For the first time in his hyper gonadal life, a florid-orange and proudly-white man strolling thoughtfully through the sprawling precincts of the White House with dark thoughts crowding the luxuriant void in his head, was planning his defense, not offense. His name was Hump and he was the President of the Disunited States of Blamerica, a great nation for whose follies everyone else was to blame including largely at this time the People’s Republic of Hyena. This man (man?) was no ordinary being, thing, bacteria or virus. He was solely and wholly responsible for all the new 4.7mn pre-pandemic jobs created in his first three years and not one bit responsible for the 22 Mn jobs lost in a few post-pandemic days till mid-April. Because the pandemic was not his doing, obviously not, as obviously as it was a conspiracy by an old tormentor of the capitalist world, the People’s Republic of Hyena which shrewdly waited for a few centuries before putting its skullduggeries into motion, starting bafflingly by infecting over 80,000 of its own citizens and killing over 4500 of them by April end besides obviously putting its own leadership in peril just to cover its tracks. An extraordinary conspiracy. Otherwise, the nation, Blamerica that is, was perfectly capable of flattening any part of the world by mere remote control under ideal non-viral conditions (provided – a subtle hint here – the name of the massive nation in question did not begin with the alphabets VIET and end with NAM) but was presently unable to flatten the curve that came from a series of man-made follies in tackling the natural disaster with its original epicenter having shifted from the Hyenese city of Vuhan to Few York in Blamerica where people were now becoming fewer not because Hump had managed to throw away all those who had black, brown, yellow and green and blue skins but because the yellow virus had now turned the heat on White. That there were enough yellows in Blamerica as well is an avoidable matter of small detail. Yet, strangely for Blamerica, the proudest white man (man?) on the planet – who was asked by God personally to choose the color of his skin before being born – Hump himself – had however tested negative. But that is not why he was strolling through the graceful interiors of the White House or strolling at all in the first place for that matter because this was a man (man?) who didn’t even stroll the golf course, a game he played for many associations that Freud could perhaps explain. 

Balls. Clubs. Hole-in-one. And so on.

            He was strolling through the graceful national heritage property like a few of his predecessors would whenever they contemplated some noble act of statesmanship like bombing some nation using fighter bombers piloted by brave men in the good old days and then as they turned braver, with pilot-less drones. This punitive action of ‘bringing them to justice’ applied to any nation that least resembled their own and where the leader of the nation in question, once flagrantly supported, brazenly watered and shamelessly fed by them, had now gone ungratefully renegade and in doing so, had enraged with his rebellion their democratic nerve which in matters of foreign affairs is universally republican.

But who doesn’t know all this about Blamerica.

            What was new this time was that the tables had turned. National pride was looking for masks to hide in. The star and stripes blushed scarlet. Sanitizers to erase the shame were in short supply. Drones were used for lockdowns, planes for rescue, ships for quarantine and missiles for the Republicans to sit on. And Blamerica, led by the great nationalist Hump was looking as fluky as the 1-2-3 kid of WWE. And Hump, who could do no wrong because he was always Right, was now left alone in a world that dearly wished it had been more Left than Right for the simple reason that it was public health that was under siege and only as a consequence of that was the stock market, oil, real estate, industry, paralyzed and not the other way round. The ongoing economic debate on Cause and Effect was finally settled. But Hump was convinced that all this wasn’t his doing and it wasn’t even Hyena’s doing, at least on some good trade days, and especially when those carnivores were the only ones to turn to for masks, ventilators and PeePeeEee, and all such weapons that Mark Casper, his Secretary of Offense was friggin’ clueless about. So there wasn’t one enemy, there were many. There was the WHO for starters, living on Blamerican alms and charity, but had suddenly gone renegade the Saddam Hussein way – an organization whose officials lived the life of Imelda Marcos and sunned themselves on beaches with shoes on while Blamerica funded the bikini. But now that Hump had already cut the spend, besides WHO, who else is there to blame? Oh there are many. The media for one, who the Hyenese must have quietly taken over, including Neil Coyote and his Fox News that has also gone the Saddam Hussein way. Then there is Gobama, his predecessor, who was constitutionally evicted as a result of the Disunited States capping fun at two presidential terms after Roosevelt confused the White House for a four-term retirement resort. But Gobama continues to run his mouth. So while Gobama is gone, he is not gone, and while he once again reads beautiful books about the abominable history of freedom and democracy, can he deny that he lacked the vision to develop testing kits in time. But Hump is determined to have a second term come hell or high water, Gobama or Obama, WHO or Why, Hyena or China, or even Foe Biden for that matter, who is now making the hilarious mistake of talking nationalism to outdo him at a time when nations are wondering whatever happened to borders. You don’t have to defeat the Democrats. They know how to defeat themselves. Regardless, Hump was determined to leave no stone unturned to have his second term despite another bunch, the wolfpack of governors of the Disunited States who were hellbent on proving the unnecessary . . . The biggest nuisance here was Andrew Sumo the Governor of Few York who had now joined hands with Hyena, Gobama, WHO, Media and other governors and was challenging Hump’s absolute authority, zero accountability and deflected responsibility by forming pacts with other governors and taking all accountability, full responsibility and complete authority while treating him, Hump, like an effing purchase department of health supplies. Then there were also all these Inspector Generals who were behaving like media which was behaving like Obama who was behaving like WHO, which was loyal to Hyena. And it was in moments like this – though none had been as bad – he would rummage in his pants for his Deputy Disaster Mike Tuppence, the Vice President of the Disunited States of Blamerica, and actually find him. And that’s exactly what he had sought to do this time too. But it was these interactions with Tuppence, more than anything else that were making him stroll furiously today.

