Everyone has Hopes and Dreams (shitty people have shitty hopes and dreams)

The dictator wants a beer, but the photographers were still in the palace. Being photographed in this post-Soviet Muslim nation while drinking alcohol is fine. Everyone does it; drinking alcohol is essential to virility.

His wife is the problem. Somehow, someone would send her a picture. The dictator's wife curates all family images and demands adherence to whatever diet she is advocating that year. Since coming back from her annual Brazilian plastic surgery trip, the dictator's wife has been on a tear about his weight and is an evangelist for keto. "There was only so much that Photoshop can do!" she yelled at him after a picture of the dictator in a speedo on his yacht (that showed a reasonable gut for a man in his early 60s) was published in a Croatian gossip magazine. 

Was it not enough that he had made her his Vice Chancellor for life? Had he not made her the leader of the cult of his father? He bought and shipped an entire Lulu Lemon store for her Potemkin village of fake shops. A beer now and then is a small thing to ask in return. 

The dictator is giving a tour through his New Museum of the Crimes of the Terrorist People which is adjacent to his third favorite Caspian palace, the gold and white one. The group is made up of loutish Formula 500 drivers and hangers-on. A beer would make this tour tolerable for the dictator who has never enjoyed glad-handing. The drivers are Cro-Magnon dipshits. 

As they ascend the stairs, he loses control of the gas build-up in his lower intestine. The drivers grin and nudge each other and whisper, "pétomane." This is hardly fair; the dictator has a medical condition that takes genuinely heroic efforts to control. Now his farts will not stop; the lid is off. 

A beer would make his feelings about the driver's insensitivity something he could ignore for now. He would purge his rage later and everything would be right in the world again. One prisoner in the basement has a passable resemblance to a smirking driver and would be perfect for this. A beer would help him wait this tour out, but his wife will find out. She would be vicious and relentless.

The contradiction between absolute power over his country's dissidents, journalists and queers, versus the immunity of visiting celebrities and the authority of his wife is always a headache. Today's pain is compounded by how self-conscious the dictator is of the pressure in his gut. 

The pope had been especially cruel when they met, asking if he would like to "reconvene- after you have deflated yourself" while winking at the dictator's wife. Francis should have been more polite. The Vatican cannot afford to pass on money these days. The day they met the pope had been very bad for the social media personality who had mocked the dictator's project to build the world's tallest flagpole. The dictator smiled, thinking of the satisfying pop of the teenager's eyeball under his boot heel that day. No "good" Pope would make him do that. Popes are supposed to be nice. Nicer than Putin anyway. Even Putin had diplomatically ignored his gas; his flatulence was always exceptional in Moscow for some reason. 

The dictator signals that they have enough photographs for the day and bids the drivers good luck in the race through his city. He needs to make a positive impression. There was a time when actual celebrities would come to his country, encouraged by how it occupied a blind spot in the world's understanding of itself. His wife and daughters were happier then. But now, they were lucky to have a visit from a Steven Seagal or Prince Andrew. As a result of being brought up in the Soviet Union, his wife adores all elements of 1980s culture, especially British royalty, so she does not mind so much. But both of those guys creeped out his daughters. Now, his children were always in Moscow, London, or Dubai with the famous and glittering. He sees his daughters more on Instagram than anywhere else and misses them.

The drivers and photographers are gone, and the dictator repairs to his third favorite palace on the Caspian. He is bored and thinks that the crime of the 21st century is that the most powerful and the common man are forced to share. He should have something special. No matter how much money he throws at OnlyFans, he will not be in a select group. He will be watching what a truck driver in Irkutsk is watching. If there were any fairness in the world, the billionaires would have their own movies, television, and porn- unavailable to degenerates who have nothing better to do than making fun of truly outstanding flagpoles. He could always make the short trip to the UAE to ostensibly visit his wastrel of a son and pay for orgies. But that involves too many people to negotiate through. He wants the solitary, quick selfishness that his position and rank deserve. 

This was the real reason the dictator banned social media from his country until his wife and daughters had him restore most of it. He wanted to feel like he was the only one, at least in his small country, who was experiencing the delights of #thicthighbitches. Why did these women post so many pictures for so little money? He would happily pay a premium if they promised to only pose for billionaires.

Looking up at the gold gilt mirror facing the marble hall, the dictator examines his sagging reflection and thinks again about shaving his mustache. The Wikileaks State Department cable about his facial hair as a "Saddam wannabe gesture" still stings years later. Do these people believe he has no feelings? The real reason for the mustache is that the dictator's father— the hero— was clean-shaven. The dictator sees smooth jowled faces as relics of the Brezhnev era, like giant sunglasses and military ribbons. His wife was on to something when she showed him a picture of a K-pop star in blue camouflage and a $100,000 watch. He likes his new outfit much more than the old, musty green wool military coats decorated with a rainbow of ribbons. Decorum is necessary. He will not wear the trainers his wife bought, but when she is right, she is right. He compromised with Timberland boots. Chin up in the mirror, the dictator decides that his mustache will stay as people are forgetting about Saddam and Wikileaks. 

An Irish Wolfhound pads up to the Louie XIV chair he is sitting in carrying a severed human hand in his mouth. Kanye gently lays it at the dictator's feet. A good dog in a country of untrustworthy bad dogs. But where has this hand come from? The dictator does not recognize it as being from the basement. The fingernails are too clean, the stump too neatly severed. A mystery. Imagine if this had happened when the drivers were here. A disaster that would have taken millions to clean up. This country is falling apart. The dictator lets out a slow, sad fart and uses his phone— he had forgotten how to use his watch for this— to summon a guard. He has no energy to whip anyone or even yell about the hand. He just needs a large beer.

If a guard comes who is loyal, he will risk ordering one.