State: Oily! Plus the moron NSA Director Allspy who knows everything but helps no one! What kind of lunatic terrorist operation did I stumble into by winning the goddamn Presidency?!”

“You picked your own Cabinet, Sir,” says Leif.

“The banksters picked my Cabinet! What do I know?! They sent the list and I selected most of their top choices, why not? Don’t the people who own the world, who run the world know what the fuck they’re doing?! Don’t they intend to make me ever more rich. They had goddamned better — or else!”

“The Devil too works hard for His gold,” says Leif. “This is all on you.”

“Do I look like I’m in control of a single blessed thing here, Leif!”

“A show of shit, a real shit show. You’re good at that — always have been,” says Justice Assured. “Outstanding!” The Wikilooks drone twinkles.

“Filch it! Filch, filch, filch. Filch it all!” cries President Tyrump. “Filching filch. What the filch. Filch the filching filch. Just filch. Filching filch. Filch!”

“Ban the nukes, Sir,” says Leif.

“Prepare the fucking statement, Leif! You’ve got, what, two minutes? No more nukes!”

“Do it, Leif,” says Justice Assured. “Do it so our grandchildren might get to hang around to have grandchildren of their own, someday.”

“Four minutes,” says Allspy.

“Don’t lie to me, Allspy!” says President Tyrump.

“And counting,” says Allspy.

“Four minutes to grandchildren,” says Justice Assured.

“Leif, you’ve got two minutes to get me a statement to sign — my final Presidential Order.”

“Yes, Sir. You will ban the future existence of nuclear weapons, and declare that America commits to ridding all of its nuclear weapons immediately, along with every other nuclear power. It’s already written, Sir. There are good people who do this sort of thing—” Leif glances toward the Rose Garden. “Out there in the world.”

Leif pulls up a seat beside the President and accesses the laptop computer on the Resolute Desk. Leif types rapidly and downloads several model peace accords and disarmament treaties as attachments.

General Kilman turns from President Tyrump and engages in a fiery discussion with the Army Chief, Air Force Commander, Marine Commandant, CIA Director Cutthroat, NSA Director Allspy, FBI Director Pillory, Secretary of State Oily, and the Secretary of War, Warren War, about whether to ban nukes or to not ban nukes. Even supremacist Ecrap Muck lying flat on the floor lifts his head for a moment and looks to the intense conversation before vomiting again, spraying all over himself.

“Almost there, hang on!” says Leif.

Leif hurries to finish the Declaration of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. President Tyrump seated beside Leif holds an electronic pen, ready to sign the Declaration. “Hurry, Leif, I want my meds now! Be quick!”

“I won’t allow it!” screams Ecrap Muck, rising like a ghoul from below. “It’s not the Supremacist Way! It’s Inefficient!”

“How efficient is it for all of us to die, you Fucker!” screams President Tyrump.

Right on cue, at that wondrous nadir, the top military Commanders and Cabinet members and random Gun Nuts make a frontal and flanking assault on the President behind his desk. The Secret Service splits. Some agents spontaneously defend Tyrump, while others go over to the other side and fight their own. The Generals too are split. Everyone instinctively picks sides, or simply defends themselves.

An outsider looking in would find it difficult to know who is fighting whom. Everything goes flying — fists and chairs, fake flowers and fruits. Sabers and swords clash. Blood splatters. Stun guns jolt. The mad scene is crazy and desperate and pathetic and degenerate and terrifying and vicious. A royal bloodbath in the Oval.

---

The Secret Service agent who manhandled Leif jumps up on the Resolute Desk and empties a gun into the ceiling, bringing down a hailstorm of plaster, cement, and bullets.

“Stop this madness or we are all dead!” he screams.

The agent is immediately disemboweled by one swing of the Marine Commandant’s Mameluke sword. The Commandant is then knocked out by a Secret Service agent’s punch to the jaw in the mad crush.

Very difficult to shoot in the crowd. Guns and pistols are swung as clubs and hammers. Brutal fists do their bloody and terminal work. Broken furniture and mementos are used like sticks and stones — books grabbed from shelves on the wall are flung like live grenades. Ceramic lamps are hoisted and swung as cudgels. Curtains are torn from windows and used as choke collars. Like a psychotic battle of cavemen, like criminals from prehistoric times, the high officials and agents fight to the death in the fancy dungeon of a tomb of a cave of obliteration.

---

Suddenly everyone is thrown to the floor — a huge shock and boom seems to lift up the Oval, and move it to one side.

“The big one! Call my broker!” shouts Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich cowering in the center of the floor.

“Not quite yet,” says Director Allspy.

“Now! Before it’s too late!” screams Richi. “Sell! Sell! Sell! Buy! Buy! Buy!”

NSA Director Allspy rises to his feet after being knocked down and kicked bloody by an agent. Allspy faces President Tyrump who is still seated behind the desk but pulled all the way back to the bullet-proof windows overlooking the beautiful White House lawn, protected there by several agents and a General. “We won’t feel the big one, Mr. President. You’ll be glad to know,” says Allspy. “The warheads will instantly vaporize us here at ground zero. That blast was Marines trying to smash into this room to get you out. They won’t be able to break through without killing us all, or almost all. In any case, they will soon be vaporized too.”

“It’s the people farther out who will suffer the most horrible deaths and agony,” says Justice Assured.

Leif was thrown to the floor but not before he grabbed the President’s computer. He rolled half under the Resolute Desk where he frantically tries to finish work on prepping the Declaration of Disarmament and Peace.

“This the price of power. We must pay it even with our own lives,” says Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman.

“The People are not willing to pay your price. You criminal,” says Justice Assured.

“This is the price we must pay for security,” says CIA Director Cutthroat.

“For pillaging, you mean. You cruel and creepy profiteer,” says Dhyna Durango. Blood marks her face. Leif crawls out from under the desk with the laptop.

“Rule by gun and bomb to benefit the One Tenth of One Percent,” says Justice Assured. “That makes no one secure. That’s thug rule. It breeds terror. It is terror. Nuclear weapons are terror weapons.”

“This is the price we must pay to maintain our standard of living,” says Director Allspy.

“Fake news,” says Justice Assured. “Only the interests of The One Tenth of One Percent are defended and expanded here in the Oval Office and in the mighty financial centers and suites around the world — only theirs above all. Everyone else is crushed and put at risk as the world is condemned to total destruction. Condemned to death! What part of ‘condemned’ and ‘to death’ do you not understand?”

“We cannot get rid of nuclear weapons!” says Allspy. “Who will control the world if not us!”

“You don’t own the world, you lunatic. Though you fine gentlemen think you do,” says Justice Assured.

