The Third Person

This is a work of political fiction inspired by a real dispute over documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice in late December 2025 related to the Epstein files. The setting, behaviors, and thoughts depicted here are imaginary and are not intended to represent the actual conduct or inner life of any real person or any actual events. Readers seeking factual information about those documents should consult reputable news organizations and primary-source materials.

A Dramatic Monologue

I.

The pillows aren’t right.

They’re never right. I told them—I told my wife, I told the staff, I told the guy who brings the pillows—I said, I need them firm, I need them high, I need to be elevated, and what do I get? I get this. This soft nothing. This surrender.

Fuck.

The Big Mac’s cold now. Half of it. Sitting there.

I don’t want it. I wanted it an hour ago. Now it’s just— it’s evidence. Evidence that I couldn’t finish what I started.

I’m so angry. On a scale of one to ten I’m, like, nine hundred and nintey-nine.

(He looks at the silenced screen on the wall.)

They’re still talking. Look at them! Moving their mouths.

Don’t worry, Dad. I don’t need the sound. I know what they’re saying. They’re saying Trump. They’re saying it over and over. They can’t stop.

Trump.

Trump did this. Trump said that. Trump is facing— Trump may have— Trump allegedly—

(He shifts against the pillows.)

II.

I never understood that. Third person.

Mrs. Hendricks, sixth grade, she’s going on and on about first person, second person, third person, and I raise my hand—because I was sharp, Dad, I was sharp, you remember—and I say, “Who is this third person? Who are we talking about?”

And she laughs. She laughs. In front of everyone.

“Donald,” she says, “the third person is he. Or she. It’s when you talk about someone who isn’t in the room.”

And I said, “Then why don’t you just say their name?”

She didn’t have an answer for that. Nobody ever has an answer when I ask the real questions.

III.

But here’s the thing, Dad. Here’s the thing I figured out. The third person is me.

It’s always been me.

They’re always talking about someone who isn’t in the room. Even when I’m in the room.

Even when I’m the only person in the room. They’re talking about Trump.

This other guy. This third person. This— this character they made up so they could say whatever they want about him.

Trump knew about the girls.

(He picks up the phone, looks at it, puts it down.)

IV.

The groundskeeper looked at me today. Jorge.

Been here eleven years. Eleven years, Dad. I gave him a job. I gave his cousin a job. I let him plant those—those bird of paradise things the wife wanted, even though they look ridiculous, even though they look like something died and came back wrong.

Eleven years, and today he looked at me like—

Like he’d read something.

Like the third person had walked past him, and the third person had a smell like feces, like a horse stall, and Jorge could smell it.

I wanted to say, “Jorge, whatever you think you know, you don’t know. You’re a groundskeeper. You plant flowers. You don’t know anything about—”

But I didn’t say it.

I just walked past. I walked past like I didn’t notice.

Like I don’t notice everything. Like I haven’t spent my entire life noticing and pretending.

You taught me, Dad. You taught me to watch their eyes.

“Freddy’s soft,” you said. “Freddy believes what people tell him. But you, Donald—you watch. You see what they’re hiding.”

And I did.

I do.

I see it.

I see it in Jorge.

I see it in the caddy—the new one, the one who replaced the one who replaced the one who talked to that reporter.

He hands me the driver and he won’t meet my eyes. He’s looking at my hands. He’s looking at my hands like they’re—

Like they’ve touched something disgusting.

I see it in the Secret Service. The way they stand a little farther back now.

The way they talk into their wrists a little more.

They’re not protecting me, Dad. They’re containing me. I’m not the President to them anymore.

I’m the situation.

(He stares at the ceiling.)

V.

It’s the letter.

You know about the letter, Dad?

Of course you don’t. You’re dead. You’ve been dead for— I don’t think about how long. I don’t count the years. Counting the years is what weak people do.

Weak people sit around counting the years since their father died, and I don’t do that, I move forward.

The letter. The fucking letter. The stupid letter from a stupid person to a stupid person.

There’s a letter. Supposedly from Jeffrey. To Larry Nassar. The gymnastics freak. The doctor who—with the girls, you know. The Olympic girls.

You may be dead, but that’s the sort of thing you’d know even when you’re dead.

And it mentions me. Not my name. “Our president.” But everybody knows.

Everybody in the whole universe knows who was president in August 2019. And nobody escapes from the universe.

The DOJ says it’s fake. I mean, it is a thing. It’s a document. But a fake document.

They say the FBI confirmed it is a thing that is.

They say the handwriting doesn’t match.

And it probably is fake. It has to be fake. Why would Jeffrey write to Nassar? They never met. They never— it doesn’t make any sense.

(He pauses.)

VI.

But here’s what’s keeping me up at night. Here’s why I’m holding all these meetings with these so-called world leaders who all want to meet with me.

They know who deserves the Nobel Prize for Peace.

But, I mean, what if people don’t believe it’s fake?

What if Jorge read about that letter and he thinks— what if the caddy saw it online and he believes— what if the whole world is looking at me now and seeing the third person, the monster person, the one who—

It doesn’t matter if it’s fake.

It only matters if they believe it’s fake.

Then what good is a Peace Prize?

VII.

And I look at Jorge’s eyes, and I look at the caddy’s hands, and I look at the way the Secret Service stands just a little farther back, and I think—I smell…

They don’t believe.

(He picks up the phone again, scrolls, puts it down.)