Tuppence was acting too bloody smart.

Even toilet paper can aspire in a democracy.

Hump’s mind buzzed agitatedly as he walked faster. He knew his wife Melanin was still asleep in another room in another wing on the opposite side because visionary that she is, she’d been practicing social distancing with him since Stormy Daniels first went viral. Advisor and son-in-law Putrid must be on the phone talking to Rasputin, the President of Russia, his favorite country. Only advisor and dear daughter Armanica would be working hard on something as deep as the foundation by applying Giorgio Armani Luminous Silk Foundation and figuring what not to serve to the mean media at today’s I-am-right-everyone-is-wrong White House briefing by dear Daddy Hump.

            So Hump walked on, his mind buzzing honestly, yes honestly, because it suffered from honesty only when he was alone, because the moment he was alone with some male he wanted to do to the male’s mind what he was known to do a female’s body when she was alone with him. So when he was with men in private or public or with women in public, he mind-fu**ed them, he berated them, insulted them in fifty shades of black. But right now he was alone, at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, specifically at the White House, its Aquia Creek sandstone glistening white at this hour of dawn, disguising with foresight the dark deeds in its present resident’s mind. Dawn was when he was alone, just before breakfast after which he would head to the Oval Office which CNN may well start renaming Zero Office. He’d done up the office to suit his personal tastes. He’d retained the Clinton drapes, the Reagan sunburst rug and the G.W. Bush cream colored sofa with bloodstains from Iraq. But he had removed Clinton’s Queen’s Bed with its chains and in its place he had a Khajuraho statue depicting an orgy. This he felt, best represented a federation. When he sat with his back to the three south facing windows and therefore to the Blamerican public, he faced this statue and felt inspired.

But he was yet to reach office.

It was when the electoral side of him with its wily instincts stirred. This short walk at dawn in the North grounds always cleared his head of any little decency that remained inadvertently from yesterday and restored hideous normalcy. Now as he walked, he suddenly stopped. He cringed as he saw what he thought was a bat. That brought on a foul mood, a mood fouler than ever before, even for a man as foulest as him. Note how the word foul has to be stretched to its foulestest to describe a man (man?) as foul as Hump. And a fine team he had, though not fouler than him, and that too at such a time when the People’s Republic of Hyena had used a microscopic part of a dead bat to launch a war that would made Hitler look like a bloody bovine bullheaded braindead beast of burden. I mean just one bloody microscopic part of a dead bat! Anyone who ever waged a war with hundreds of missiles, thousands of warheads and weapons and millions of cheering ass**les should feel damn stupid today. What a bu**er-all input output ratio. Spend so much and destroy bloody nothing! And what a damn successful war this one is. And it makes the white man go black with shame thereby forcing the color yellow to appear shameless. As for the browns, they continue to confuse, not because, these perpetual migrants continue to make the migratory kind of news, getting caught at airports and cruises, but this time the confusion comes from their testing numbers per million that figure only after a decimal point and that too of a population where one South Delhi outnumbers Sweden and yet it seems the testing here is happening by mistake. But Hump was not reflecting about any of this, not because he doesn’t reflect, or because the browns were not on his mind – in fact one of them was – but because he was in a combative mood, not because he rarely is, because actually he invariably is, but because this time he had been surrounded badly, not because he is never surrounded badly, because he usually is, but he is like a lotus and not Potus who grows the best when surrounded by shit, but now he was so surrounded that the only space he had was at White House briefings where he was determined to hit back, but not at the virus, but media, especially women journalists and those who question his bullshit, not because he didn’t bullshit but because they spot-lit his bullshit, not because his bullshit was so small as to be spot-lit, but because there were so many pieces of bullshit spread so far and wide that each cute little lump of the bull-shit required a spotlight dedicated to it without which nothing would be lit.