A Secret Service agent badly wounded and knocked down during the fighting begins to come awake, moaning, crying in torturous pain. He’s half-gutted by shrapnel. He cries for his mother. Literally. He cries for his mom, piteously. Such is war. He’s blinded, dying, tortured, in fear, agony, oblivion, he calls out to her. He knows he’s dying. He knows she’s not there, can’t be. He knew love. Now he knows Hell on Earth. The dying Secret Service agent wails in ceaseless horrific echo of monstrous moments from time immemorial: “Mommy! Mommy!”

He cries for his mommy, this condemned creature that was once, moments earlier, a powerful elite soldier. Now a waif of a ghoul of despair. It’s too much for some in the room to bear. But they can’t escape. You hear begging now for the bomb to hit and to end it all.

With one hand Dhyna holds her abdomen, with another her stomach above. She leans on the wall and vomits.

FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory uses his pistol and shoots the dying agent in the forehead — closing his vocal cords forever, if not his mouth, which gapes open.

Then another Secret Service Agent crosses the room and punches Director Pillory, decks him, and the fight resumes with all the ferocity of before.

An agent’s blood and brains are spattered onto the wall with Dhyna’s vomit and on Dhyna as she continues to throw up.

Leif taps the computer one final time, then puts it back on the Resolute Desk. Tyrump stands and is escorted from the Rose Garden window to the desk where he leans over to sign the Declaration of Nuclear Disarmament and Peace, and then to transmit the Declaration to the world.

Unfortunately, Leif has bled on the screen over the signature box.

“Fucking blood on the screen,” says President Tyrump.

He tries to wipe off the blood with his suit sleeve. He poises the electronic pen above the screen, but before he can sign or send, the Trident II nuclear warheads from the American naval submarine hit.

Washington DC explodes.

Carnage, everywhere.

Holocaust pours over the DC metro area. The blast wave flattens everything. Radioactive fallout sweeps in and out of the city far beyond, killing, fatally burning and poisoning people and creatures and trees and plants and soil and clouds, everything, in its mutant path.

---

Molten, vaporized, Leif stares outside, beyond eternity. He sees the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn flaps its wings. Cries.

“Goddamn, I’m hopelessly immortal,” says Leif.

He looks for Dhyna, and the chance to die another day.

---

Teratorn — Chapter Seven

Leif Oak stares at the giant teratorn in the Rose Garden. The teratorn spreads its wings and glares at Leif.

Leif checks his leg. Healed like it was never shot.

The teratorn flaps its wings. Cries.

“Goddamn, I am hopelessly immortal.”

At the Resolute Desk behind Leif, President Tyrump admires himself on the giant TV screen on the far wall. He fondles his ancestral Bavarian sword on the huge map of Texas on the desk.

A Wolfe News moderator reports the shocking news of the day. “After last night’s bombing of the historic Alamo, President Tyrump plans to invade both Texas and Mexico. Yes, you heard correctly. An invasion of the Lone Star state.”

“Is the Cabinet ready, Leif, goddamn it?!”

“Who knows, Sir?”

“Leif, did my Chief of Staff die?”

“Who cares, Sir.”

“You’re goddamned, right, Leif!”

President Tyrump watches kitchen aide Dhyna Durango approach, fixated on her shape.

“Mr. President, your diet cola.”

Dhyna sets a cola on the desk. Tyrump raises the cola, toasts Dhyna. He manages to look her in the eye for a moment.

“To my great and glorious day.”

Tyrump watches himself swagger on TV.

Dhyna goes to Leif and stands by him. She places her hand on her abdomen and nods. “It’s on,” she says.

Then she goes to the sink in the kitchenette adjacent to the Oval Office and throws up.

---

Dhyna turns up the water full blast. Leif comes in. She rinses, cleans up.

“What a time to be born,” says Leif. “What a time to die.”

“Any time is ‘what a time’,” says Dhyna. “Are you at all familiar with history, Leif?”

“I thought I was. Until I met the giant teratorn. In the Rose Garden. The extinct teratorn. No time is more terminal than today. And yet here we are. For the moment. It’s harrowing, everything, is it not?”

“It is. We’ll be lucky if we go terminal together. Or if we ever make it all the way to your Navajo Nation, we’ll need to go underground before we arrive — together, forever. I mean, once you kidnap the President, even to save the world, your life is more-or-less over one way or the other.”

“They will find us and kill us, I’m sure,” says Leif.

“But we will have saved the world.”

“Maybe it’s not our world to save.”

“Tell it to the teratorn.”

Leif considers. “The teratorn knows this is our Final Chance, our Final Moment, our Final Era, our Final Day. The last day every day. Unless—”

“Unless nothing, Leif. We are doomed to die for all eternity.” Dhyna spits into the sink. She turns off the water. “Good to know I’ll die while throwing up. An eternity of puke. It’s good to be a woman, Leif. Men piss into women and then women muscle out a new creature, and then the whole thing keeps going — men keep on pissing, and women keep muscling, and men get all the credit for their muscles. It’s a woman’s lot to suffer, and bleed.”

“You’re good at it.”

“Oh, fuck you, Leif.”

“It’s a sign of hope. Endurance. You endure so much. We all do.”

“Some more than others. Puke? Babies? Piss?”

“Women are the hope that the world will not be all men.”

“That’s bullshit. Women bear the puke of the world,” says Dhyna. “What do men do? Men are the universal sign of puke. That needs to change.”

“Blame evolution,” say Leif. “Not me.”

“I would blame the fucking teratorn if it helped, but the teratorn won’t let me get near it it,” says Dhyna. “I can’t feed it. Maybe it’s not here for us.”

“It hates missiles.”

“It hates what the missiles represent. Or maybe the teratorn hates humans. It’s here to celebrate our departure from the planet. I feel like I’m part teratorn now.”

“Which part?” says Leif.

“The beak.”

“The weapon part.”

“Fuck politicized. I feel like I’ve been weaponized.”

President Tyrump screams in the Oval Office.

Leif hurries back to the job.

---

“Mr. President! Time for your meds!”

“Did you have a nice vacation, Leif! You’ll never catch her you know. She’s got her eyes on bigger things. Me.”

“I’m sure she does, Sir. Let’s get your meds going now.”

Leif taps code into the side of the desk, opens the compartment, takes out a glass bottle and syringe. He extracts fluid from the bottle, injects it into a nasal spray inhaler.

“You’re so lazy, Leif. Any time now!”

“This should do the trick, Sir.”

Leif hands the inhaler to Tyrump who sprays the potion into both nostrils. Tyrump relaxes and falls unconscious in his chair.

---

Leif moves fast, dragging Tyrump and the chair backwards. He grabs the sword off the map of Texas, gets under the massive Resolute Desk and knocks out two interior side panels.

Then Leif drags Tyrump off the chair and shoves him into the long enclosed interior of the desk. Leif hangs the embroidered linen map over the opening, facing the chair. Tyrump is disappeared.

