Starter for Ten – 01/07/2019

The pinch was the start of it, the punch was the end of it.

This was the conclusion that historians reached years later. Historians, such as they were. For a historian in our current understanding implies learning. It implies places of study. It implies pubished books and a critical readership. A historian in the future sense simply referred to someone who remembered things from before. Of course, they tried to write things down and curate something beyond an oral tradition, but the times had become too itinerant – the wars too frequent to worry too much about assembling anything beyond the necessities to survive.

The telling of it was that the summit was supposed to be another footstep on an unlikely journey towards peace between North Korea and the United States of America. In truth though, the real movement was between the two leaders Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump. Trump was the architect of the relationship in the same way that a boy melting ants in a back garden with a magnifying glass and choosing to spare one ant can be said to be the architect of a relationship. Donald was a narcissist and unable to interpret the usual tones of emotion, but he sometimes thought that he felt something for Jong Un. He recognised another face that looked blankly at the world and perhaps struggled to understand things. Donald thought about that often. The boy let the ant run over his fingers and inside he felt the swelling of his greatness. Looking at this ant he felt important and momentarily real.

The summit was scheduled for the first of the month. The first time a leader from North Korea had crossed the threshold of the White House. It was truly a framed second of history as Trump waited with a freshly-botoxed Melania at the top of the red carpet. Jong Un’s laughably muscular limosine deposited him at the bottom of the red carpet. The two men stepped in choreographed fashion towards each other and exchanged a long, long handshake. Trump smiled. Jong Un smiled. Banalities were mouthed.

Trump’s mind conjured an unplanned thought, which he gave voice to.

“Welcome to America Kim – pinch, punch first of the month.”

2 thoughts on “Starter for Ten – 01/07/2019”

    1. Haha! This is the problem of not editing anything. It was the problem it will be, rather.

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