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It seems barely a week goes by where the would-be tyrant king, Donald Trump, isn’t making absurd, ignorant suggestions, or bogging the world down in costly trade wars. Whilst his most ardent worshippers seem to be turning a blind eye to his misdemeanours, there are plenty of people awake and alert to his folly, and his clear insanity. We certainly need to be awake, because so many others are sleep-walking, perhaps out of denial, or out of ignorance of their own.

Trump is starting his trade war, without a single care to how this will damage the global economy, including US interests. Those who voted for him should be aware that their costs and prices are going to rise, as a direct result of his tariffs. The companies affected by his various policies will inevitably pass on their extra costs to their consumers, as is the way of the world, and everyone loses. Trump’s reasoning about protecting jobs and boosting US manufacturing is a smokescreen, and show zero awareness of how the US has to import certain products. Then again, this should not be a surprise, Trump did fail miserably at business, so why would he make smart economic decisions now?

What’s even worse are his proposals about Gaza. His plans are little more than a desire for ethnic cleansing, displacing millions of people from their homes, for the sake of real estate development. This is how Trump sees the world. He sees business opportunities, which happen to overlap with his callous disregard for anyone who isn’t a rich mate. The Palestinians have been downtrodden for decades, and now Trump would see them forced from what remains of their land, for the sake of a buck. There is nothing honourable or noble about his plans, and I hope that they fail.

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As we near the heavily-commercialised-yet-also-widely-celebrated 14th of February, traditionally Valentine’s Day, it feels appropriate to talk about that particular four letter word, love.

Countless books, movies, songs, poems, paintings, and other forms of art have been devoted to love. Philosophers have dedicated essays and sonnets to the subject. It is a emotion that moves us all, but though we all experience love, it still manages to feel like a mystery. Love encompasses so many other thoughts and feelings, and this meerkat regards it as the fountain from which other emotions spring. Love inspires joy, wonder, fear, anger, regret, guilt, passion, and simple, easy happiness. Love brings comfort and satisfaction, especially with the passage of time.

It is also true what they say about falling in love. You really do fall. There is a dizzying time, often a passionate time, where you cannot get enough of your new partner. You want to spend every waking moment with them. Your heart flutters at the sound of their voice, each smile makes you giddy with delight, and you are utterly lost to your feelings, they control you. There isn’t much you can do, other than surrender to it. As time goes by, this crazy period settles down, and if you are left with that sense of peace, serenity if you will, where the presence of that other person is a soothing balm, then you know, absolutely beyond any shadow of a doubt, that you have found what you truly needed.

It is always worth noting that love does not run smoothly. As much as you can become besotted with someone, it is exceptionally rare that you will end up with the person who is absolutely best suited to you. Life is rarely, if ever, that straight-forward. In fact, life is usually anything but straight-forward, and the same applies to love. If you never expect to have a confrontation, a row, a problem, or any hiccups, then you have sadly been blinded by the idealised version of love from fairy-tales. Love only masks the flaws in others and ourselves, it does not remove them, though perhaps a better of way of looking at it is, it helps us to see past them. In fact, I definitely prefer that.

So, how do my wife and I express our love? I think it can be found in the simple ease we have when in each other’s company. We are perfectly comfortable with each other, which is the result of more than 20 years of being together. We have mutual interests, which consequently give us mutual activities. We have recently and poetically reaffirmed our love with matching tattoos, which tie into our shared love of Star Trek: and it so happens that affirmation is in the form of a word meaning ‘beloved’. I am still figuring out how to be a better husband, indeed a better man, but somehow, despite all my faults, she still sees the man she loves. I am forever grateful for that, and for her.

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This week’s Odd Prompt is via Padre, who poses the issue of a cold and bitter wind. I have to assume they are at least partially acquainted with British weather!

***

Mitchell had not expected the weather to be quite as cold as it was. Oh, he knew it would not be warm, because the Scottish Highlands never got truly hot, but this? It was meant to be spring, and spring was giving way to summer soon, so how could it be that the breeze had morphed, so quickly and easily, into a howling, frigid wind?

He pressed on, across the clumps of grass, and hardy shrubbery, seeking the solace of the quaint village he had passed an hour earlier. His eyes scanned the pale grey skies for any pinpricks of blue, or sunlight punching through the cloud cover, and he despairingly sighed. Nothing foretold relief from the near-freezing, awful wind. Mitchell imagined each blustery gust as a dull knife, slamming against him, and his meagre, inappropriate clothing. Hope had been placed in a t-shirt and jeans, but now Mitchell realised the Highlands demanded more respect. The wooly sheep he had passed on his outward journey came back into view, and their thick, fluffy coats only made his misery more complete.

As Mitchell carefully navigated across the uneven landscape, doing his best not to startle the local fauna, he noticed a peculiar wound, not of his flesh, but of his t-shirt. The deep blue fabric bore the mark of a coarse, uneven slice, with freshly loosened threads dangling from the gash. His brown eyes widened in worry; he had heard the Scottish wind could cut like a knife, but he had never heard of any bluster literally shredding garments. Concern flooded his veins as a second, freezing strike sliced clean through his jeans, at his right thigh, though again his skin remained untouched.

“This can’t be happening!” he grumbled to himself, moving more quickly, and startling the previously languid sheep. They brayed, irritated at the disturbance, but Mitchell raced on by, toward the crumbled remnants of an old cobbled wall, lining a small, puddle-ridden road. A new cut, this time lower and wider, ripped a hole in his jeans, right across his rump, and he yelped. A fourth cold breeze clipped his shoulder, revealing pale skin. Mitchell ran, sprinting down the road toward safe harbour, but the cold wind’s blades multiplied, shredding his shirt and his jeans with abandon. Pieces of his moderately expensive clothes trailed him down the path, and then Mitchell’s greatest fear was realised.

A car came trundling up the road, and the driver, Mrs Beavis, of the nearest village, was a prim, proper lady, who conducted herself in a vigorously dignified manner. The sight of a man reduced to nothing but his baggy boxer shorts, shivering from the bitterly cold wind, produced an exquisite gasp as she drove by. Mitchell, by now frozen to the bone, could offer her nothing but a sheepish wave, and he renewed his sprint for anything that vaguely resembled dignity of his own.

He would never again doubt the old adage about a cutting wind.

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