12th Sept – The King’s New Wave

A re-working of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, by Hans Loë.
if you can’t be bothered to read all of this, there’s a synopsis in video form at the bottom of the page.

The King’s New Wave

Many years ago, there was a king who was so exceedingly fond of hair that he spent all of his spare time and money trying to disguise the fact that he hardly had any. He cared nothing about inspecting his soldiers, and instead of carrying out his kingly duties, he employed a personal trainer from a nearby gym to do it for him. He would never check to see if his navy had received their rations of biscuits, even when they were at war —which they often were; and he would only take a trip in his new aeroplane if he had a hair-do he wanted to show off. He had a style for every type of weather, and instead of saying, as one might, about any other ruler, “The king’s in council,” here they always said, “The king’s in makeup.”

In the great city where he lived, life was always gay. Almost everyone in King Donald’s court was gay, but that was because Peter Teapot, the stern looking Director of Court Business, made them. If you weren’t gay, you had to look it, was Peter Teapot’s rule, and it made for one of the smartest, busiest courts in the entire world. The senior counsellors would exchange beauty tips with each other, and there were always lots of samples and new products flying around to swap with each other and test out.

Every day, many strangers came to court, and among them one day came two hairdressers, Georgy Uchaznik, and Sergei Sochnapop. They let it be known they were a special type of hairdresser, of which there were very few. In fact, they already knew that it was highly unlikely that any other hairdresser anywhere else, described themselves as they did: hair weavers, because they’d just made it up. They claimed that they could weave the most magnificent hairstyles imaginable; and a few others that couldn’t be imagined —at least not by common, non-gay types of people.

When he heard that they’d arrived, King Donald was delighted. “All the best hairdressers are gay,” he said. “And besides, I know all about weaving too. I invented the weave. I’ll be able to make them even better than they are already. As soon as I hook up with them, I’m going to make artisans great again. No one knows more about weaving and design than me.”

“Apart from us,” said Sergei, when he heard of Donald’s remarks. “But perhaps…” he said, “he, as a monarch, with an established knowledge of the weave, and of how to utilise the finest materials in the most advanced designs, can also perceive the science at a higher level like us? Thus far on our journey everyone we’ve met has been too wanting in sophistication, and our work too refined, for them to so much as see, let alone appreciate.”

As soon as Sergei’s words have been conveyed to him, the king thought, “Those two sound like my sort of boys. Not only could I get my beautiful hair enhanced by their designs, but if I were to wear their pieces, I would be able to discover who in my court is unfit for their post; and I would be able to separate the wise from the fools with a single glance. I like that, because I don’t enjoy the drudge of monarch’s work, and were I to be able to do a little more of that sort of stuff, I could run this place on a tighter rein. It needs it, because that Peter Teapot is using my absence to promote his own pet projects, and I don’t have a good feeling about him —‘Ooh, I’m Peter Teapot, and nobody’s allowed to wear a suit. Except me!’ What’s all that about? And that last acid peel he did! He looks like a plastic mannequin whose face has started to melt. I’d sooner have a court without a sour puss like him in it.”

He realised that he’d been brushing his hair with far too much vigour as he’d worked himself up into a state about Teapot. Again! He laid the brushes onto the vanity unit, scarcely able to look down to see how much hair had come out into them this time, and sighed a long despondent sigh. “Yes, I certainly must get some of their creations woven for me right away. It’s time to be brave,” he said to the mirror, “I have a sense that the back parting’s been opening up a bit lately too —if their weaving is only half as good as their timing, then we’ll do great deals together.”

A day later, the two boys were shown to King Donald’s private robing rooms. You could just tell they were real hairdressers by the way they walked.

Once all the aides had been sent away, and just the three of them remained, Donald took the men into his trust, allowing them to make a close-up examination of his head and hair. And as they worked away, he explained the misgivings and concerns he held, as regards “future-proofing the whole arrangement.”

As soon as their inspection was complete, Sergei jumped to face Donald. The king prepared himself for bad news coming, but Sergei, though he looked like he was going to deliver a very concerning diagnosis, instead said, “You have the most beautiful, lustrous, golden hair. You are truly blessed Your Majesty.”

