In the aftermath of the recent scandal, and subsequent media blitz, and then the inevitable dissenting media barrage, which labeled the first media coverage FAKE NEWS, and then the backlash and squabbles and divisive bickering that took place for the next several weeks...
HIS HEAD POPPED OFF!
If the purpose of media is to confuse and anger and intimidate and divide, it was doing its job PERFECTLY...
But now, with a floating head, he was able to see ABOVE the media blitzes, to establish a vantage point that didn't include squabbling based on political or religious bias, and see what really mattered. PEOPLE WERE HATING EACH OTHER FOR LITTLE OR NO REASON. So he started eating humans whenever he saw them fighting with each other.
The theory here was simple: Humans who hate and bicker and fight get eaten by a monster! Humans who get along with each other are spared... Some said he had no right to decide who lived and who died, but if anybody said it while he was around, he floated his head over to them and bit their faces off.
Soon, other monsters joined in the cull, gobbling up whole groups of protestors in a single bite, devouring armies, decimating media outlets that published angry letters-to-the-editor, and chomping on schoolyard bullies who were trying to steal lunch money. Within a year, the surviving humans were terrified of monsters (again) and worked together (regardless of their political or religious beliefs) to help each other survive...
And the monster whose head had popped off could finally relax once again, watching old episodes of The Muppets on DVD in the evenings, instead of paying constant attention to the shrill, divisive, contradictory NEWS OUTLETS that had clogged up his life for the last several years. Eventually, his head settled back onto his shoulders, and all was well...
[The drawing for this story is ink on paper with digital embellishments and colors. This drawing has been sitting on my phone since mid-December, just waiting for a story to come along and help it make sense!]
---Richard F. Yates