The Picture of Donald Trump

As President Donald Trump, quite literally, decomposes before the world’s eyes, growing ever more confused, gnarled, incontinent and overweight with every day that passes, questions are being raised as to the reasons behind his rapid decline. “I know he’s coming up to eighty, but that alone doesn’t explain the rate at which the old bastard is deteriorating – he’s looking like an old wooden shed once the rot has set in. These days, most eighty year olds with his wealth, health plans and privileges, are still looking pretty good – so what’s going on with Trump?” asks noted gerontologist Dr Henry Dwinklin. “His pattern of ageing is simply not normal, particularly as he and his quack medics are constantly telling us how physically fit he is. None of this makes scientific sense.” Indeed, with medical science apparently unable to explain Trump’s condition, some commentators have speculated that Donald Trump has a ‘Dorian Gray’ situation going – but in reverse.  Does he, some have pondered, have a picture of himself in the attic that gets younger as the real Trump deteriorates? “It sounds crazy, but with Trump, you never know,” concedes Dwinklin. “I mean, it is tempting to think that, perhaps, the more evil and hateful that Trump becomes, the younger that portrait gets. Damn it, by now it must be slim, healthy looking and sporting a full head of hair!”

Others have wondered whether, if such a portrait exists, it is part of some Faustian pact made by Trump in order to fully exploit his dark side. “That’s the big question – whether Trump’s ability to be utterly self-serving and downright evil, is because he’s been able to suppress completely his conscience and compassion, by transferring them to that picture: the more evil he is, the more physically ugly and completely repugnant his real self becomes and the more saintly that picture of him becomes,” says political analyst and part-time occultist Francis Weberly. “Is this what has allowed Trump to plumb depths of depraved corruption and utter stupidity never before seen in a human being? Was this pact the key to him gaining first the Republican nomination, then the presidency, not once, but twice, because of his ability to tap into that primal, raging hatred that lies at the heart of the stupid, the psychotic and the right-wing? The sort of hate that would destroy any normal person who tried to embrace it wholeheartedly and without reservation?” Naturally, opponents of the president have started to try and discover if such a painting of Trump actually exists. Recently, they have started to focus their attention on a decades old portrait of the president which appears to have completely vanished from public view. “It’s not as if it was a bad painting, or one that Trump hated,” muses art historian Vernon Crabster. “In fact, Trump is on the record as noting how much he admired it and how the artist – Lucius Hobbs – had caught his likeness so well, yet the picture seems to have vanished completely!”

According to Crabster, the artist himself remains something of a mystery, having only completed a handful of commissions – all portraits of the super wealthy. “There were lots of rumours about him using unorthodox materials in his oil paint mixes,” recalls the art historian. “You know, the usual nonsense about blood and animal sacrifices – it was always assumed that it was simply part of the hype on the part of his agent to boost interest in the artist.” The painting was last seen on display in New York’s Trump Tower, but shortly before Trump made his first presidential campaign, it vanished from view, with stories abounding that it was transferred to a secret secure room, either in the tower or at Mar-a-Lago, to which only Trump himself had access. “Maybe he goes there whenever he does something especially shitty, like locking up small children before deporting them, and leers at that portrait of his saintly-looking portrait,” says Weberly. “Its wholesomeness reminds him of just how evil he has become – something he doubtless revels in!”

Of course, the biggest question is, what happens to that picture when the real Trump finally dies?  Will it come to life and step out of its frame, a fully three dimensional, youthful Donald Trump, in perfect health, ready for another fifty or sixty years?  “Well, if that was the case, then I think that we’d all hope, obviously, that bearing in mind that the picture had absorbed all of Trump’s good side, that this would be a new, benign Donald Trump,” muses Weberly.  “A Trump that gives away his money to good causes, fights against injustice and who is humble and modest.  Perhaps this Trump will also run for president – but as Democrat so far to the left that he makes Bernie Sanders look like Mussolini.  He could run of a platform of socialised health care, the expansion of welfare, workers’ rights and racial equality.  Maybe he could be the friend of immigrants – converting the Trump Tower into a hostel for them. Maybe he could solve the homelessness epidemic, starting by bulldozing Mar-a-Lago and turning the site into low-cost housing.”

Such a new, saintly, Trump might even be able to win the Nobel Peace Prize legitimately, Weberly ponders, with his tireless work to promote peace instead of conflict, championing reductions in defence spending and nuclear disarmament.  “Doubtless, he would be passionate about women’s rights, gay, rights, trans rights, the whole damn lot,” he says.  “In fact, he might even be gay himself. OK, I know that this is all speculation, but after all the evil and destruction wrought by Trump, a man can dream of a better future, even if it is unlikely to materialise, can’t he?” Dwinklin, however, doubts that even if Trump does have a reverse Dorian Gray thing going on, that any doppelgänger released from the painting by his death would prove to be a major force for good. “Look, there was so little good in him in the first place, his picture would, in reality, turn out stunted and under nourished, too weak to do anything,” he opines. “I suspect that he exhausted his supply of goodness years ago and since then has been running on pure hate, which, as there is no more good to displace to the painting, is instead eating him up from the inside.”