Donald breathed a sigh of relief, suddenly realising how much his heart had been racing.

“And to make the most of this fabulous asset,” said Georgy, spinning Donald’s chair to face him, “is, as you say, to build a foundation to the current arrangement, so that as your true hair grows, we can really let it take centre stage and flourish, without having to concern ourselves about using the good bits to cover gaps.”

“I like that way of speaking,” said Donald. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell the girl who’s been doing it.”

“Pah!” said Georgy as if he cared nothing for Donald’s “girl”, then he turned the chair back to face Sergei.

“We, sir,” and Sergei made a point of looking round the room to be certain that no doors had been left ajar. Then he came a step closer to King Donald. “We, sir, have a special patented way of weaving, that uses silk, fine spun gold thread, and,” he made a fluttering gesture with his fingers, then whispered “…real hair, that no one alive could say was not grown from the head of its wearer.”

“But,” said Georgy coming to stand alongside Sergei, “the simple looms with which we travel, are not capable of producing such fine work. To avail yourself of this level of professionalism, you must return with us to our studio in Nizhny Novgorod.”

“Out of the question,” said Donald. “I rule here. How would it be if I returned from overseas with a new hairstyle? People would talk.”

Georgy did that shoulder shudder thing to say, “Who wouldn’t want a week in Nizhny Novgorod?”

“But you must,” said Sergei. “You are the monarch. The finest monarch in the entire world.”

“I know,” said Donald.

“So, you must have the very best. The finest money can buy. You must have a foundation weave that knits so exquisitely, and delicately,” and he intertwined his fingers, back-to-back, then made a fountain gesture with them, “that your entire hair configuration is secure, long lasting, and covers everything, whilst at the same time, creating a great illusion of abundant golden hair, to match what you already have.”

Donald gave him a disappointed smile to say, “I’d love to, Sergei, but…”

Sergei ignored the gesture, and went on “ —like that of blond cherubs in their first flush of youth, but with access to the best stylists too, and to the most expensive dyes and lacquers available. That’s what you must have. What there is of your original hair demands a sibling crop alongside it. It’s exquisite, and it should not be allowed to go to waste.”

“Yes,” said Georgy, “It requires a bolstering crop. I almost said, ‘only’ but that is a misleading word. For the work to produce it will be great, and the products needed, many.”

Sergei walked around Donald’s chair, glancing fleetingly at Georgy as he did, “And you sir, your majesty, will have his bolster, his core weave, from that which the rest of our clients, even the wealthiest of them, use only as their final five per cent of the makeover —that glorious flourish to top it off, you…” He came to face Donald again, and turned his cocked index finger into a point. “You will have it throughout!” And as he said throughout, he threw his hands to suggest a great dome of the strongest hair, sat on top of his head.”

“Just like my mother’s,” said Donald wistfully. “Hey! Why not build your studio here?”

Sergei looked like he’d had the air drawn out of his system —from the wrong end. He sat down, unable to find the words to express what an impossible task it was, that Donald was proposing.

“I can find you some new clients,” Donald tried.

“Your  Majesty,” said Sergei. “Our studio in Nizhny Novgorod has taken us ten years to design, and it is still not as we’d wish it to be. It has cost us many millions of Rubles, not to say our life savings of gold coins too.”

“How much in total?” asked Donald.

Georgy dare not utter the word. Instead, he wrote it in eyeliner on the mirror in front of Donald. Even Donald was shocked. He made an O-shape with his little feminine mouth, and seemed to stay like that for minutes on end.

“I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” said Donald eventually, “I’ll get you enough gold to set up here and to finish your studio once you return home. As long as you promise your weaves are windproof.”

“That was their original specification,” said Sergei. “Do I detect a plan to finance the project?”

“You do,” said the king, “I’ll have Natalie pluck out my old wigs, and sell the locks of hair for twenty grand a piece inside a gold plate locket. My base will go mad for them.”

“Can we set up in this room?” asked Georgy.

Donald nodded. He liked the idea of keeping the whole thing under wraps for now. Only he and his makeup team ever came in here. “It’s yours,” he said.

“But note sir, we don’t want to be bothered by any commoners coming in to inspect our work, pretending they know what they’re talking about, when we all know that they won’t even have the discernment to be able to see what it is we’re doing, let alone criticise it.”

