I make a nice cup of tea, which is what one does in the evening. I am sitting in my favourite chair, which is what one does when drinking a nice cup of tea in the evening. Mr Crusher does not drink tea, nor does he drink coffee. On many things we agree, but the taking of a nice cup of tea in the evening, sitting in one’s favourite chair, is not among them. I mention this for its narrative utility, human interest being the fuel of a story, but also because tea time is when I talk to the President-elect. My tea time, not his. He does something else when we talk in the evening, whatever it happens to be. I have never asked, and he has never told. I have my theories.

The telephone rings. It is the aforementioned Mr Crusher, as anticipated. He requires advisement, and I am his senior advisor. Thus, he has telephoned me for my advice, as he does each evening. My particular area of responsibility is strategic counsel. My title is Chief White House Strategist and Senior Counselor to the President. Mr Crusher depends upon me for all things strategic. I have his ear, not literally of course. I do have ears—a great collection of them, displayed in shadow boxes, but none of them is an ear of the President. Mostly they are the ears of my rivals. It’s something I picked up during my time as an officer in the military, this taking of ears. I was told that during the war American soldiers would send the skulls of Japs back home to their girlfriends. I say Japs because it was the usage at that time. Perhaps it’s no longer politically correct to say Japs. I have no need for political correctness, however. I am only reporting what I was told, as I was told. That is the story of where I got the idea to collect the ears of conquered rivals.

I talk often to Mr Crusher about the meaning of the War. It was the third of the four great upheavals in the ivory quadrant of the middle awakening. Now we are in the iron quadrant of the late sleeping, which is the seventh of the quadrants. After the eighth quadrant, we begin anew, but in a circular manner and not exactly as before. You see, to advise in a proper strategic fashion, one must have a superstructure spanning the trajectory of the human story. To this end, I have divided the epochs into eras, and the eras into fractures, and the fractures into upheavals, and the upheavals into quadrants and sub-quadrants and semi-demi-quadrants. One day I hope to commit my superstructure of the human story to paper. Or if not to paper then to a digital file. But for now I carry my superstructure in my mind, and I transfer it to the mind of the President, bit by bit, as I drink my tea and he does whatever it is that he does, which I am beginning to suspect to know.

Today when I speak to him I hear the sound of a jet engine. He must be on his private plane. I have taken this opportunity to advise him about air travel in the time of the third upheaval. The men of that era wore fedora and suit, the women an evening dress and gloves. This is important. You see, at the time of the ivory quadrant America was great. There was universal worship of the Lord, consensus on matters of moral conduct, observance of the work ethic, a healthy economy based in manufacture. It is important to notice the sartorial cues, as well as the bodies underneath—the mesomorph (ideally), the ectomorph (often enough) and the endomorph (only in rare instances). Such was the race which defeated the twin menace of Fascism and Communism, accomplishments that will be unthinkable if we do not avoid falling into the approaching quadrant, the quadrant of the fifth undoing. No, falling is not the correct term. Perhaps it’s a sliding, or a descent. Perhaps even a leaping. In any case we must avoid this quadrant of undoing at all costs. I have told the President so, and on many occasions, as he is in his tower or private jet or resort, doing whatever it is he is doing as I drink my nice cup of tea, which I must presently consider.

As I see it, my job is to save Western civilization. To save Western civilization one must destroy it, or nearly destroy it, or allow it to be nearly destroyed from a safe distance. There must be calamity and crisis, a reaching of the fork in the road, a cataclysm, a Phoenix as it were rising from the ash. Or from the near-ash, of a near destruction. Schumpeter has said as much, not that I am an aficionado or devotee of Schumpeter. What I like is the fire, the cataclysm, the rise of the Phoenix from the ash, the human interest. I sometimes sit in my chair, with my nice cup of tea, in the evening, and play the scene in my mind. It would make a splendid film, this creative havoc of cataclysm and rising. Who wouldn’t love to be there, as on the beaches of Normandy or the battlefield of Gettysburg or at Germantown. Who wouldn’t love to be among the brave men who fought for freedom as indeed for all of our Judeo-Christian values. The thrill of battle, the thirst for victory and for dominance, and for power, and for the Phoenix which rises from the smoke and ash. The glorious cycle of creative destruction! The fourth awakening!

I have told the President about the battles, the Judeo-Christian values, the ash, the Phoenix, and the awakening. He understands, intuitively, the necessity of chaos in service of civilization. He is a surprisingly keen and attentive listener, for intervals as long as one and-a-half minutes. Then he needs to take a break—only a short one, to shit (this is what I have come to believe) and also to tweet. He goes into the bathroom usually for no more than thirty minutes and returns wearing a satisfied grin. I have noted this on occasions when I’ve counseled him in person. The grin could be related to the pleasures of defecation, but I think not, or at least not solely. I have noticed he does his best work at this time. The fact was pointed out to me by others who keep track of just such things. “Did you see his latest?” they ask. “His latest what?” I reply. Or rather, I used to reply “his latest what?” until I realized he is tweeting during these breaks of his. For instance I say (tentatively!) that we should kill those who burn the flag, and then he excuses himself (to shit?) and, whilst away, tweets that we should imprison those who burn the flag. I know he does it while he’s away because the tweets are time-stamped, and I make careful note of his comings and goings. Or at least I do now, armed as I am with new information. I have a strategic mind, you see, and as a result take note of everything I deem noteworthy. I notice in this way that he alters my strategic counsel, ever so slightly, perhaps sensing that murder (for example) is unpopular among a small segment of our supporters, unlike mere imprisonment (for instance). So he tweets “let’s imprison them,” or words to that effect. Then come the cheers, as well as the boos of our enemies. It’s chaos, of a kind, or the beginnings at least of chaos. In no time this tweeting of his will have worked the masses into a lather, so I allow it to go on. Not that I could prevent it, even if I wanted to. Which I do not.

He is in there now, shitting and tweeting. I am convinced of it. I hear the jet engine, the low rumble of machinery in rough air. He’ll come out, eventually. It usually takes only a half-hour. Sometimes an hour. Rarely, rarely, he’ll shit for upwards of three hours. He hardly ever shits for an entire day. I am not claiming he has never spent the day shitting, only that it’s not typical of him to do so. Likewise you will wait for weeks on end before it happens that he is shitting the entire weekend. Yes, it happens. I used to resent these defecation breaks of his, the dump marathons that spread out over days, until I realized he does his best work on these occasions. His wonderful attacks on the media, for example, are the product of multi-day turding, almost without exception.

It’s true that if, during a shit, he feels the need for counsel, he will come out for sixty seconds, perhaps even ninety. Once he did say to me, out of nowhere and apropos of nothing, “I make prodigious turds, the hugest of turds, just ask my manservant.” Which of course I did. And the manservant confirmed it and then explained to me, in greater detail than I would have wished, the process by which he unplugs the stopped-up crapper: firstly, by filling the bowl with a large bucketful of boiling water; secondly, by means of plunging; third, by calling a priest; fourth, by the application of corrosives; fifth, explosives. Rarely are all five stages required before the blockage is conquered. The priest usually succeeds, another point in support of Judeo-Christianity. Fortunately our President only blocks up the plumbing this way once or twice a week, at most. As I fear he is doing now. But perhaps not. Perhaps he’ll come out soon for his minute of counsel, followed by a break. In this way I am helping him piece together the grand narrative of human destiny, in one-minute portions. He digests, goes for a shit, tweets. Then the chaos. Together we inch toward the upheaval and the cataclysm and the renewal, inch-by-inch, day-by-day. Amen, amen.