The Tell-Tale Trump
by Stephen King
as told to Jim Duchene
You’re right, you’re right. I’m nervous–very nervous–but crazy?
I only wish I were.
You see, I’ve always found Donald Trump entertaining, in a monkey playing the accordion kind of way, but I never thought he’d be president. Then he stole the election, the only known instance of that ever happening.
I could live with that. I bore him no ill will. It was only four years, after all. How much damage could he do?
But his tweets!
They drove me nuts!
No, not nuts. Not nuts. I’m not nuts. I swear I’m not.
Soon, you might say, I became obsessed with Trump and his hellish tweets. Obsessed isn’t the same as insane, is it?
Of course not.
Every time I picked up my smart phone I’d scurry to Twitter to read the latest verbal monstrosities from not-my-President Trump.
Idiotic ramblings. Lies. Misinformation. There was no horror I have ever created as a writer that was more terrifying than this lying Hitler of a man.
Trump. Trump. Trump.
“Would you look at this crap Trump just tweeted?” I told my wife, shoving my phone in her face.
“Give it a rest,” she said, popping the tab on a can of beer and handing it to me.
Rest?
How can I rest when our democracy is at stake? From early morning to late at night Trump was busy, busy, busy spreading his hate-speech.
Didn’t he ever sleep?
Tweet after tweet after tweet, no matter the hour. From the brightest of day to the blackest pitch of night, whenever I looked at my smartphone there he was with another falsehood, another fabrication.
“Honey, honey,” I elbowed my wife though I knew she was sleeping soundly. I wanted to show her Trump’s latest atrocity,
“Give it a rest,” she said and rolled over, her back towards me.
Sleep?
How could I sleep?
How could she sleep?
Why wasn’t she as acutely aware of the danger this madman posed?
There was only one thing I could do, and that was to warn the world through my writing about this abomination, aberration, abortionation–and many other words that begin with “a”--of a human bean.
That’s right, I said “bean,” not “being”.
You see?
Humor, not lunacy.
I wrote a novel about an ancient evil that moves to a small town in Maine. I called it “Trump’s Lot”.
I then wrote another novel about a hotel haunted by Trump’s malevolent presence. I called it “The Tweeting”.
On and on I wrote. I was like a man possessed. Possessed by inspiration, not by any psychosis, that is. Trump was my muse. No muse is good muse. Ha!
“The Dark Trump Tower”.
“The Trump Zone”.
“The Running For President Man”.
That last one I wrote under a pseudonym, because my book publishers had warned me against over-saturating the market and competing with myself.
I was an anti-Trump tsunami, unleashing a torrid wave of flooding words.
Flooding… hmm…
A lightbulb clicked on over my head.
It was Trump!
Trump was behind Katrina!
Why has no one else made that connection? I was now the main character in one of my own stories. The only man in the world who knows a terrible truth, but no one believes him. No one believes him. That is, until it’s too late.
“I stayed up the whole night writing it,” I told my literary agent over lunch.
“Maybe you should give this Trump thing a rest,” he replied.
Hmm…
Had he been talking to my wife behind my back?
“Readers want to be entertained, not lectured,” he continued.
He put a hand on my arm.
I pulled it away because I’ve recently developed a distaste for human contact.
“Why alienate half of your audience?” he finished, making his point.
Alienate?
Alienate?
Alien ate!
That gave me an idea for another book. Humanity. Invaded by space aliens. Only, they’re orange, not green.
“The Trumpyknockers”!
“What do you think?” I asked him.
He put his head on the table and cried.
I hurried home to write it.
“Honey!” I cried out, rushing into my home.
“I’m in the kitchen,” she called back, “making dinner.”
I walked into the kitchen, anxious to tell her all about my next bestseller. She stood by the sink. A huge knife in her hand. She was washing it.
Only it wasn’t my wife!
It was Trump!
What was he doing in my house? Where was my wife? What had he done with my wife?
Next to him, on a cutting board, I saw the horrible truth.
On it was meat. Red meat cut up into a thousand little pieces. There was chopped lettuce, too. Who knows what horrible things he did to that poor piece of roughage? I knew he was sick, but I hadn’t realized just how sick.
“Will you excuse me for a minute?” I said, pretending a calm I didn’t possess.
“Of course, hon,” the monstrosity answered. “Can I get you a beer?”
I went to the garage where I keep my tools. I found what I was looking for and headed back to the kitchen.
“What are you doing with that ax?” were the last words that maniac said.
Later, I was sitting in the living room drinking a beer when my son walked into the house. Even though he didn’t live with us any longer, he still kept a key and could let himself in whenever he wanted.
“Hi, pop,” he greeted me.
“Hello, son,” I grunted.
He and I were writing a book together. I had forgotten he was coming over.
“Mind if I grab a beer?”
“Help yourself,” I said.
I jumped out of my chair when I heard him shriek. He shrieked once, and only once. The ax was laying by my feet. Grabbing it, I ran into the kitchen, ready for anything. But it wasn’t my son I saw in the kitchen. It was Trump! Wearing my son’s clothes! He was standing in front of the open refrigerator, staring at something that was staring back.
“What have you done with my boy?” I yelled at the fiend and split his face in two.
He crumpled. Falling to the floor like a marionette with its strings suddenly severed.
I dismembered him. Cutting off his head, and then his arms and legs. Placing the various body parts into the refrigerator alongside his doppleganger.
Picking up the ax, I held it in my hand. It felt good there. Almost natural. What did Sweeny Todd say? “At last my arm is complete!”
I popped open another beer and poured a bit of it on the blade. What the hell, it had performed a service for America. It deserved a reward.
The doorbell rang. From the kitchen entrance I could see out the living room window. It was a Fed-UPS package car.
“Ha,” I chuckled at the old joke about UPS and Federal Express merging.
I opened the door. I was shocked to see Donald Trump standing there, dressed in the familiar uniform. And the illegitimate president was just as shocked to see me.
“Please…” he whimpered.
Please?
Please what?
Please vote for him?
I voted with my ax, swinging it hard. It tore through the package he was holding and thudded satisfyingly into his chest. He fell backward onto the sidewalk, the ax handle jutted sideways out of his chest. He groaned. A hideous groan. Not a groan of pain, but the sad groan of realization that his life was over.
Somebody screamed.
I looked up.
And there was Trump!
And Trump and Trump and Trump!
Trump walking a dog.
Trump driving a car.
Trump on roller skates.
Trump drinking from a water hose.
I put my foot on the dead Trump’s ribs and gave the ax handle a hard tug. It was really stuck in there good.
It pulled loose with a jerk.
With my arm complete, I headed toward the street.
That’s right, Trump, run! For all the good it’s gonna do ya!
Popping open another beer, I once again sat myself down in my living room. Where was my wife with dinner? I wasn’t hungry, though. I was just tired. So very tired. Killing Trump was hard work.
Then came the police sirens. A bunch of them. Soon, police cars were screeching to a halt right in front of my house.
Man, I was just outside.
What had I missed?
The police officers jumped out of their vehicles. Drawing their guns, they ran toward my front door. It was open. I had been too tired to even close my own front door.
“Is there a problem, officers?” I asked.
fin
