The Rise and Fall of Trumpymandias

Dr. Ray Healey
15 min readOct 5, 2020

Emperor of Dumbfuckistan

A Report on a Pilgrimage by a Certain Scholar

as told to a fellow scholar, Dr. Ray Healey¹

Written by Dr. Ray Healey

A certain scholar of my acquaintance recently made a pilgrimage to a sacred site in Thebes, where, in the 13th century, the empire of a mighty Tyrant once stood, a reign later immortalized by the poet Percy B. Shelley. Digging in the ruins, the scholar discovered an ancient scroll, on which appeared the following lines:

Trumpymandias

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and cryptic slabs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

half sunk, a shattered golden hairpiece lies, whose owner’s

pouting lips, and sneer of cold contempt,

Tell that its maker well those passions read,

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The mouth that mocked us, and the heart of stone:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Trumpymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and levels sands stretch far away.

The scholar also reportedly found, in the same manuscript, the following inscription:

“The hieroglyphics on the two slabs of stone appear to represent the texts of ancient recipes for soup, which were cooked and served in the wicked old days of the ruler of Dumbfuckistan, Emperor Dumbfuck.”

The scholar has translated these hieroglyphics and they reveal the texts of the recipes on the slabs, as follows.

Slab One: Trumpymandias’s Alphabet Soup

A is for Asshole.

B is for Bigot.

C is for Charlatan.

Dr. Ray Healey

English Lit. Professor. Novelist and short story writer. Adventurer: Pamplona Bull Running, Boston Marathon, "Deliverance" River Running, Cross Country Bike,…