Donald was happy to agree to their terms, after all, hardly anyone knew about all the work that went into his hair management projects. Most of his court just thought that it was his natural hair, combed into his preferred style —they never gave a thought as to how it was that the man they saw doing the monarch’s work about the palace, always matched the image on the kingdom’s coins and stamps too. They’d put in some hard miles in this robing room over the years, but these new boys understand the game —it sounded like they’d soon be using the room a whole lot less, thought Donald. There’d be no more short-term fixes; he was in for a re-design that would last. “You’ll have the place entirely to yourselves,” he told them.

The weavers set up two looms and called for all sorts of other cogs and mechanisms to make them work. Every working part they ordered was requested to be cast from gold, or silver. Then, once they were set up, they ordered the finest silk, and the purest old thread. The lot of it went straight into their luggage.

While they waited for all these things to arrive, they unpicked a couple of Donald’s old wigs, and gathered samples of his hair they found in drawers around the place —the long straggly bits that had fallen from the wispy mullet at the back, mostly. Then they threaded it all into their looms to create the illusion of work in progress, should anyone drop in. Nobody did, for Donald took them at their word, and kept their contract a secret.

But after a couple of weeks, Donald began to think, “I’d like to know how those weavers are getting on. Normally, I’d have had a fitting by now.” Though it concerned him when he recalled what they’d said about those who lacked discernment being unable to see the fabric. Unable! That was a strong word. And it was an even harsher condemnation for those who couldn’t.

And from there, he realised too that he would have to sit down with them on a chair in front of a mirror, to reveal to them just how dire the real situation was. A real deep dive. The initial assessment had been difficult enough, but the next stage would be all about revealing how paltry the coverage really was. They would see how much had been sliced from his scalp to excise the bald parts, and the extent to which the hair-growing sections of his scalp had been stretched to cover what had been taken. It still felt too early for all that.

So, he thought he’d better send someone else to see how things were progressing.

“I’ll send Natalie,” he decided. “No, I won’t. She’ll just tell me what she thinks I want to hear; JD? …no! He’ll just tell me what Peter Teapot wants me to hear; Pete from the gym? No, he’ll get hair oil all over it, and ruin it before I have my go. Cowherd Nutlick? No, he’s a suck up too, and won’t tell me the… Scottie? Even worse, and he was scared of his own shadow. Oh God, why am I surrounded by such weaklings? Are any of them capable of telling me a harsh truth?”

Finally, he said to himself, “I’ll tell you what, I’ll send Todd. At least he’s my defence lawyer, which means he’s trained to hate everyone on my behalf. He’ll be the best one to tell me how the creation looks, and no one I’ve got carries out his duty more diligently.”

So, honest old Todd was sent to the robing room where the two hair designers sat working away at their almost empty looms.

“Heaven help me,” Todd thought as he beheld the sight, “It’s as bad as the day I was sent to interview that woman, and had to pretend she was Ghislaine. I can’t see anything at all.”

But he did not say so.

The weavers begged him to come close so that he could examine their work in detail. They pointed to the looms but he couldn’t see a thing.

“Heaven have mercy,” he thought. “Can I be such a fool? Am I unfit for my office? I dare not let on that I can’t see the cloth. And yet… imagine if I went to report back to King Donald and told him that!”

“Don’t hesitate to give us your harshest judgment,” said Sergei. “Believe me, we’ve heard it all in our time, love.”

Todd put on his spectacles. “Such a natural blend,” he tried. Then when the weavers said nothing, he added: “I love it’s naturality, the airiness of it. The air, it’s so natural.”

Sergei turned to Georgy and made a pursed lipped gesture. Georgy nodded.

“That’s interesting,” said Georgy, “We thought that was the worst aspect of what we’ve done so far.”

Sergei laughed, “If you think that’s good, Tot, thank God. You must love the good bits.”

“I do,” said Todd, putting his glasses back into his pocket. “That part went without saying.”

“Good,” said Sergei, “Because, to be frank with you, the gold leaf wasn’t the best. It‘s more like some bullshit gold coloured paint. We need the real stuff, and we’ll need it fast if we’re going to get this thing done in time for the summer season.” And he handed Todd a piece of paper on which he’d written the supplier’s details.

