This Carbon Based Life

By David Glenn Cox

“Old Rudy was dead as a doornail.” Wherever you can find a doornail these days, so maybe Rudy Giuliani is even deader than that. But there suddenly commenced a rattling and the heaving of a heavy chain of a man lumbering under a great weight. In a panic, Trump locked the door. But the specter passed through the door as if it wasn’t real.

A heaving tired old man was dragging a great chain of safes and safety deposit boxes and cash boxes. The specter untied a wrap which was holding its jaw to its skull. The wrap exposed the permanent and perpetual stains of “Just for Men”  on the spirits forehead.

“Trump!” a disembodied voice called out. “Trump!” The voiced boomed. “Hear my words! This is my price, my penalty for my career of misdeeds. Do you see that big honking walk-in safe at the back I’m dragging? That’s from the day I met you, Donald Trump!”

Ex-wives and scandals, appearing as a confused doofus in popular movies, nothing! All nothing, until the day I met you. And now, there are 148 million New links in my chain! Process servers chasing me everywhere, I wander eternity hobbled by the chains of your making.

“So let me get this straight, Rudy. Eternity has horribly disfigured you! And you are doomed as long as you suck air to financial hardship and destitution. How does your little problem affect me? Have you come to warn me? Are three spirits and a handicapped kid coming by the house tonight? Save it for somebody  who wants to hear it, Rudy! Perhaps you are nothing more than an undigested bit of Big Mac or a bit of Whopper, where you can have it your way.

Besides, anyone visiting the Mar-A-Lago home for the addled and criminally sidelined, needs a reservation backed by a major credit card. Speaking of…how did you get past security?”

Noooooooo! The voice bellowed. I have a message to give you, Donald Trump. You don’t happen to have a little money I could borrow, do you?

“Oh, is that all? I’ll ring the servants and have Malaria put together a take home box of money for you. For a minute there Rudy, I was afraid you were out to reform me. With some big production about Christmas past. Like the ones when I was a boy at military school. When I was the only cadet not going home for the holidays.

Daddy said, I could come home for Christmas twice next year! I hit .227 for the baseball team Daddy. Isn’t that good enough? Why don’t you love me, Daddy? I won’t wet my bed! I don’t do that anymore!

But once, there was this girl, Rudy. Well, actually there were lots of girls but this one was special. I was down at the docks cruising for chicks when I met her. Her name was McGill, but she called herself Lil, but everyone knew her as Ivanka.

Just something about foreign chicks Rudy that really turns me on. Their accents, their beauty, and their need for a visa. When you can offer them that visa, they’ll just let you.  So there’s no handicapped kid that needs fixing, no spirits of past, present or future to haunt me? Why haunt me? I’m not cheap! I’m a great guy! I’m a thief, but I’m not cheap.

Rudy answered, “These spirits could not haunt you, Donald Trump. You would only haunt them.”

Then what do you want from me, Rudy?

“Come, touch the hem of my gown. Look now, what do you see? Do you see that little man with the limp? He had dreams once! He was going to be a big shot. He was going to be the next President of these United States. He’s already called the moving company and got estimates!

Then Rudy opened his robe, exposing two small thin and trembling children. “This Boy,” he said, Is want! His name is Ron DeSantis! And this girl is Nikki Haley, she is need! She needs a job, and the Republican Party needs a candidate. Someone, anyone, inoffensive.

Why do show me these things Rudy? I’m going to be the candidate!

“Nooo,” the spirit of Rudy cried. “That is the past! A defendant is the present, and an inmate is the future.”

Then what is my future, Rudy? Am I making my own chain?

“Nooo,” the spirit of Rudy cried. “You have no future!”

“Bah,” said Scrooge, “Humbug.” ― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol