I.

Jupiter sat on his throne high atop Mount McKinley and looked down upon his greatest creation to date: America. He was not happy. If not for the terrific Tweets from the orange man in the White House, the king of the gods would have lost all hope.

Juno, Jupiter’s wife and first among goddesses, returned from who-knows-where.

“I see you have cut your beautiful hair after I commanded you not to!” said he.

“You’re not the boss of my body!” she spoke defiantly while avoiding eye contact.

“Short hair on a woman is a sign of mental illness!”

Jupiter’s smartphone pinged, and his all-seeing gaze settled on its tiny screen. He let out a mighty belly-laugh, the duration of which all babies born from Alaska to Arkansas were male with large members.

“Trump does the funniest misspellings! He just tweeted out ‘covfefe’ instead of ‘coverage!’ Covfefe! Ha ha, fumble thumbs! That will rustle their jimmies! I love the president; I only wish he would do more than talk.”

“Trump is racist!” shot back Juno.

Jupiter covered his face with his hands and shook his head slowly.

“Do not say that. Did I not tell you that ‘racism’ is a phony word, invented in 1927 by Leon Trotsky?”

“You say a lot of things…”

“A communist and a Jew!”

“I’m going shopping.”

And before Jupiter could open his mouth, she was gone, but Juno did not go shopping; instead, she went to volunteer at the animal shelter. This was her new secret; Juno knew Jupiter would chastise her for wasting time down on Earth when there was so much to be done up on Mount McKinley.

Like all gods and goddesses, Juno enjoyed human company from time to time; mortals were refreshingly ignorant, and provided a needed break from Jupiter and the other know-it-all macho male deities.

There was, however, pandemonium at the animal shelter this day, and if Juno had known, she wouldn’t have come. Who needs it? Mortals of the past had more self-control; they were simply more grown-up. People these days had no idea how unimportant they were! Her new volunteer friends were making more noise than the animals they rescued and running about as if the sky was falling.

But she was here, and she wanted to complain about her husband Jupiter to her new friend Esther Epstein who managed the shelter.

Over in the corner by the donkey stall, volunteer Todd beat his balding head against the wall. He let loose loud cries of gay anguish. A scratchy-voiced women named Gloria was arguing with herself. The animals were made nervous by all this; the rescue gorilla banged its dense African skull against the bars of its cage shouting “Ooga-Booga!” while the rescue donkey hee-hawed in agitated fashion. The in-the-dog-house dogs barked, and the harmed hounds howled; it was loud like Puerto Rico on the last day of the month.

“Esther, what could make you all so upset? What is wrong?” Juno inquired.

“You wanna know what’s wrong? I’ll tell you what’s wrong! TRUMP, TRUMP, Trump is what’s wrong!”

The mention of the president’s name increased the overall agitation in the shelter. “Oink-oink!” Juno’s heart went out to her mortal friends, although she couldn’t guess the connection between the president and the rescue animals; surely the nation’s rulers had more important things to do than to be concerned with the fate of beasts. Politics bored her.

Esther Epstein knew Juno was clueless. “Trump is threatening to send his sons Don Jr. and Eric on safari to hunt our animals!”

Volunteer Todd dashed over and added, “Trump has cut the shelter’s estrogen funding to zero! Thanks to him, we can’t afford gender affirmation surgery for anyone here!”

“That’s preposterous!” Juno spoke with an authoritative tone which registered her mortal friends outrage, but indicated that the subject was now closed.

“Trump is worse than Hitler!” declared Esther.

Juno drifted off in reverie. She had admired Hitler, but one must change with the times.

Volunteer Gloria shuffled over to join them; she was an older bent over woman with short salt-and-pepper hair, a hooknose, and thick glasses.

“So, you’re supposed to be a god?”

“I am Juno, queen of the heavens.”

“So why don’t you do something about Trump?” challenged Gloria. Juno thought the impudent woman had a rat-like quality about her.

Esther came to Juno’s rescue. “She’s only joking about being a goddess.”

Juno turned cherry-red and became at least a foot taller.

“The hell I am! Why, I should turn you into beasts for your insolence. I could incinerate this place with lightning!”

“Why don’t you incinerate Trump with a bolt of lightning?”

“My husband would kill me,” she deflated.

“Could you maybe go behind his back?” inquired Esther with a shrug and a little, leading smile.

The volunteers watched as Juno thought to herself.

“Why yes, I can use subterfuge; I do it all the time!”

Juno pondered the problem: how to destroy Trump without the all-seeing eyes of Jupiter, her husband and king of the gods, finding out; because if he did, there would be hell to pay!

“It’s the right thing to do.” Esther nodded her head up and down in the affirmative as she spoke. The others nodded their heads in unison, too. Out of the corner of her eye, Juno noticed that the abused donkey, who seemed unusually intelligent and had been closely following their conversation, also nodded her head.

A candle lit in her mind and divine inspiration came to Juno. Using an old Etruscan spell, she set about transforming the unwanted rescue animals into politicians.

Oh spirits of the deep
Help me get rid of the orange-haired creep
Lift this donkey from its stall
Transport her to the Congressional hall
Turn her into human form
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
Be born!

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw!”

Poof! The animals’ furry gray hide turned into a white pantsuit, its four legs became human appendages; only a clever person would notice that she was a donkey!

“Hee-haw! Hee-haw! Cauliflower is for bigots! If you think you can shut me up, you can’t! Everywhere I go, nothing but death threats! Death threats from men! It’s always men that want to kill me! Racism! Hee-haw, hee-haw!” lectured the newly-formed politician.

