A shadow consumes the old man in the White House. While his flesh rots before our eyes, and the whole world is forced to peer into the sewage of his thoughts (opened to a subscription fee no less), and we are left to helplessly witness the artery of Hormuz (and now the Gate of Tears) close and clog and slowly kill the global economy, all the while West Asia faces unspeakable horror — we discover that a shadow has possessed this man.
This is the shadow of an all-powerful, unattainable persona. The shadow has the vague silhouette of a king. The shadow is “Trump,” a concept. The shadow is everything the old man wishes to be: strength, virility, omnipotence, agelessness. Everything he desires; everything beyond his mortal reach.
The shadow is a delusion possessing the old man's weak will. He is an easy victim. He knows no love. He has no soul, for he does not know how to think and feel. He is not moved by beauty, a stranger to all pity and compassion. He cares only for himself and his corporate masters and acknowledges a supreme form of narcissism as the single fact of existence, blind as he is to the magnitude of human life he has erased. It is truly hard to comprehend how large of a chunk of human future his re-election has taken from our species. Self-enslaved, he is alone, inhabits a hell of oligacious ladder-climbers, drooling at the prospect of his death so that they may in turn become him.
The shadow is his only company. It is the only thing he sees, the only thing he will ever know for the rest of his days. The worm may enjoy its meal soon, but not before the world becomes a storm of fire. The nights blaze with the crimson dawn of wildfires; entire cities sink under biblical deluges; the people of Gaza keep on being tortured in conditions that stupefy and kill the heart; Latin America is forced to endure the specter of another Operation Condor, where the horrors of CECOT are to be exported all across the continent…
The old man just tears at the shadow. The more he tears, the more it recedes from him. When he’s gone at last, the shadow shall remain, haunting us forever.
But this shadow – this thing – is not unique to him. It is a shifting horror that has always stalked the thrones of men. Since time immemorial it has preyed on the male ego and become an integral torturer in the relentless nightmare we call history. What is the name of this shape-changing monstrosity, our ultimate demon?