“And a couple of more rolls of orange silk,” said Georgy. “We’ll leave you to tell him, as you’ll be reporting back.”

“We’ll need that by next week latest, darling,” said Sergei, as Todd got up to leave.

“Gold leaf from Japan, eh?” said Donald when Todd reported back. “Get it organised, these guys obviously know what they’re doing.”

A week later, the shipment arrived, and a week following that, Donald decided to send another of his trusted courtiers to see how the work was progressing.

“I want to know when it’ll be ready,” he told little Frayed Bezos. He was a little softie yes-man too, and he only came up to Donald’s belt buckle, but he was the nearest thing to independent that Donald could put his hands on at short notice. “I need it for the grand military parade, the high point of the early summer activities.”

Frayed Bezos did that smile thing he’d been practising —the version where he kept both eyes parallel to the ground all the way through it.

“I’m going to be riding a horse,” Donald shouted after him. “Or a tank.”

Little Frayed knew a thing or two about fine hair. Not only did he have about ten or so of his own, his new wife’s most recently labiaplasty, as far as he could make out from the photographs, had seen her lower hair transformed into a filmy, mono-directional, translucent sheen —almost as if she’d had the whole area covered with an impenetrable graphene shield.

But just as had happened to Todd before him, when he reached the robing room, he looked and looked at the looms but could find nothing to see.

“Isn’t it a beautiful piece of goods?” the weavers asked him, holding the invisible weave up for him to see.

“I know I’m not stupid,” Bezos thought, “so there must be something there. I like the colours,” he said finally.

“What?” shouted Georgy. “Don’t you like the texture then? What’s wrong with it?

“No, I was going to say,” said Bezos, “the texture’s so normal, that’s the amazing thing about it. How normal it is. You just take it for granted, and yet when you look, it’s really quite… err, smooth.”

Sergei seemed not to believe him. “When you look at a blackbird, the wonderful thing, is it not, is that although it appears black, when you look at it closely, you see vivid colours in its feathers: purple, metallic blues, petrol greens.”

Bezos smiled uneasily.

“How many colours can you see in the weave we’ve prepared for King Donald?”

“Many,” said Bezos, without hesitation.

“Like what?” asked Sergei.

“There’s gold, and there’s shiny,” he said. “And blond, blond of course. I see straw too.”

“No orange?” asked Georgy bringing his head close to Frayed Bezos’s tiny little cross-eyed face.

“Of course. I was going to say that. Orange is what stands out most, but because it’s Donald you tend not to mention it. It’s so obviously his colour.”

“King Donald,” said Georgy. “Thanks for coming love, but we’ve still got a lot on.”

And Georgy made a gesture with his hand, the way Bradley Walsh did on The Chase, to oblige him to leave.

Later that day, when asked by the king, Frayed said, “It held me spellbound the whole time I was in there.”

Soon the whole town was talking of the king’s makeover. It was to have its first public airing at the military parade. And naturally, with expectations raised, and the day arriving soon, Donald wanted to see it for himself as the finishing touches were added. Attended by a band of chosen advisors, among whom were the two who had already been to the weavers, he set out to see them. And he found them working furiously but without a thread in their looms, as if they were running through the procedures before they dared put precious materials into it.

“Magnificent,” said Todd, as they entered the room.

“Just look, Your Majesty,” said little Frayed Bezos, running towards the loom like a five-year-old dashing to his pile of presents on Christmas Day. “The colours! Don’t you love the way the orange is reflected in the gold leaf at the very base of the weave?”

Both men pointed at the empty looms, each supposing that the others could see what they described.

“What’s this?” thought the king. “I can’t see anything. This is terrible! I know that I’m a genius. And I know that I understand these matters better than anyone here. I myself sat in this very room, and gave these two artists a lesson in hair science and design. It can’t be that I am unfit to be king. Not when I’m on home turf!

Perhaps it’s like that time when I felt feint because Natalie hadn’t brought me my coke in time, and when I came round, I pointed to a monkey instead of a zebra on the drawing that the nurse was holding up? I thought it was a place mat for my cheeseburger, not a test. Yet today, I’m getting a similar feeling. It’s as if my eyes haven’t come back into line since I took my pre-meeting bump. I’m like that little pipsqueak Bezos there, with my eyes all over the place —but even he can see it!”

