Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. —“One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Gabriel García Márquez

I.

Many months later, as he faced the impeachment committee, President Donald Trump was to remember that distant afternoon when Jeff Sessions took him to discover ICE. The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and, in order to indicate them, it was necessary to point. President Trump pointed at the customs agents.

“Yes,” Senator Sessions said. “These are the representatives of ICE.”

“Wow. Such great Americans. Terrific,” Trump said, grabbing an agent’s hand and yanking it toward him in a manner so powerful that anyone watching should sincerely doubt that he had ever taken Viagra. “Keeping bad hombres out. Mexico will pay for it. Believe me!” he continued, casually removing and tossing aside the mittens he had worn because of a misunderstanding of what ICE was. The Secret Service agent tailing him picked up the gloves and put them back on the hands of the American Girl doll from which they came.

II.

President Donald Trump—then just Donald Trump, a man whose foolishness surpassed the limits of exaggeration—thought it would be possible to use his deepest insecurities to make America great again. Senator Sanders, who was an honest man, warned him: “It won’t work for that.” But Trump did not believe in the honesty of anyone whom he had not strong-armed into signing a non-disclosure agreement, so he traded his hair hat for a red hat and proceeded to defend his penis during a national televised debate.

III.

When this world was long gone, much—or little, depending—would be found from the men and women who served former President Donald Trump. Among other things, they found a calcified skeleton with a copper locket containing a woman’s fingernail around its neck. It also wore a name tag that read “Steve.” A historian may wonder which Steve, for two Steves darkened Trump’s quarters in those days. But, of course, the answer is both, for this tale is full of same-named evil men. You have not heard of them, for they did nothing of significance, and died alone, covered in cobwebs, somehow.

IV.

It was evening and Trump sat alone in the West Wing, watching basic cable. He was lonely. He missed his maid, Melania, and her butler, Barron. He missed his eldest sons, Lumberjack Vampire and Albino Patrick Bateman. He missed Tiffany’s wedding. Most of all he missed his wife, Ivanka.

He was watching a rerun of “Fox & Friends.” “And friends!” Trump thought, as he always did, and smiled. He leaned closer to the TV so that he could take a selfie with the faces onscreen, but stopped himself when he heard one of the hosts say something upsetting. He began to type.

“Just found out Obama hypnotized frogs to cast votes illegally!! Very bad move. Without frogs, I would have won popular vote easily!” he tweeted. The next morning, Kellyanne Conway awoke in her isolation chamber, and called all the morning shows, as she always did, disguising her voice. “O.K., yes, President Trump did say that Obama is hypnotizing frogs, but I think the real issue here, O.K., is why no one is talking about whether Hillary Clinton colluded with the frogs, and which frogs, and, frankly, how many frogs.”

At the same time, Sean Spicer appeared on television, chewing gum furiously and saying, “At least Hitler didn’t have the audacity to eat flies with his tongue.”

It was evening, and Trump sat alone in the West Wing, watching Spicer on basic cable.

Time was not passing. It was moving in a circle.

V.

Finally, one Tuesday in December, all at once Trump released the whole weight of his torment. The children would remember for the rest of their lives the august solemnity with which their father, devastated by the wrath of his imagination, stated, “Someone said he found proof that my wires were tapped. He said they hid the proof in the corner of the Oval Office!”

As he hunted around, unaware that his bathrobe was on backward, he came to understand that he would never leave that office, and, hundreds of miles away, it was foreseen that Mar-a-Lago would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment that former President Donald Trump realized that there were no corners in an Oval Office, and that everything he had ever tweeted was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forevermore, because racists condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.

“We’re going to do so much winning,” he said at last, the bold claim of a man who never managed to win so much as his father’s love.