---

In the hallway outside the Oval, Dhyna mingles with officials gathered for the Cabinet meeting.

Navy Rear Admiral Bentcan slides his hand down Dhyna’s back to her butt. She jumps away. Then she moves back to the Admiral.

“Right this way, Sir. The President has been dying to speak with you.”

Admiral Bentcan settles for putting his hand on Dhyna’s shoulder.

“Don’t mind if I do.”

Dhyna opens the Oval Office door for the Admiral. She leads him to the Resolute Desk where Leif waits.

“Welcome, Admiral. The President stepped into his secretary’s office for a moment. I’m sure he wants to show you his big bad blade.”

Leif lifts the sword.

Behind Bentcan, Dhyna drops to the floor and crouches on her hands and knees, sideways.

Leif swings and smashes Bentcan with the flat of the sword, slicing through his uniform. Bentcan falls over Dhyna and lands smack on his back. He bangs his head on the floor.

Leif puts the tip of the sword to Bentcan’s chest.

“One sound and you’re dead, Admiral. You’re as good dead to me as alive.”

Dhyna grabs a plastic plum from the bowl of plastic fruit on the coffee table. She attempts to shove the plum into Bentcan’s mouth. He resists.

Leif shoves the sword through Bentcan’s uniform into his flesh. Bentcan flinches and winces and opens his mouth.

“Don’t ruin my day, Bentcan,” says Leif.

Dhyna shoves the plum into Bentcan’s mouth and wraps medical tape repeatedly around his head to secure it. She tapes together his wrists, also his ankles. She tapes his arms to his body.

Leif and Dhyna tie Bentcan immobile beneath the desk, against the President. Then they tidy the room, hide the tape.

---

Joint Chiefs Chairman General Krushin Karvin Kilman strides into the Oval Office, slamming the door on the Cabinet members in the hall.

“Here come the cops, Dhyna! Hands up!” says Leif.

Dhyna instead takes Tyrump’s half-finished diet cola and napkin from the desk. She moves quickly past General Kilman on her way out. Leif rests his left hand on the sword on the desk.

“Leif, my man!” says General Kilman.

“You missed the President, General. He’s gone to Camp David.”

“What! He can’t do that! He declared war on Texas! And Mexico! And Canada! And Greenland! Venezuela! And God knows—”

“I’m sorry, Sir. The President was furious. He cursed me. He swore at the Cabinet. He doesn’t want to see anyone right now.”

“Spit it out. Exact words,” says General Kilman.

“‘Crazy Clown Fucking Cabinet Motherfuckers.’ Sir.”

“What in Hell will he do at Camp David? Hunt bears? I hear they shot a world class black bear last fall. Wouldn’t mind getting a rifle up on that Maryland mountain myself.”

“General, the President said he plans to invade Texas and Mexico from Camp David. He went with an advisor. Wouldn’t tell me who. I don’t think he trusts me entirely, Sir. I don’t know why.”

“Those in power, Kid, they trust no one. You will never know how lonely the pinnacle of power can be.”

“Yes, Sir. I expect not, Sir.”

“The Cabinet meeting is canceled — has this been announced?”

“Not yet, General.”

“I’ll do it. Let people think I’m in charge here. It’s a great day to be alive, is it not, Leif?”

“A tremendous day, General. Like none other.”

---

In the hall outside the Oval Office, General Krushin Karvin Kilman holds up both hands to quiet the officials. “Listen up! President Tyrump has left the building! He has gone to Camp David. He will be hunting bears and planning the invasion!”

The high officials shout and moan, whine and complain. And then they all go and call their brokers.

---

Dhyna returns to the Oval Office where she joins Leif behind the Resolute Desk. They undo tape and slide Admiral Bentcan out from beneath the desk.

Dhyna hoists the sword. She loves the heavy feel of it, the gleaming mirrored blade, the rush of power in holding it by the hilt. She presses the sword tip into Bentcan’s chest. He gasps.

“You are fucking going to do what we say.”

Eyes bright with pain and terror, Bentcan nods, the fake plum taped tight to his mouth. Dhyna jabs him.

“You are going to call off the missiles.”

Admiral Bentcan writhes. He is shocked to be found out. Dhyna jabs him again.

“Do it — or stay here and die with everyone else.”

Bentcan stares at Dhyna. Dhyna jabs him again. He nods.

Leif pats down Bentcan and finds his phone in his uniform. He holds it out to Bentcan and watches him type his passkey.

Leif taps the phone off then on again and tries the passkey himself. It works. With medical scissors, Leif cuts the tape and removes the plum from Bentcan’s mouth.

“Tell me how to call off this attack, Admiral. Dhyna is ready to cut through your fingers — and your face — if you don’t. So don’t fuck around.”

Bentcan explains what must be done.

---

Texas Governor Gassy “Tank” Wells glares at the TV screen in his office. President Tyrump swaggers and threatens in an interview to take total control of Texas and Mexico.

The Governor smashes a massive fist and forearm onto the desk, shaking the mahogany spindles on both sides. The Governor’s Chief of Staff, Petrol Geyser, flinches, standing nearby.

“That fucker Con Don Tyrump is going to pay! Don’t mess with Texas!” shouts the Governor.

“Old Con Don is not long for this world,” says Geyser. “It’s a mercy killing, really.”

A text alert sounds on the Governor’s phone at the edge of his desk. Geyser takes the phone and reads the message. “Holy Shit!” Geyser hands the phone to the Governor.

“It’s Bentcan! Call it off?! What the Hell?!” Governor Tank Wells stares in disbelief at the text. “What the fuck?! How will I become President?!”

“How will you keep our good Texas oil, Sir?”

Another text arrives. The Governor is appalled. “The President went to Camp David! To do what? Hunt bears? Geyser, confirm this shit!”

Chief of Staff Petrol Geyser and the Governor of Texas both gawk at the TV as the breaking news is announced: “President Tyrump today has unexpectedly canceled a full Cabinet meeting. We have a report that he is en route to Camp David with a close advisor to, quote, ‘Hunt bears and plan the invasion’.”

“Goddamn it!” screams Governor Gassy Tank Wells. “I should be hunting bears, not the President!”

“Bears and the President,” says Geyser. “It’s okay. We can bomb Camp David instead of the White House.”

“No, Idiot! Camp David sits in fucking empty forest! With no Cabinet members! No high officials! No targets! Bentcan can’t succeed to President. I can’t be picked for Vice President. Then I can’t become President. We need to take them all out — not just Con Don!”

“Sir, by nuking Tyrump at Camp David you would save our state from invasion — you would save the oil, Sir.”

“Do you really think even Con Don Tyrump is crazy enough to attack Texas, Geyser?! It’s a pretext to bully us — to force us to surrender our loot!”

