A Reprise

Due to our leader’s ambition we traveled too far. We must be long past the Northwest Passage, past Quebec, past all known civilization in a world of snow and ice whose power lie not in resource, but in intimidation. Stark fear overwhelmed me as I beheld the black rocks streaked with white for the first time. Our ship skimmed slowly and relentlessly toward a perilously rocky shore. I wanted to beg a halt to the proceedings, but I was a mere particle in the complicated network of our society. The barren taiga gradually emerging in the mist promised no sustaining nourishment, nor relief from the pervading cold. We were to be sacrificed to our leader’s ambition. I kept my mutinous thoughts to myself as I watched men preparing to anchor the ship. The seas had been rough, and I had spent as much of the journey as I could within the hull, writing away by dim candlelight. The sailors did not think much of me, but that I was a waste of bunk and provision. I couldn't do my fai...