Juno turned and looked over the animals. There was the elephant—“Brrrroar!”—and the lion—“Rrrrroar!”—but no doubt they would side with Trump.

“Do you have any poisonous snakes?”

A deadly African asp spoke up from its reptile tank. “Sssssss-ssssss-sssss.”

Foreign devils near and far
Bring to life Ilhan Omar
Her vile venom shall be the norm
Put this snake in human form!

The Congresswoman slithered from her tank and stood, lanky and brown.

“Sssssss-ssssss. Donald Trump. Sssssss-ssssss. I will bite you when the time comes. Poison! Sssssss.”

The volunteers were both impressed and afraid. Juno noticed that Ilhan Omar was not fully formed and still had holes on the sides of her head instead of ears, so she covered her with a rag.

“Sssssss-ssssss. This is my country now. Do not tell me how many husbands I can have. Everywhere I go, I am met with racism!” the Somali snake hissed.

Twice more did Juno utter ancient spells, and with the creation of Representatives Rashida Tlaib—Poof!—and—Poof!—Ayanna Pressley (made from the Laughing Hyena and the Gorilla respectively), “the Squad” was formed.

II.

The Squad wasted no time attacking everything white and male. These young politicians-of-color went straight to work in Washington, D.C., where they made quite a stir. Never before had freshmen Congresswomen rankled the establishment so much. There had been female senators and black congressladies before; there had even been Moslems sworn to uphold the constitution. Though these had eroded the foundations of the Republic, the Squad, if left unchecked, might destroy it!

“Hih-hih-hih-heee! Impeach the motherfucker! Aaarrrrgh! Hahaha!” snarled, laughed, and cackled the hideous Palestinian Hyena-woman. One swing of Rashida Tlaib’s pendulous bosom would send anyone attempting to take her microphone flying.

The least articulate member of the Squad was the most physically imposing. No one in Congress even considered talking back to the angry, black, heavily-muscled Representative Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.

“Ooga-booga! We wants reparations for black folk. Ooga-booga! Dem whites be racist!” Her beady white eyes glowered from a coal-black face, portraying atavistic hatred and a predisposition to violence. Ayanna Pressley’s wig weave looked like black greasy hangman’s rope.

The congressional whites cowered in fear and shame. They only hoped their leader Nancy Pelosi could reason with the Squad and get them to play ball.

“Why yes,” Nancy told reporters, “President Trump is evil and needs to be impeached, but there is a process, and the Squad needs to back off and let more senior elected officials do their job!”

But attempting to reason with the Squad only enraged these young females. Nancy was personally hurt by their personal attacks on and against her plastic surgery.

The Somali snake Ilhan Omar hissed, “Sssssss-ssssss, Nancy is so old, even her Botox has wrinkles!”

“She be dried up. Ooga-booga!” grunted Representative Pressley.

“Nancy Pelosi is menopausal! Hih-hih-hih-heee! Aaarrrrgh!” cackled and snarled the laughing Hyena from Palestine.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the leader of the Squad, chimed in.

“Look at us, we are young and fertile! Hee-haw, hee-haw! But we are not having babies because we are too important, just like men! Nancy Pelosi is racist!”

The charge stung Nancy. She had spent her entire career accusing white men of racism, and now she herself was being tarred with the same brush. She wanted to cry, but could not because of her extensive plastic surgery.

The Squad continued their relentless attacks against the fading patriarchy and the old man President.

“President Trump be drowning babies, ooga-booga!” accused the grim Congresswoman from Massachusetts. “Boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo-hoo! Ooga-booga.”

“Trump is doing genocide on Mexicans! Hih-hih-hih-heee!—grrrrrrrrr!” the morbid Rashida Tlaib foamed at the mouth. “Boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo-hoo!”

“Until he admit Somalia is better than America, Trump need to be impeached! Ssssss-ssssss-ssss,” hissed the foul viper Congress-Moslem. “Boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo-hoo!”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the most quotable of the bunch, with the intellect of an angry donkey college pre-grad, could always be counted on for bizarre sayings which she pulled out of her ass.

“America needs to stop using electricity!”

“America belongs to the Latins! Hee-haw, hee-haw!”

“President Trump makes me drink from the toilet because he is afraid of our vaginas! Hee-haw, hee-haw! Boo-hoo-hoo, boo-hoo-hoo!”

Confronted by angry holier-than-thou reporters, the President defended himself.

“I have never drowned Mexicans, never made Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez drink from the toilet. She can afford bottled water on her salary!”

But the brave corporate journalists would not be silenced by the corrupt president.

“Sir, are you afraid of vaginas?”

The silence hung heavy as the media waited for the President to put his foot in his mouth.

“I will grab them by the pussy!”

The room went so silent that you could have heard a dildo drop. All present were duly shocked by the lack of humanity this man had! They collectively ruminated on Trump’s horrible and uncalled-for response to their reasonable line of attack before proceeding.

“Mr. President, are you saying you would ‘grab’ Representative Ayanna Pressley ‘by the pussy?’”

‘Is that the black one?”

“Yes, Mr. President.”

“She should go back to Africa.”

The reporters gasped in group shock!

“What about Congresswoman Tlaib?” questioned a female reporter with a male voice.

“Rashida Tlaib should go back to Pakistan!”

“But she is from Palestine!”

“Works for me! No more questions.” The president turned and left the podium, blissfully unaware of his own evilness.

***

For all installments of “Atlas Smirked,” click here.