Eventually he said, “It’s really beautiful.” Then he added, “One of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. They’re all talking about it. They’re saying it’s probably one of the most beautiful things ever created. Better probably than when Leonardo di Caprio put that Russell Brand wig on God when he was on the cross, and everyone started to love him. Until Leo gave him that makeover, he wasn’t that popular. Done some pretty bad things, like when he blew up that church, then stole the collection plate so that he could go to lunch with his gay friends.”

His whole retinue stared and stared. No one saw any more than any other, but they all joined the king in exclaiming, “Oh! It’s good,” and they advised him to extend the piece into a wider range of clothes and accessories.

“Your parade, it’s going to be like Moscow and Pyongyang, rolled into one,” said a voice from the back. She couldn’t possibly see a thing, even if there was something there. Then another voice from behind Donald responded, “They’re going to be standing on tiptoes just to get a look at you. All shouting praises and pledging their fidelity to you.”

Statements like these soon came from all parts of the group, and other unheard words of admiration were whispered from mouth to mouth. All of them looked so very pleased to be in at the start of this private viewing, and couldn’t wait to go back and tell everyone they knew, all about it.

They spoke so much that Donald thought he should intervene to give himself the last and defining word on the subject. Speaking above all the noise and chatter he said, “I love the way that the loom goes to and fro so gently that you hardly notice it pull and stretch the fine products it’s weaving. It’s so full of respect that machine. That’s the way machines worked in the old days, respectful of the process and the people working them; full of love and care for the oranges of the beautiful material they were weaving. It really is quite a thing. A really beautiful thing.” Then the king awarded both of the weavers a digital non-fungible token depicting a pair of his favourite shoes, which he’d had put on a memory stick for them to keep.

The night before the military parade, the weavers stayed up all night watching Fox News, laughing their heads off. And the next morning, as they waited to meet the king, they were bleary-eyed, and really did look like they’d burnt the midnight oil on their preparations.

As they heard his heavy swinging gait heading towards the robing room, Sergei shushed his colleague and declared in his most commanding voice, “Now the king’s weave is perfect. It’s ready for him.”

The king entered with K-holeBokX at his side. He was the king’s favourite nobleman at court. Mainly because he was the richest —even though he still had the tip of a crucifix embedded in his skull, from an encounter that had taken place in the king’s very own office when he’d first arrived at court. In matters like this though he was an invaluable aide, for he had used the services of high-end hair scientists himself.

He had been a weak boy, but through sheer determination and obnoxiousness, he had managed to have his head kicked out of shape by his classmates. As he entered adulthood, his weak jaw hardly worked, and his head had been scraped down the playground wall so often that his premature hair loss had been greatly accelerated. When his father had first bestowed funds on him, little Elon, for that was what he was called then —his mother had petitioned for Elton, but his father had withdrawn his support for that idea when he discovered that Elton and Elvis were two different people, and opted for Loner, instead . The result, as it invariably is, was a compromise to which neither of the interested parties were committed, and the non-name of Elon was given to their odd-looking baby. It only contributed to the loathsome child’s isolation, and as soon as he was able, he chose his own name, and changed it by deed to K-holeBokX since it encapsulated everything that was important and dear to him. He didn’t include a paean to his hair in the new name, because he wasn’t sure how well it would take at the time —for, getting back to the point, little Elon applied the first tranche of his father’s funds to improving his appearance.

The frail and damaged Elon went into the operation a weak, ugly, and despised young man, with early onset male pattern baldness and a slack jaw the strength of a soggy straw, which rendered him with a mouth from which he constantly drooled; and he came out of it, K-holeBokX, with a new square face made from titanium, and an initial crop of hair that looked like a tribute to two of the Three Stooges.

K-holeBokX’s new hair was of an earlier generation to that being created for the king, and at the time he went through the procedure, K-hole did not possess the wealth of a monarch as he did today. Nevertheless, Donald believed that the transformation he’d been through had provided him with valuable insights to pass on. A few hours under the scalpel had seen him go from rejected runt of every social group into which he’d attempted to inveigle himself, to someone who was tolerated by fellow nerds. And the king knew him to be someone who would stick to his version of the truth too —no matter how misconceived subsequent events showed it to be.