“That’s not what the Fundy Boys believe, Sir. The True Believers. And the Secessionists—”

“Fuck all those lunatics, Geyser. They’re as dumb as you are. A fake invasion is cheaper than a real one. And there is no person on Earth as cheap as Con Don Tyrump. Never has someone so rich given so little to so few for so long.”

“So now what, Governor?”

“It’s a fucking disaster! How can I hunt bears at Camp David? There are massive brutes in those woods! Nearly half a ton! Hunting is life! Get Bam. I need to call the whole thing off. We’ll do it another day. Goddamn it!”

Chief of Staff Petrol Geyser taps the Governor’s phone, then hands it over.

“Bam, this is Governor Gassy Tank Wells. It’s off. You understand? The target has moved. Yes. No — not today. Okay? Okay.”

Governor Wells slaps the phone on the desk. “Damn it all to Hell.”

Another text alert blips on his phone.

The Governor checks — stares. “My God. He’s spelling it out. All of it.”

“No, he is not!” says Geyser. “Who?”

“Bentcan. He’s gone crazy.”

The Governor shows Geyser the latest text from Navy Chief Bentcan — a group text: “Governor Wells, call off the Fourth Fleet bombing of the Oval Office. This is a criminal act and I cannot go along with it…”

---

In the Oval Office, Leif rereads the group text he has sent from Admiral Bentcan’s phone to the Governor of Texas and the entire Cabinet. “That should do it.” Leif glances down at Bentcan. “Well done, Admiral.”

---

Texas Governor Gassy Tank Wells screams at his phone. “I am royally fucked! Bentcan copied everyone!”

The Governor holds out his phone to Geyser, who won’t touch it now. He backs away slowly.

“Bentcan must have been found out, Governor. It’s been nice working with you, Sir.”

Petrol Geyser runs out of the office.

Governor Gassy Tank Wells slams his fist on the desk. The TV screen taunts him as it continues to play interview clips of President Tyrump swaggering and threatening to invade Texas and Mexico.

Governor Gassy Tank Wells takes careful aim. Then throws his phone through the video screen.

---

Leif prepares a new bottle of medicine. He sprays it into Bentcan’s nose.

“A good man is hard to find, Admiral. But you did great today. You would be a good man if there was somebody to hold a sword to your neck every second of your life.”

Soon Bentcan is limp — unconscious. Leif and Dhyna shove him back beneath the desk. They drape the map of Texas again over the Admiral and the President.

Leif hangs Tyrump’s ancestral Bavarian sword on the wall.

He keeps Admiral Bentcan’s phone.

Then Dhyna and Leif walk calmly out of the Oval Office and all the way out of the White House.

---

Leif and Dhyna travel by car on the George Washington Memorial Parkway. Dhyna is driving. She pulls off onto a scenic overlook by the Potomac River.

“Your phone. My phone,” says Leif. He sets Admiral Bentcan’s phone on the dashboard, while he puts his phone and Dhyna’s into a plastic bag. Then he gets out of the car and finds a rock in the edge of the woods. He smashes both phones to pieces in the bag. He drops the smashed phones into a National Park Service trash can. “Our tax dollars put to good use,” he says.

Dhyna steps out of the car. She stares toward DC. “The city is still there.”

“Not for us it isn’t,” says Leif.

Dhyna grabs her stomach, bends over, and pukes. Leif retrieves napkins from the car. He thinks it might be a long trip west.

---

Dhyna insists on driving. They circle the beltway to the eastern side of DC.

Leif wipes Bentcan’s phone free of fingerprints, then slips it into a prepaid cardboard mailing envelope.

Writing letters of silly design, Leif addresses the envelope to a Wikilooks legal contact.

---

Dhyna exits the beltway east of DC, and drives to a USPS dropbox. They mail the phone. Dhyna re-enters the beltway.

“Let’s get to West Virginia. I’ve got a good friend there,” says Leif. “We can hole up for a few days.”

“All I need is a place to puke,” says Dhyna. “Good that Bentcan’s phone is on its way to Wikilooks. And what you sent electronically to their SecureDrop—”

“Puts it all in context. Told them exactly what happened and how. Minus the time loop.”

“Maybe they know already. Golden orb and all. Giant teratorn.”

“Seems like no one knows but us.”

“Maybe everyone knows, you know, deep in their bones.”

“Only us. Lucky us.”

“Do you think the cops will catch us before we make it cross country?”

Leif shrugs. They drugged the President, took him hostage, shoved him into the coffin that they made of the sacred Resolute Desk. They stabbed the Navy Chief, forced him to comply, left him comatose tied to the President. Other than that— “I think we’re good,” says Leif.

“Bentcan blew up Washington DC repeatedly. For the power and the glory. To become President.”

“And no one knows but you and me. No one knows. Doesn’t seem possible that know one knows.”

“They’re maniac war criminals. The President wants to conquer the world but the law will come down hard on us. I mean, say what you want about justice in America—”

“We have the wrong skin color, Dhyna. And the wrong financial position. And the wrong politics. We’re for the People not the plutocrats.”

“Our skin is the same color as the teratorn’s feathers. And yet we are somehow not extinct. No yet. In fact, I’m pregnant.”

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Puking all the way.”

“Full of wonder and new life.”

“What a fucking day,” says Dhyna. “Feels like it has lasted an eternity.”

“It has.”

“We came out the other side.”

“So far.”

Dhyna and Leif clasp hands and drive west.

---

Days later, Leif Oak and Dhyna Durango arrive at the edge of the Navajo Nation.

The pull into the parking lot of a garage at a remote intersection. Leif exits the car and walks to a Navajo repairman who works in front of a wide open bay.

The repairman sprays the inside of a tire, then lights it on fire, and twirls the flaming tire around a fixed metal spoke. The fire melts the interior rubber of the tire thereby sealing a hole. The repairman keeps spinning the tire as the big open flame burns in the canyon of the tire walls and tread.

Then the repairman douses the fire. The tire cools as he keeps turning it for an even melt and seal.

Finally, he looks at Leif. “Yá’át’ééh”

“Yá’át’ééh. You’re a magician with that tire.”

“I’m known for it. The roads around here are shit.”

“Got any beater pickup trucks?”

The repairman points across an expanse of sand.

“That piece of shit. The doors are falling off. It’s rusted through.”

“Trade you.” Leif nods back to Dhyna’s midsize sedan.

“Stolen?”

“Not by us.” Leif shakes his head. “No. It’s my partner and I. We’ve been stolen from our rightful lives.”

“I may know what you mean.”

“We’re running.”

“So the car is hot.”

“Couldn’t be any hotter.”

“I know an old man deep on the rez. He could use a reliable car for an emergency. With new plates. Maybe a paint job.”

Leif nods. “We’re looking to buy a little time is all. A few months maybe.”

