It's a shame.

It had been a very heady year for Esperantu Edward.  First, there was the unexpected romance with Bridezilla, who shared his passion for decorating miniature houses.  While it had taken some time to get used to the fact that she let her conjoined miniature guinea pigs live in hers, this was the least challenging aspect of their relationship!  Triple agent Charles Wu, who had introduced them, had warned Edward in no uncertain terms that she would not stomach dating another secret spy, and he had tried very hard to stay away from that life, but it could not be helped!  Bridezilla's work as a junior partner at Prince and Prowling had required her to develop a Russia practice, and Edward had lovingly used his contacts to gather Russian clients to the law firm on her behalf.  Those clients had, under the cover of networking and forging business relationships, developed a hub of anti-Putin Russian resistance in the Washington area, which was very exciting to Esperantu Edward!  And then the Robert Mueller indictments had started hitting close to the White House, and the law firm had abruptly told Bridezilla to dissolve the Russia practice.

Not only had Edward taken great risks to put together a coalition against Vladimir Putin, he was now exposed to their anger and suspicion about whether he had played them the whole time.  And so he found himself at the end of 2017 working his butt off to win back the trust of the Russian émigré community--which today meant going on a dangerous mission to gather intelligence at one of the Russian embassy staff''s lesser known favorite restaurants up in Tenleytown.  Edward walked in the door, spotted one of the ambassador's aides sitting at the bar, and took a seat on a stool beside him.

Meanwhile, the tumultuous year experienced by the Trump White House staff was finally drawing to a close.  The HIV-positive butler, Clio, amazed she had survived such a stressful year without developing full-blown AIDS, wearily lifted a punch glass to clink with the gardener, Bridge, in the unofficial Christmas party they were having in the East Wing kitchen with a narrow invitee list.

"I have to tell  you, Bridge, I'm gonna miss that Omarosa."  (Bridge snorted.)  "No, I mean it!  She was a complete waste of space, but there were many people who could not tell us apart, and they were nicer to me because of it."

Bridge laughed heartily.  "You don't look anything alike!"

"Oh, but we do!" replied Clio, laughing.  "A couple reporters even tried to ask me questions outside yesterday."

"No, they didn't!"

"I swear!  And it's a shame 'cause, well...."  She left her thoughts unsaid, and sipped some more punch.

"Tiffany gave me a Christmas card yesterday," said Bridge.  "She wanted to thank me for putting a fresh rose on her nightstand every night."

"You didn't do that!"

"Of course not!  But I took that twenty-dollar bill!"

"Marta did that!  She stole a rose out of the baker's dozen in the bouquet delivered daily for Melania."

"So I suppose you want me to give the twenty-dollar bill to Marta?"

"No," replied Clio, smiling at Marta's attempt to teach mambo to one of the sous-chefs.  "Tiffany gave Marta a huge bag of clothes she didn't want anymore."

"She give you something, Clio?"

"She gave me a framed photo of Barron fist-bumping me in the hallway."

"Damn!"

"She gave me a necklace, too."

"Well, that's better," said Bridge.  "What about the Big Cheese and--"

"Nothing, but it's only December sixteenth," said Clio.  "I guess we'll see!"

Bridge snorted again.  "I guess we'll see if they find your secret Twitter account mocking him about trying to have his Roy Moore cake and eat it too!"

"Well, I haven't mocked Melania!" Clio replied.  "Well, not recently."

Meanwhile, over in the West Wing, Mike Pence was entering the Oval Office mere minutes after Trump's helicopter took off.  Some people might think Pence was measuring for new drapes or something, but he liked sitting there waiting for Top Secret folders to be brought in or phone calls to be patched through from world leaders.  He also enjoyed having Karen film little videos of himself sitting at the desk for the grandchildren to look at in the future.  She would hold up sign cards for him to read off what he wanted to say.  Today's video narration went like this:

Mike Pence:  "This was an exciting week in Washington!  We brought several conservative attorneys one step closer to lifetime appointments on the federal bench despite a concerted effort to make them look foolish for not knowing anything about procedural motions or expert testimony or the "Rules of Federal Civil Procedure" or what a trial even looks like.  We brought back "Daily Caller" producer Martina Markota--who was very popular for her Pizzagate conspiracy support!--to dance the Harlem Shake with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in a video about Internet freedom.  We successfully got out a unified message about how dangerous it is to have two whole attorneys at the FBI who don't like Donald Trump, and how--"

Karen Pence:  "President Trump."