As they walked towards the loom, the weavers each raised their arms as if they were holding something. As the king and K-hole came closer, Georgy said, “Here Majesty is the final version of this most delicate design. Careful how you handle it, it is as light as a spider’s web. One would almost think there is nothing there, it is so fine.”

“Exactly,” said K-hole. In one of his recent dreams, he had invented a gossamer like material that could only be manoeuvred into position by blowing it, yet it had the strength to make a ladder to the moon.

“If Your Imperial Majesty will condescend to sit down for the fitting,” said Georgy. “We need first to dismantle the current arrangement.”

They began to take Donald’s hairstyle apart. And the truth was, as was soon evident, it had been allowed to fester for years. Layers were built on layers, some of them deep at the bottom of the mass, long forgotten, even by Donald, as styles, periods of desperation, and technological advances had seen new fabrications built on top of the old ones such that those superseded would become the bedrock of what came next. In those lower layers they found fabrics, swatches, bits of other people’s hair, off-cuts from actual carpets, things gathered from dead animals, and a mishmash of all sorts of other shoddy miscellany that was once believed, if left, would slowly be absorbed into the outer dermis of Donald’s very scalp.

They first removed his most current piece, then they unpicked the linking weaves that held it in place; then came the pigtail that dominated the current style, if style was an appropriate word to use any longer. Construction was probably better. The pigtail had been made to run upwards to support the illusion of substance, and to give the whole back-structure ballast. As it reached the top of his head and began to run down towards his forehead, so its function changed, first giving the swirling solar halo effect that seemed to defy gravity, and which went to the very essence of his current mode, until it broke out from that and transmogrified into the statement frontal sweep. They pulled it out, and allowed it to run down his back, then they unravelled the plait that had been first threaded together in the early 90s.

“We were taking a sort of dreadlock approach to it all back then,” said Donald, as the two boys worked at it all.

Sergei and Georgy exchanged a concerned smile.

Eventually the pigtail was untangled, and they brushed it out to make it hang down his back from where it sprouted at the nape of his neck.

Seeing now that it brought no natural hair to the party, the weavers cut it off and cast it aside. Next, they removed all the scraps and micro-rugs that had been dotted here and there to fill gaps; they shaved some plugs that hadn’t taken, back to the skin, and finally they scrubbed his head with pan cleaners to rid it of a whole history of adhesives that had been applied and left to go hard when they no longer worked in the hope that they’d help provide “background texture”. Eventually, they rid Donald of every element of faux hair on his head. And when they had, not a thing remained. All that was visible, besides his white shining dome of a head that hadn’t seen sunshine for decades, was the scar tissue which ran from his crown to his neck, making plain the true scale of his original scalp reduction surgery. It gave him a comical look. Such a large, obese man, with his fat, jowly, orange face, and there on top of it all was this tiny white skull, made to seem yet smaller by having cut out a large part of it, and then stretching what had been the follicly active remnant of his scalp as far as it would go, to make the best job of bridging the gap.

Georgy tapped his comb on the bald pate, and said, “Anyone in?” in his native language, as he made an unseen face at his colleague.

Then came the moment. Sergei rubbed the king’s scalp with a numbing balm, then he and Georgy went to the stand by the loom, where they made a great play of lifting up the weave. They walked in step with each other taking care to hold it lightly balanced on the tips of their fingers, then, aligning themselves behind the king, moved sideways towards him in high ceremony, adopting a step-close mode until they faced each other on either side of the monarch. They each gave the other the tiniest nod to say, “Ready?” then they lowered their hands, as they placed the non-existent weave onto the king’s head. Once on, they made tiny adjustments all round, seeming to pull it to a tight fit, then retired, each on either side still, a pace behind the king, to look at him through the mirror.

K-holeBokX called for the doors of the robing room to be opened. The king’s close confidantes and advisors, poured in, and as they did, Sergei declared, “How well Your Majesty looks. Is that not quite becoming?”