“That truck won’t give you two weeks.”

“We’ll take it.”

---

Dhyna stops the old truck on a red sandstone ledge. The evening is brilliant — lit by the red and orange hues of the setting sun, glowing up the vibrant red rock of the mesa edge. News on the truck radio comes through faint, crackly:

“The world holds its breath. A nuclear near miss. An apocalyptic assassination attempt against the President by ultra-right-wing Texas militants and the nation’s own military was miraculously stopped at the last second, according to reports. The Governor of Texas has been arrested, along with the US Navy Chief. The Governor’s Chief of Staff is on the run. Apparently, a presidential aide and a White House cook, yes, a cook, uncovered the plot to kill President Tyrump who threatened military action against our own Texas and Mexico. Officials have yet to release the names of the aide and the cook. Unconfirmed reports are that they are a couple. In fact, the President called them ‘Lovebirds.’ They are considered to be armed and very dangerous. It remains unclear how these two low-level White House workers learned about the impending nuclear attack, let alone how they managed to stop it. NSA Director Allspy says he is ‘totally and completely baffled.’ CIA Director Cutthroat announced ‘A security review of unprecedented proportions.’ FBI Director Pillory states he will ‘interrogate’ the apparently heroic couple ‘to within an inch of their lives’ if taken alive. Everything they did was unauthorized and unlawful. Whether or not the world was saved has no relevance in such matters. The couple has yet to be found. The world awaits their capture or killing.”

Dhyna turns off the radio. She and Leif gaze into the sunset.

“Over there!” says Dhyna, pointing through the windshield.

---

On a burning sandstone ridge, in the glow of sunfall, crouches the giant teratorn.

It appears to look directly at Dhyna and Leif.

It spreads its wings, cries out. Its cry echoes over the mesa, across the valley and high desert, into the evergreen forest in the mountains beyond. It cries to the sand and stone, the pines and firs, the spruce and the junipers, the wind and sky.

The giant teratorn lifts up and flies across the horizon. It loops and swoops. It turns and wafts directly at Leif and Dhyna. Then it cuts and sweeps fast past the windshield of the old truck, as if its talons would touch the glass.

The teratorn cries once more then wings into the sunset and disappears into the fading light of the coming night.

There is so much beauty in the world. Dhyna cries. Leif is in tears.

---

THE END OF THE END

Leif and Dhyna slowly become aware of faint but increasingly loud police sirens behind them. Suddenly an FBI helicopter roars in front of them, reminiscent of the final scenes of Thelma & Louise.

Police cars skid and stop in the dust. Officers spill out, guns aimed. Leif and Dhyna climb out of the truck. They don’t even bother to hold up their hands. They stand side-by-side and face the police at a distance. Then they clasp hands and raise their arms in triumph above their heads.

“Don’t shoot,” says Leif.

“Don’t shoot,” says Dhyna.

They are shot dead.

It’s what a police state does.

---

The FBI helicopter hovers over their lifeless bodies, the hard wash of its rotors cutting and bashing them with sand and rocks at high velocity.

Then the helicopter flies off into the setting sun. It follows the same path as the teratorn, as if into future extinction.

Suddenly a fierce cry!

The giant teratorn swoops low and lands by the bodies of Dhyna and Leif. The teratorn spreads its wings. It hisses at the police who close in on foot, guns drawn.

---

Leif finds himself again back in the Oval Office, staring into the Rose Garden.

The teratorn lands with a thump and returns Leif’s look — with a glare.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” says Leif.

Man and beast — they each shed tears.

Leif sees a reflection of Dhyna in the window. He turns and meets her gaze. She stands still inside the entrance to the otherwise empty Oval Office.

Her cheeks are wet. She puts her left hand to her abdomen.

“Someone released a virus,” says Dhyna. “It’s killing everyone. We need to stop it.”

“Fuck that,” says Leif.

The teratorn screams.

---

It begins again.

Filch the Weather — Postscript

“Filch you, Leif!” tantrums President Tyrump.

Presidential Aide Leif Oak begins each day with the assumption that all people — not only the President and his ilk — are batshit crazy, somewhat logical, or an odd mix of the two.

“All literature is the search for a home,” Leif once read.

“And all life?” Leif wonders.

But for the sake of what bothered him most, Leif would be growing herbs and mountain figs in the high desert, working in a health clinic, and writing poetry. Leif knows how to live the good life: till the earth, heal the ill, lyricize.

Instead, there is the world to save.

“The hurricanes are destroying my golf resort!” screams President Tyrump. “Leif, call an emergency meeting! Summon the Generals! Bring in the Bankers! Tap the CEOs! Get everyone here pronto!” President Tyrump rages against the impending loss of his beloved home away from home: Mar-y-Laguna resort in Coconut Beach, Florida.

“Après nous, le déluge!” claimed rulers of the world in years gone by. Today’s rulers can only declare that they are the deluge: “Nous sommes le déluge!”

More than President Tyrump’s personal bottle assistant, Leif worked for years to reach this peak of power where he serves as the eyes and ears of the Resistance.

Leif controls the President’s nasal spray inhalers locked inside the walnut wood of the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. These little bottles contain liquid uppers and downers designed to finesse the uncertain health and wild moods of President Tyrump. The President is bounce-off-the-walls crazy, as evident to all but the equally deluded. Without Leif’s desperate handiwork, the crazy would be far worse.

The President’s primary physician warned Leif upon supplying the meds, “He dies, I don’t know you. Plausible deniability is all I need. No need to even be plausible. All the right people are with me. The way of the world. Any bullshit story will do. You’re on your own, pal.”

The socialist Resistance positioned Leif to try to limit the damage caused by the Presidency, as if all life were at stake, which, in fact, it is. This is the Anthropocene, the human-made geological epoch, the cause of Earth’s ongoing sixth great mass extinction of plants and animals. The climate has changed. Life itself is pushed to the cliff edge of termination by climate collapse and the threat of nuclear destruction.

---

“What the Hell are you going to do about it?! Save Mar-y-Laguna!” bellows President Tyrump at his billionaire Cabinet stuffed into the Oval Office. “I command you to stop the waters! Fix the weather! Goddammit! Florida is drowning!”

“And Texas,” says Leif. “Not to mention Bangladesh, and islands all across Oceania.”

“Where’s that?”

“Drowned by oil, gas, and coal, if you can believe the socialists,” says Leif. “They also say there exist more jobs in solar. By far.”

“Believe the socialists?” cries President Tyrump. “How can I believe the socialists? I don’t know any!”

“The socialists say Houston and east Texas are drowning, Florida is sinking, the West is burning, and coastlines everywhere are going under because the weather is imploding and—”

“Filch Texas!” screams President Tyrump. “Filch the weather! Filch the World! I’m talking about Mar-y-Laguna! A wall will save Texas! But what will save my resort in Florida?!”