            Just then his phone rang. Son-in-law Putrid. At this hour? He heard him out and grew more orange with rage. Everyone was hellbent on spoiling his numbers. The latest is that Toady from Hindia has blocked exports of Hydroxychloroquine from his scorching malarial haven. Now Hump is irate. First thing he will do after the briefing is to handle the fellow. He will call him and say, “Howdy Toady” and will hear the reply, “Namaste Hump”. And then Toady will say “Haw Haw Haw”. In English. And then Hump will say, “that bloody drug Hydroxychloroquine . . .” And before Hump can finish, the blighter will say, “suar suar Hump Bhai. I yam sanding it immejiately.” Because Hump knew that Blamerica may not have the effing vaccine but can still flatten any part of . . . So when he keeps the phone, he will hear that vegetarian voice, “Gaad blayse the Disunited Ishtates of Blamerica”.

            Resolved. Easy.

            Interruption over, he turned his mind to the man responsible for his furious strolling.

            Mike Tuppence. His deputy disaster. The Vice President of the Disunited States of Blamerica, who stanchly opposed abortions of all kinds, especially of bad plans. That’s what Hump always liked about him. It was Tuppence who he had picked as early as February 27 to head this shit. That was how early he had offered a target to Blamerica but that he was still himself what everyone went after was what now drove him nuts. And all this while Tuppence was getting seen like he was sorting the damn thing out. Because Tuppence is a changed man now; the virus has changed everybody. But the one time Hump wants Tuppence to leave it to Jesus, he won’t. Though when Hump appointed him the head of f-all task force where even Surgeon General Gerome Adams is more a fawning general fearing own emasculation than a surgeon empowered to do one, even there, Tuppence seemed to be taking Anthony Saucy’s views more seriously than Hump wanted him to. And the thing about Saucy is – the reason Hump hadn’t thrown him out of both the task force and as Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases despite the fact he stinks of Science – is that he is seldom wrong. But his truth is leftist in flavor and so he had to be kept quiet in briefings. And Science had to be neutralized by Religion. The other day when Saucy predicted a ‘fall relapse’, Hump jumped and was struck by its many meanings. Fall. Elections. So that’s why he has decided to keep Saucy, but behind his ass. And that’s also why he put Tuppence in front, because Tuppence functions best when Hump is behind his. But Tuppence used to always unconditionally agree with Hump. He still does. But nowadays he agrees with some hesitation. While agreeing, he adds a little ‘BUT’ in the end. The kind of BUT Hump doesn’t like. BUT with a single T. Time to get Nikki Haley as running mate! Hump thought, rubbing his pink hands together.      

            See you got to have an able Deputy Disaster before fall relapse.

Come to think of it, even that Toady has a better deputy disaster, who simply bumps off fellows when they don’t fall in line. Look at Toady now, he thought enviously. The old fart is doing no testing, has no masks, no sanitizers, no PeePeeEee, no hospital beds, no ventilators, no money, no social distancing, only slums and sadhus. But look at his cowboys in Hindu underwear. They ensure that he goes on and on. Thanks to parliamentary democracy.

Got it!

With that Hump found his eureka moment at dawn, like at every dawn.

We need parliamentary democracy here, I tell you, he muttered to himself. Or at the very least a major change in the existing. I bet Toady will rule Hindia like a Hindu emperor because poor fellows can’t remember the last time they had a Hindu emperor and they finally have one. If something can be curtailed, then something can be expanded – this much Science even I know, he thought. The cap on two Presidential terms for example. So let’s see if we can bring a constitutional amendment to bring Blamerica to justice. It’s the constitution, not the Bible for heaven sake. 

            Done.

            The dawn musing was over. The sun was rising once again over the great city of Corruption D.C. At peace with himself now, he walked fast to the war-room for the daily press briefing on the Hyenese virus.

            It was time to return to realty.

Oh sorry about the Freudian typo.

About Ash Kaul

Ash Kaul is a published Kashmiri writer and poet. He enjoys writing political satire and his satire has also been published in The Satirist. He has won some accolades in international competitions of flash fiction, short story and nonfiction as well. Besides building this collection of political satire essays, he is putting finishing touches to a historical epic and also a literary historical suffused with tragedy and set in the conflict zone of Kashmir. He can be contacted at LaughingAshes@gmail.com

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