As the members of his court shuffled forward, he heard comments from all sides, “Those colours, so natural!” “So subtle.” “You’d hardly know that it was manufactured.” “It is a truly magnificent creation,” and many other similar adulations.

Pete, the minister of the army, then appeared at the doors, to announce: “Your majesty’s conveyance is waiting outside.”

“Well, I’m suppose I’m ready,” said the king, and turning again for one last look in the mirror, said, “It really is a remarkable fit, isn’t it?”

Pete led him out to the vehicle, an armoured jeep, which he’d had told the king was a new version of a mini mobile tank they were trialling. They stopped on the way for the briefest of moments in front of the Fox TV cameras, so that Pete could tell them how well the war with Burundi was progressing, to which the king added how rich it was going to make everyone in the kingdom. It was a well-known PR technique that he had mastered when he was a mere prince in the 70s. He didn’t mention his new hair-do, but he knew that it would be noticed, and because it hadn’t been officially referred to in press briefings before now, they would not feel empowered, or brave enough, to ask any questions about it. But their curiosities would itch, and they would not be able to resist talking about it, especially as they’d seen it first. It would be the thread that ran through their commentary on the parade.

“A picture paints a thousand words,” he said to Pete, as they walked on towards the jeep, which was just as well, because the two men didn’t know a thousand words between them.

And off went the king on the military parade. Oh, how dainty was his step. “This thing’s as light as a feather,” he said to himself. “That old arrangement weighed me down. It was like having a wet doormat on my head. Look at poor little Pete over there, with all that goose fat on his hair to keep it in place. Mine’s as secure as a house, but I hardly notice it. It’s like floating on air.”

Standing on the back of the jeep, he smiled at the crowds in the streets, and held up his hand to wave to those cheering from the windows above. Most of the crowd wore Donald’s trademark red cap. He didn’t say as much at the time, when they’d first become popular, but they covered a multitude of sins, especially when the wind got up on his golf course, and he didn’t have his court makeup artists close to hand.

The caps had been made to support what had been labelled an anti-paedophile campaign. It was popular with his followers, and something to which Donald felt he should lend his support. It had turned out very well too, because the caps became a great hit with more than just those early campaigners; they’d become a badge of his wider fan base, and part of his brand. One of them, a smallholder, had designed the original logo: Move Are Groomers Away. Those Appalachian folk understood the privations of life, and the compromises that families had to make to get along; but when their children started to get taught about John & John, and My Two Mommies, well that pulled the rug on all their well-established notions of child abuse.

The techbrocracy pygmies and their lot were a bit sniffy about the caps with their down-home sentiments and spelling, but they said something important about the principles held dear by a certain section of Donald’s kingdom, and in time, the they came to have a cachet all of their own. Nowadays they said of the wearer, “I’ve been in since the beginning.”

Well, those old agricultural workers, as much as they preferred caps, they knew a thing or two about haircuts when they saw one too. They’d stood under enough pudding bowls, and faced the tyranny of sheep shearers often enough to have that experienced marked in their memories. And their leader, Donald, well sometimes he’d have on a cap, which they were always pleased to see, and on others, he’d go without one, which meant that they’d notice what he put on show when he did. And as much as those caps were part of his branding, so was that sweep of the old straw and hay, as they referred to his various hairstyles, evoking, as they did, the 70s, when everything was just better all round.

“You can’t see the difference between the real hair, and the new stuff,” they said to each other.

“And see his long mullet! It’s been reset to perfection,” they said.

Not a person would dare confess that they couldn’t see anything.

Over the years, there had been the odd moment when even his most loyal followers would have to look away, or pretend they hadn’t noticed, when their king came out with a new style; or when he got caught in a strong wind; or when he had over-managed the coiffe and, well, err, brought unnecessary attention to it. But now? But now!

“Look at that magnificent golden crown! He doesn’t need a real one, the hair’s doing it for him!” they shouted.

“But he’s bald,” said a little child.

“Yes, it’s all skin, like those photographs of my daddy,” shouted K-holeBokX’s ninth favourite son, from the balcony of the VIP suite of the palace.

“Did you ever hear such vile, seditious plotting?” said his father, who stood inside.

“It’s true,” said Bezos’s robot child substitute, “It’s like my daddy looks all the time. I can look down on him from above, just like we’re looking down on the king here from this balcony, and it’s just the same.”