Mike Pence:  "What?"

Karen Pence:  "President Trump.  You said Donald Trump."

Mike Pence:  "You know I can't say that."

Karen Pence:  "Do the other thing.  Rolling and ACTION!"

Mike Pence:  "We successfully got out a unified message about how dangerous it is to have two whole attorneys at the FBI who don't like the President, and how this discredits the entire Mueller investigation no matter how many card-carrying Republicans are staffing it--because they're all Deep State, and corrupt.  Most importantly, we successfully persuaded Little Marco--"

Karen Pence:  "You can't say Little!  Why did you throw in Little?"

Mike Pence:  "Whoops!  I've got his voice in my head!"

Karen Pence:  "Still rolling."

Mike Pence:  "Most importantly, we successfully persuaded Senator Marco Rubio that the Republican tax plan is a winning plan for Florida!  Not sure how we got Senator Corker on board, but maybe it was prayer!  Now some have said it's not appropriate to vote on a tax plan before Doug Jones is sworn in from Alabama, and some have said it's not Christian to schedule a vote while John McCain is in the hospital on the brink of death, but we all must serve the higher plan!"

Just then Tiffany Trump walked in with a suspicious look on her face.

"Oh, hello, Tiffany!" said the Vice President.  "I thought you were already on Christmas vacation."

"I need my 'A Short & Happy Guide to Constitutional Law' that I loaned to Dad.  He said it's somewhere in here.  I'm writing an article to submit to the Georgetown law review."

"What does it look like, dear?" asked Karen.

"It has a yellow happy face on it," replied Tiffany.

"Smart!" said the Vice President.  "That's the kind of stuff he likes reading!"

"Thanks, Uncle Mike," said Tiffany (who knew he preferred to be called "Mr. Vice President").

"Let's see," said the Vice President, rummaging around a credenza.  "'A Dummy's Guide to Public Relations,' a Russian phrase book, 'Fifty Shades of--'"

"Mike!" exclaimed Karen Pence.

"What?" replied Mike Pence.  "It's probably about the Civil War."

"Is this it?" asked Karen, holding up a book with a yellow smiley face.

"That's Barron's book on table manners," said Tiffany.  "Not sure why it's in here."

"Oh, this looks like the occult!" exclaimed the Vice President, showing a book about ghosts to his wife.

"We better confiscate that," she replied.

"You can't confiscate it!" said Tiffany.  "It was a birthday gift from my stepmom."

"Which one?" asked the Vice President.

Tiffany shook her head.  "Melania!  She and Barron have my dad believing there are ghosts in the White House."

"Oh, dear!" said Karen.  "We better invite some people over to pray those spirits out!"

Ghost Dennis, duly alarmed at this prospect, took matters into his own hand and pushed "A Short & Happy Guide to Constitutional Law" off the shelf where it it had been obscured by a naked statue of Lady Liberty.  Unfortunately, both the naked statue and the book bounced off Tiffany's feet in the process.

"Damn it!" exclaimed Tiffany, wincing.

"Language!" cried Karen Pence.

Back in Tenleytown, the Russian ambassador's aide had been drunkenly whispering intelligence secrets into the ear of Esperantu Edward for an hour--or so Edward thought.  The mostly sober aide had been whispering lies, but none of that mattered anyway because what the aide had really been doing was placing a highly lethal virus in Edward's ear, which would cause a brain hemorrhage and stroke within three hours.  (By then, the aide would already be on a plane out of the country.)  As the sun set, Edward--who had an imminent dinner date with Bridezilla--said he must be going.

Edward wrapped his scarf tightly around his neck and headed out into the last cold night of his life, feeling good.  A nearby catbird started imitating the sound of a leaf blower, while a raven watched the doomed man's departure in silence.

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COMING UP:       
Hours and hours of darkness!