President Tyrump grabs his handheld and tweets to the universe: Everyone in my Cabinet is a dumbass! Not forgetting my Aide Leif! Very Bad! Golf killers! Losers! Mar-y-Laguna must live! Golf good! Losers bad!

President Tyrump smashes his handheld onto the desk, terminating the device and scarring the walnut wood.

Leif pockets the President’s broken device and replaces it with one of many backups.

“That’s not the full story, Mr. President!” objects Pittance Viper, CEO of Goldun Sichos investment bank. “You can’t blame us executives! We have grandkids, we love the planet, we love golf, we love your club! Why would we destroy Mar-y-Laguna?”

“For money.” When Justice Assured of Wikilooks arrives at the meeting, nobody is wholly surprised. The voice from Wikilooks speaks from what looks like a hologram, a glowing yellow sphere hovering near the ceiling.

“I’ve got a fix on him,” hisses NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy.

“I’ll fix him,” vows CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat.

“For money and power. For the Incorporated Estates of Dearth, you would destroy all Earth,” says Justice Assured from the bright sphere. “The watchers have become the watched. We will always and everywhere track power, and report to the public.”

The brilliant sphere vanishes.

“Wikilooks will pay!” fumes President Tyrump. “Make a note, Leif. We are going to kill Wikilooks, and they are going to pay for their own funerals!”

Leif taps his smartphone.

“If this meeting is livestreamed by Wikilooks, we’re all going to pay,” says Attorney General Lawkemup Libelem Lawless.

“Not me,” says Vice President Rob Loot Thief. “I gave at the office.”

“Me too!” squeaks Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich.

“Point me in the right direction,” growls Speaker of the House, Thuggy Thug Thuggun. “Where do I shoot?!”

“Keep it in your pants, Thuggy,” says Joint Chiefs Chair, General Krushin Karvin Kilman. “Anyone goes nuclear around here, it’s going to be me.”

“There’s a drone for every occasion,” mutters the Director of the CIA, Creepy Coupy Cutthroat.

“Nothing some bloody detective work wouldn’t eliminate,” boasts FBI Director, Payne Prison Pillory.

“What a clown show!” says President Tyrump. “They talk but what do they do? Leif, who ordered these clowns into my office?! Are you or are you not my dumbass bottle aide? Don’t make me tweet it!”

“You told me to call them all in, Sir.”

“You got to be real dumb to be a bottle aide, Leif!”

“As you say, Mr. President.”

“Good. You’re dumb. But not a smart ass. That’s why I’m going to put you in charge! You’re the boss now, Leif! The whole nation is at your command! The whole world!”

“Sir, I doubt that the Constitution allows—”

“Filch the Constitution! I’m the one in charge here! I’m putting you in charge!”

President Tyrump glares at his Cabinet and the bankers who control the money, call the shots, make the bombs, target the bombs, and fire the bombs.

“Behold, the rulers of the world! Billionaires mostly. Trillionaires! Look at what they have done! Filched the weather! They are drowning Mar-y-Laguna, my dear resort, the truest home to my heart and soul, and to my current family, and to my families of the past. Like a God, I have lived many lives. Great lives! The best of them at Mar-y-Laguna! I want to preserve my dearest home, Leif, but these dumbasses have drowned it! The hurricanes are running wild! The fires are out of control over there! The rains won’t relent over here! The winds won’t die down anywhere!”

“Sir,” says Leif, seizing the opportunity. “Greenland is melting like an ice cube in a microwave. If the entire Greenland ice sheet melts, the seas will rise by 20 feet. A billion people will go under water, probably more. With Greenland gone, most everything else will go too. Refugees everywhere. Those who survive.”

“Very good, Leif. If this were the first grade, you would get a gold star. I’ve heard, Leif!”

“Sir, Antarctica too is melting to nothing. That would be 200 feet of sea level rise. Not to mention permafrost melt on land and subsea, with methane emissions far worse than carbon dioxide. We are cooking the planet, Sir.”

“Tell me something new, Leif! They say it could get so hot, the oceans could boil dry! Then how would we jet-ski?! The drylands drier, wetlands wetter, the coasts and lowlands sunk! The Earth a boiling pot of flesh and blood! I’ve seen the movies, Leif! I watch TV! You must save Mar-y-Laguna!”

“Me, Mr. President? You’re the one with the power.”

“Leif, when I put you in charge of the world, you take the blame for its failure. I will sue your ass, and make a nice profit!”

“But the end of the world would mean the obliteration of all life, Mr. President.”

“If it comes to that, fine. I’ll tweet and tee off into the apocalypse. The End. We tweet and we die, Leif!”

“Mr. President, the last time Earth roasted like a sealed greenhouse, 97 percent of species went extinct. Life was set back hundreds of millions of years. Humans cannot survive the heat.”

“Air conditioning, Leif! A modern marvel!”

“All civilization would collapse.”

“Goddammit! Filch the weather!” screams President Tyrump. “Mar-y-Laguna is threatened! That’s the worst thing! Water everywhere!”

“Famines and crop failures, murderous wars, endless refugees, bloody chaos—”

“You truly are a dumbass, Leif, but no dumber than these billionaire morons here. And you have the great luxury of being Native American. You know people who touch the Earth! They talk to the waters, the sun, moon and stars! Your people jive with the oceans, rivers, lakes, and the rain in the sky! Your people cut deals with the weather!”

“That’s not how it works, Sir.”

“Leif, get into a sweat lodge and fix this! If you don’t save Mar-y-Laguna, who will?! These goddamn billionaires are no use!”

“Bring it on!” snarls the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Krushin Karvin Kilman. “The next war will be fought against the weather!”

“Filch you, Kilman!” bawls President Tyrump.

“Smart money says we can make a killing off new weather patterns!” proclaims Senate Leader Richi Rich Rich.

“Filch you, Richi!”

“Climate change is fake news!” declares Secretary of Education Shammi Shilling Sharlatan.

“Filch you, Shammi!”

“The truth will float to the surface like a dead body!” judges Attorney General Lawkemup Libelem Lawless.

“Filch you, Lawless!”

“I will criminalize the rain!” thunders FBI Director Payne Prison Pillory.

“Filch you, Payne!”

“No Godless storm will take me alive!” bellows House Speaker Thuggy Thug Thuggun.

“Filch you, Thuggy!”

“Those who own the oil, gas, water, and sun are gaming the system,” drones NSA Director Allsee Allhear Allspy. “Soon they will own all the blood. It’s no problem as long as I know all about it.”

“Filch you, Allspy!”

“The fossil fuel industry resents the accusation!” mutters Secretary of State Oily Oily Oily.

“Filch you, Oily!”

“I took nothing!” pleads Vice President Rob Loot Thief.

