Yesterburger

Trump's Misadventure in the Catering Cart

I wake up and think: It is cold. Colder than usual. And darker than usual?

Until now, I lived in a perfect house that was fully staffed, I had five children, I posted highly edited pictures of myself to social media constantly, I believed women should have Christian fundamentalist gender roles, and I did not believe in vaccines. I was a Trad President.

But this cold, dark place is entirely unfamiliar.

Panic seizes me. I lurch for the Diet Coke button on my bedside table. My hands slap air instead of smooth, red plastic.

I call out, weakly, for Margo, whose job is to print articles for me that say exactly what I want them to say.

Margo?

No answer. Surely she is nearby, ready to tell me that everyone loves the ballroom. But there is only silence. And cold. So much cold.

I’ve been abducted.

Kidnapped.

Someone must be here with me. Antifa?

Someone is going to kill me. Ghislaine? The Clinton Crime Family? Melania? The Iranians? The Ukrainians? The Chinese? The Saudis? The Russians? Eric?

I’m too young to die.

Too beautiful to die.

It’s always the young, beautiful ones who die.

My eyes adjust in the dark and I see it: Along every wall of my unfamiliar surroundings, from floor to ceiling, is cart after cart of microwavable hamburgers. Exactly the ones I eat aboard my plane. Exactly what I’ve always wanted. What I’ve always desired most. And now I am trapped in them.

I am living in my greatest fantasy, so why does it feel like a nightmare?

I feel my face. It feels older than I remember. I feel my ear. Completely healed. Then comes the stench. I won’t describe it.

I tell myself: Things feel different because it’s dark and you’re afraid, and everything feels different in the dark when you’re afraid.

I try to escape, but my hands scrape against a door locked shut.

I scream. Get up, Donald, keep moving. But my legs won’t move.

Then I see the inscription along the door: “TURKISH DO&CO CATERING.”

No. No no no no no no—

My body is so flooded with cortisol, I feel paralyzed.

Oh, God. Help me.

It hits me. In my new refrigerated life amongst the airplane hamburgers, I am a hamburger.

Who am I if not a microwaved lump of overcooked meat covered in slime surrounded by a doughy exterior?

This is my life now, as it has always been my life.

The whole world turns black.

Then the door opens. But…the twist?

It turns out…I was not a hamburger.

It is merely six minutes in the future.

The end.