VIII.

Jeffrey was my friend. We got along good.

You remember Jeffrey, Dad? You met him.

That party in, oh, I don’t recall exactly, the one with the models, the one where you said, “That guy knows how to live.” You liked him, Dad. You shook his hand. You said he had good energy.

And he did. He had— he had the best energy. Everybody loved Jeffrey.

He knew how to get what he wanted, and he didn’t apologize for it, and I respected that.

Everybody knew Jeffrey.

Clinton knew him.

The scientists knew him.

The royals knew him.

Prince Andrew…

But nobody talks about him anymore, do they? No. He might as well be dead. He’s got a new name even.

They can’t take my name. That I know.

IX.

They talk about Trump. They think that’s me.

Because I’m the third person.

I’m always the third person.

(He shifts against the pillows.)

X.

You know what I keep thinking about, Dad?

I keep thinking about that last time I saw Jeffrey. Before all of it. Before the arrest, before the— before everything.

We were at a party, and he looked at me, and there was something in his eyes. Something cold. Something that said, “I know things about you. I know things about everyone. And someday, that’s going to matter.”

I didn’t think about it then. I thought it was just Jeffrey being Jeffrey. He always had that look. That “I know something you don’t” look.

But now I think about it all the time.

What did he know?

What did he write?

And does it matter if he wrote it, or if someone else wrote it pretending to be him, if the whole world believes he wrote it?

(Long pause.)

XI.

The DOJ says it’s fake.

I told them to say that. Of course I told them to say that.

What was I supposed to say? “Let’s wait for an investigation”?

“Let’s see what the handwriting experts conclude”?

With these people who hate me, who’ve always hated me, who would believe anything about the third person?

So we said it’s fake.

And maybe it is fake.

Probably it’s fake.

It has to be fake.

(He closes his eyes.)

XII.

But Jorge looked at me today, Dad.

Eleven years.

And he looked at me like I was gagging him..

Like he’d read something, or seen something, or heard something, and now the third person was standing right in front of him, and the third person wasn’t just a guy on TV anymore, the third person was real, and the third person was…

XIII.

What?

What am I, Dad?

I’m not the third person even if I am.

What does Jorge think I am?

What does the caddy think when he hands me the club and won’t touch my fingers?

What do the Secret Service agents say to their families when they go home at night and take off their earpieces and sit down to dinner and someone asks, “How was work?”

What do they say?

XIV.

(He opens his eyes.)

I used to love these.

(He picks up the Big Mac, looks at it.)

The taste, the sauce, the pickles — it was comfort, Dad. It was the one thing that tasted the same no matter what.

Win a deal, eat a Big Mac.

Lose a lawsuit, eat a Big Mac.

Become President, eat a Big Mac.

The world changes, but the Big Mac—

(He puts it back down.)

XV.

It tastes like cardboard now.

Everything tastes like cardboard.

(Long pause.)

I fell like I’m made of cardboard.

XVI.

I don’t know if the letter is real or fake. I don’t know what Jeffrey knew or didn’t know. I don’t know what he might have written, or what someone might have written pretending to be him, or what’s in all those files that keep coming out, day after day, with my name in them, with photos of me, with flight logs and emails and—

I don’t know.

And that’s the thing, Dad. That’s what’s killing me.

I’ve always known. I’ve always been sure. I’ve always been the one who decides what’s true, who tells people what’s true, who stands up there and says “fake news” and they believe me because I believe me because I am the truth, I am—

But Jorge looked at me today.

And I don’t know what he sees.

(He stares at the ceiling.)

XVII.

You never looked at me the way Jorge looked at me today.

You looked at me like a problem. Like an asset. Like something to manage. But not like— not like something rotting, not like a pile of feces.

I was never that to you, Dad. I was the one you picked. I was the one who wasn’t soft. I was the one who watched the eyes. I was the one who…

Who became this.

This thing they talk about.

This third person.

This man who might have— who could have— who allegedly—

(He reaches for the phone.)

Post.

“The fake news media is lying again. The letter is FAKE. Everyone knows it. The FBI confirmed it. Sad!”

(He types it. He stares at it.)

Everyone knows.

(His thumb hovers over the button.)

Do they?

Does Jorge know?

Does the caddy know?

Do I know?

(He doesn’t send it. He puts the phone down. He stares at the silenced screen.)

They’re still talking.

They’ll always be talking.

XVIII.

And tomorrow I’ll get up, and I’ll put on the suit, and I’ll walk past Jorge without looking, and I’ll take the club from the caddy without meeting his eyes, and I’ll let the Secret Service contain me, and I’ll say the letter is fake, and I’ll say the FBI confirmed it, and I’ll say everyone knows—

And I won’t know.

I’ll never know.

And neither will they.

And that’s worse. That’s so much worse.

Because as long as nobody knows, everybody gets to imagine. Everybody gets to fill in the blank. Everybody gets to look at the third person and see— whatever they want to see. Whatever they’re afraid of. Whatever they secretly believe.

And I can’t stop them.

I can’t reach into their heads and rip it out. It is a document.

I can only stand there and watch their eyes and see myself reflected back.

This thing.

This third person.

This man who maybe did something, or maybe didn’t, or maybe knew something, or maybe didn’t, but who looks like the kind of man who—

(He closes his eyes.)

Jorge.

Eleven years.

Does it even matter, Dad?

(Blackout.)