“Filch you, Loot Thief!”

“There will be no pardons!” announces CIA Director Creepy Coupy Cutthroat.

“Filch you, Coupy!”

“You’re a billionaire yourself, Mr. President!” observes the ever-enrichened Treasury Secretary Deadly Dollar Dealer, a former Goldun Sichos CEO. “Did you drown your own home?”

“Filch you, Deadly!” shouts President Tyrump. “Filch you all! Leif, I order you to save Mar-y-Laguna! If you fail, I will gut you like a Thanksgiving turkey and serve your brown carcass to my family on a gold platter!”

“I’m sure that would violate the spirit of Thanksgiving, Sir.”

“Filch Thanksgiving! But I’ll spare your turkey ass for now, Leif. Call your people! Save the world if that’s what it takes to protect Mar-y-Laguna from the rising seas. I would build a wall around my resort, but the water comes up from below! Water today is like an illegal alien from the center of the Earth!”

“Your people were immigrants to this country not so many years ago, Mr. President,” notes Leif. “Also, two of your wives, including your current wife, Myownia.”

“My people are American, Leif! I’m talking water killers here! Goddamn nature filchers!”

“All Florida is in the same boat, Sir. Barely above sea level. And not only Florida.”

“I don’t care who or what you must save or kill, indebt or destroy to protect Mar-y-Laguna! I command you, Leif! Just do it! I’ll give you a day to perform your Native magic. Results by morning! I want names, Leif. Lists of people, experts who know how to stop the drowning of my resort!”

Leif knew people who could make a difference. He also knew the President might terminate him upon learning he was a socialist like many of the great experts. There was no shortage of dungeons for the disappeared in the Incorporated Estates of Dearth.

“I never loved people, Leif, only my own special place in life! Mar-y-Laguna! My resort must be secure! Do it, Leif!”

Could the President possibly be serious? Sane?

“You’re goddamn straight I’m serious, Leif! Don’t tell me I don’t act serious! I see that shifty look in your eyes! Get to work! Don’t you dare think! The rest of you filching morons, get the filch out of here! No one interferes with Leif saving my club, or I will filch you all!”

“Now hold on, Mr. President,” says Goldun Sichos CEO Pittance Viper: “I will finance the preservation of Mar-y-Laguna. If the price is right. A few tens of trillions of dollars should do it.”

“Be gone, Viper! Out with you all!” brays President Tyrump. “Leif, stay a minute.”

After the Oval Office disgorges the rich and powerful, Leif notes, “It’s nearly time for your bottle, Mr. President.”

“Prepare it, Leif.”

Leif uses a fingerprint scan, then taps the code that opens the side compartment hidden in the walnut wood of the presidential desk. He procures the President’s favorite nighttime concoction, good for the tweeting.

Suddenly a giant white wave smashes through the glass doors of the Oval Office. It slams President Tyrump.

The world explodes in water.

Not fire. Not ice. Water.

A tsunami strikes the Atlantic coast, drowns the First State of Delaware, erases the Chesapeake Bay, rushes up the Potomac River and blasts through Washington DC, wiping out the White House.

The climate has changed. Collapsed.

The long-time self-regulating and life-giving greenhouse that once was Earth has now, like the Presidency of the Incorporated Estates of Dearth, gone berserk.

And from that terrifying moment, Leif awakens.

In the kitchen adjacent to the Oval Office, Leif has fallen asleep on a chair by the table.

He wonders whether in a bout of weakness he inhaled one of President Tyrump’s potent brews.

On the table before Leif sits a glass of water, the ice cubes melting.

“We’re in trouble.” The ice speaks.

Throughout these long years, Leif has come to grips with many dire realities decades before most people would admit to them, little details, like the threat of human species extinction by nuclear holocaust, also climate collapse. Today Leif wonders if the dire realities have finally overwhelmed him and the world.

President Tyrump strolls into the kitchen from the Oval Office.

“Leif, get your ass up! We’ve got shit to do! I like you, Leif. You seem like you can take a punch. You need to save Mar-y-Laguna! Come on, now! Save Florida, Texas, and the entire world if that’s what it takes to protect my lovely resort and home!”

“Sir, you are the President of the most powerful nation on Earth. I am a mere bottle aide.”

“You’ve seen my Cabinet, Leif! They cheer their reflections in gold mirrors. They wave the flag like a get-out-of-jail-free card! They don’t give a shit about anything but their wallets, their bank accounts, and the stuff that goes into their wallets and bank accounts!”

“Money, Sir?”

“Filch, yes!”

“Fire them, Sir.”

“It would be like firing myself! They would get back at me. That’s why I need you, Leif. People like you. People people. Real people. People who actually care about what becomes of the world.”

Leif wonders if he is dreaming.

And then something strikes him.

Leif is submerged in churning heavy water as if a sudden storm surge has flooded the White House again — or for the first time.

Leif smashes into what feels like rock.

The force of water glues him to it.

The pressure eases, the water lowers. Leif slides down the rock until he hits soggy ground. It’s the base of the Washington Monument.

“Am I alive or dead?” Leif speaks to anyone who can hear. Apparently no one. “This can’t be happening. I must not exist. Everything is too clear, too simple, too unbelievable. Earth is giving way beneath me.”

The Washington Monument is collapsing. Leif can feel it. The towering obelisk is not subtle. No nuance there.

Leif awakens.

He sits up in bed at night.

Tomorrow, I may take over the Presidency. Am I batshit crazy?

The sphere of Wikilooks appears and glows beside Leif, before vanishing.

Easing back to pillows, Leif dreams of figs, and lyrics. Patients.

All literature is experience for living.

Cold water rises beneath Leif.

Water covers his mouth and nose.

Leif walks through water.

He enters the Oval Office where he finds himself face-to-face with President Tyrump.

“This is my only home,” says Leif.

“Not your home, my home!” screams President Tyrump.

“The Earth.”

“Filch you, Leif!” The President vomits.

Leif is deported. Sent back to the highlands of his reservation nation.

Leif walks through the miracle of a lush permaculture orchard.

He picks juicy ripe figs.

He brings the figs to a clinic where he attends to patients throughout the day.

Then he walks toward his home and family.

The sphere of Wikilooks appears like a star before him: “We must return you to the Oval Office, Leif.”

“How?”

“We’ll try.”

Leif wakes in the White House.

He steps into the Oval Office and finds President Tyrump lying on the rug, tweeting: There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home! Save Mar-y-Laguna! Whatever it takes! Save my precious home from the wind, the water, the weather, and the filching flag wavers!

“Time for your next bottle, Mr. President. You have a big day tomorrow. It’s late.”

“Already, Leif?”

“Yes, it’s very late, Sir, so very, very late now.”

President Tyrump takes the bottle. And Leif tucks him into bed.