One person whispered to another what the children had revealed. “He’s as bald as a coot,” they said to each other, and passed it on. “A child’s just seen it for what it is.”

The whispers went through the crowd like a fire through a forest. “He’s got a head like a pool ball!” someone shouted, and everyone in that part of the crowd roared with laughter. “I knew it,” the whole town chorused. “I thought it was just me,” they said to each other.

Once they knew that they were not alone, their utterances and observations grew in confidence. A couple of young farmers, who had travelled all the way up from the Cornbelt in their red caps, stood at the roadside, and as his jeep trundled past, one of them turned to his friend and said, “The prick’s as bald as a porn star’s pussy.”

His friend agreed, “Look at that gash running down the back of his head. He looks like yo’ grandma when she’s on Only Fans.”

The king shivered, for he could hear some of what was said, and suspected they might be right. He ordered the jeep to stop, and walked back along the edge of the crowds until he found the Fox TV cameras again.

He summoned little Sean Handclappity to perform an in-depth interview on him, and when the cameras were rolling, little Sean looked up at his master, and said, “Sir, some people are saying that perhaps you’ve abandoned your hair, for a more natural look. Would you care to comment?”

“Of course,” said King Donald, “We know about them —they’re anti-monarchist rabble rousers intent on making trouble. Agitators, Sean. It’s funny, because a lot of them have college degrees, and they’re the worst, because they know they’re lying. They can see the truth. But they’re spinning these lies to their followers who are poor, uneducated people —people who can’t see the truth as the wicked leaders who speak for them can; and as we all can! They’re saying there is no hair.” He paused for Sean to give him one of his exasperated sighs, but he forgot to come in on the cue. “These people, they’re bad people Sean. They don’t want a kingdom; they don’t want to live in peace and prosperity. They want to drag us down to their level. Did you ever hear them say that your boss, Rupert, had no hair? No! You didn’t. It would be preposterous. Rupert goes to the same salon as me. He’s got hair like a lion’s mane. Do they think we can’t see? No Sean, they’re liars. They want to tell you black is white. And they want to tell you hair is… err, not… there… No hair! They’re saying, hair is no hair. It’s wrong. Very bad. They’re very bad people, Sean.”

“Biden?” said Sean, trying to help the interview along, “Is he one of the agitators?”

“Biden’s as bald as an egg!” shouted Donald. “He’s been bald for years. And twice as dumb. But because he’s got that white bit going round the bottom, he goes round telling everyone he isn’t. See what we’ve got to contend with? No, my friend. The only chance Biden has of getting any hair, is for his no-good son to paint some on for him.”

When Sean didn’t speak, Donald continued, “They say Obamna’s been bald for years.”

“Your hair to stay, I guess we could say, sir?” said Sean.

“What?” said Donald.

“Your new see-through style. It’s future proof in a way that theirs isn’t, is how I’d tend to put it sir,” said Sean.

“Give me one of those red caps, Handicappity. The interview’s over,” said Donald. “It’s tee-time, and the wind’s starting to get up.”

He went back to the palace, careful to pull the hat down as far as it would go, as he walked the short distance to the main gates.

The weavers had gone, taking all their belongings with them, a guard told him.

“Would you like me to bomb Nizhny Novgorod?” asked Pete, who had run back to the palace to assist Donald.

“What for?” shouted Donald, “That was all bullshit. You don’t get gay hairdressers in Russia, it’s not allowed.”

Pete didn’t know what to do, but he wanted to help his king. He stood in front of him, his head bowed, dripping on to the carpet close to Donald’s feet.

“Get a plane. Drop me at Mar-a-Lago, me and Witkoff have got a Stableford with Ivan and Alexei. Then carry on to Cuba, bombing every road on the way. That’s where those two faggots came from. There’s loads of them there, it’s the dancing.”

“There’s only Florida, then it’s the sea,” said Pete.

“They’ve got to get home, haven’t they?” said Donald.

“Yes, sir,” said Pete.

“Well, blow the fucking sea up then,” said Donald.

“Sir, yes sir,” said Pete, saluting. He spun on his heels, took his leave of King Donald, then went to get it organised.