Question 84·Hard·Command of Evidence

“Once the spare gear was gone, there was nothing between the cold and me; against the white horizon I felt like a foreign mark that the next storm would erase.”

“I had packed for every danger, but beneath the aurora even my crowded sled looked trivial, and for a moment the vastness seemed to gather me in.”

“As I emptied the sled, it answered more readily to my pull, though each discarded object reminded me that no one would come if I failed.”

“Each object I set aside had been a small wall: with only what kept me alive, the wind ceased to be an intruder and became the breath of the same wide body that held me.”