---

“What do we do now?” says Dhyna to Leif.

“What do we do now?” says Leif to Dhyna.

And then a strange thing happened. It was a very strange thing. No one could figure out who started it. Eventually the message was traced back to an online account that was accessed by a ten year-old in Des Moines, Iowa — an account that no longer existed. The message was simple. “Vote for no one to the right of Zohran Mamdani.”

The nation took it to heart. And then the world even moreso.

The DNC, the RNC didn’t believe the polls, couldn’t believe the polls leading up to the election. Otherwise, they might have called the whole thing off. Progressives to the left of Zohran Mamdani won seventy percent of the national and state level offices, instantly tipping the country into a majority ruled semi-socialist nation.

The stock market plunged but it had plunged before. This time the government created millions of jobs needed to fulfill its new universal programs that took care of the vast majority of the needs of the people — providing health care, shelter, food, education, transportation, infrastructure, spending money, even leisure and entertainment, art, parks and rec. Taxes and fees dropped for the working class, because instead of raising taxes, the government cut taxes and fees for everyone but the millionaires, and billionaires, and trillionaires, and credited ten trillion dollars into the new national bank to fund the needs of the people.

The economy hummed like never before, doing the most good for the most people for the first time in history. The government’s approval ratings soared to unprecedented heights. And all because some ten year-old opened their parent’s social media account and typed, “Vote for no one to the right of Mamdani.” It swept the nation like a suggestion without friction. It flowed through people’s minds with unstoppable force. More viral than viral the simple suggestion replicated and grew omnipresent and imperative — a seemingly unreachable ideal made everyday reality.

And so it was, the American Liberation Alliance sprang into being. The newly elected officials levered their positions to meet the people’s demands. They quickly achieved a good bit — guaranteed monthly income, higher wages, expanded poverty relief, universal health care, free childcare, paid family leave, the abolition of ICE, and full legalization and inclusion of undocumented people for the survival, dignity, and relief of all. Plus demands for structural power that erased medical and educational debt, making college free, sharply reducing incarceration, and redirecting police and military funding into housing and social services. An end to America’s killer economic sanctions and military invasions that crush people around the world.

The ALA also demanded shorter workweeks, more vacation and voting access, and a restructured financial system funded by wealth taxes and trillions more dollars of national emergency credit to public banks. After all, liberation means material security and dignity, reduced coercion and oppression, and a decisive shift of resources away from the police state to the social dignity state, away from punishment and war to human and ecological care and public well-being.

The American Liberation Alliance raised wages for federal contract workers, and vastly increased the number of workers, lifting wages for others. The ALA greatly improved access and quality of food, housing, education, health care. The progressive populist force of the ALA decriminalized marijuana with nonviolent convictions cleared, expanded post offices into free public banks, established a new national bank to freely fund the public, ex nihilo, out of thin air, like the big private banks do for their rich buddies but not for the people, in fact against the people, to pillage and profiteer.

And the American Liberation Alliance secured many other kinds of material improvements, environmental repair, and a massive reduction of militarization at home and abroad. Still, much more remains to be done, because private business does so little for people who cannot pay the price, and often performs poorly for even those who can afford goods and services. Serious nationalization of industry and society is in order or the world will continue to burn and the people will suffer and die as always.

The American Liberation Alliance must face off against the many remaining monstrous creations of the world — David against Goliath. Main Street and country roads have been improved for the better — patched and bandaged here and there — but remain far from fully transformed for the good of all. So much more remains to overcome.

Or it will be Trump on calamitous repeat — some plutocrat like him, some horrific satire of the police and military state, the insecurity state. As the ALA pushes to decolonize and liberate, so must all in this desperate day and age of plutocrat propaganda and murderous oppression.

When the establishment won’t allow human progress, the People must take over and provide it, to bring about a better day, to end the doomsday time loop, to create a healthy new world.

“What must be done?” says Dhyna to Leif and Leif to Dhyna — knowing full well they are doing it now.

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Afterword

Meanwhile, here now in “ICE winter,” with federal police rampaging and murdering across the nation, it’s time to remember Claude McKay’s famed poem “If We Must Die” published during “Red Summer” in The Liberator, July 1919, and another great poem of his, “The White House,” published also in the The Liberator, May 1922.

If we must die—let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursed lot.
If we must die—oh, let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!

Oh, kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but—fighting back!

Your door is shut against my tightened face,
And I am sharp as steel with discontent;
But I possess the courage and the grace
To bear my anger proudly and unbent.
The pavement slabs burn loose beneath my feet,
And passion rends my vitals as I pass,
A chafing savage, down the decent street;
Where boldly shines your shuttered door of glass.
Oh I must search for wisdom every hour,
Deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw,
And find in it the superhuman power
To hold me to the letter of your law!
Oh I must keep my heart inviolate,
Against the poison of your deadly hate!

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Three of the greatest novels written in the 1920s, maybe the three greatest — Home to Harlem, Banjo, and Jews Without Money — were written by the editors of the leading left-wing magazines of the day — The Liberator and The New Masses, both based in New York City — Claude McKay and Mike Gold (Irwin Granich).

The world’s best-selling novel of the 19th century, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher-Stowe, was first serialized in the progressive abolition newsletter The National Era.

The best-selling novel The Jungle was first serialized in Appeal to Reason, the progressive populist newspaper from Kansas. The newspaper funded Upton Sinclair the research for the novel, about $20,000 in today’s money.

Claude McKay was a tremendous Jamaican-American writer and activist. His novel Home to Harlem (1928) was one of the most popular and vital of the times, and his subsequent novel Banjo (1929) was a tour de force, which, along with Mike Gold’s left populist novel, Jews Without Money (1930), were among the best novels written in the 1920s, maybe the best, and still today, surpassing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) — far contrary to subsequent manufactured opinion among the establishment, ongoing.

At the time, Home to Harlem was a bestseller, award-winning, and more popular and widely discussed than The Great Gatsby. Banjo was more intellectually ambitious than Gatsby, and Jews Without Money was more politically influential. And today these three novels remain great and compelling reads that are especially populist and literary. But Cold War politics kicked in after World War Two, such that The Great Gatsby was ironically politicized and elevated as quintessential American lit — the Cold Warriors’ Great American Novel. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, in formation and canonization, Gatsby has become a liberal-conservative, establishment cultural fetish.

Meanwhile, the street-wise Home to Harlem, the exquisite populist Banjo, and the pulsing proletarian, rough-and-tumble Jews Without Money were devalued by establishment opinion when Cold War canon-making preferred depoliticized modernism — deliberate political blows to progressive intellect and consciousness, conception of self and society, and human awareness in general. It would take the insurgence of Latin American literature and multicultural literature decades later in American culture to begin to make up some of the lost ground of diversity and human consciousness, class consciousness and vibrant life in general.