“It is another day and another struggle as I trudge solemnly pass the sick houses towards the lake to get my daily supply of water. Those sick houses never fail to conjure a nightmarish apparition in my head of the undead emerging from ground like flowers that blossom in spring.  When I bend down to scoop the water, I gulp nervously as I imagine the decapitated heads of disease-ridden bodies that fill my bucket, all rotten and disfigured with pre-eruptive black spots. Their dismembered bodies have bloated to become buoyant with a concoction of noxious gases. These deadly fumes are produced by bacteria which relish and savour the feast of putrefied human flesh. Every day, I see more and more of our precious children give in to this tragic darkness. The rest of us have all either surrendered to hopelessness and futility or are close to doing so. I have always been enthralled and enraptured by the sheer brutality of nature. However, the recent events that have entailed within the past few years allow me to catch a glimpse into one of its more sadistic and malicious sides. I encounter death at my doorstep every day and my heart floods with overwhelming grief and sadness because there is nothing I can do to save them. Every single night, I relive the horrifying images of death manifested in the pale and dark eyes of unmoving bodies and black ugly spots that permanently scar their faces. Through the reflection of my mother’s eyes, I see myself with the pulsating black spots engraved on my face; a scathing reminder of my inferiority in the face of tremendous adversity. The travesties and atrocities that pervade our communities can be attributed to a single culprit, the white devils.”
      I stare at the pages in disbelief as cynical scepticism and hatred clouds my mind. However, I persevere in reading it although it is a difficult pill to swallow.
     “An intangible darkness resides in these lands, where it festers and spreads with an inexorable tenacity, much like the hearts of darkness that embellish the strange aliens. My allies have all languished due to a debilitating disease that was instigated by wrathful gods. Their stony faces register countless months of excruciating pain caused by this deadly pathogen with no cure. Entire communities are transformed into mass graves.  The caustic and bitter whispers of Hades slowly cajole me to join him in the everlasting bonfires of the Underworld, a utopian paradise where my undead comrades celebrate the mortality of their frivolous existence.”
     Before I could continue, I tore the excerpt apart. It laid sweaty in the grip of my sweaty palms. At this moment, I am seething with rage.  I am fairly certain that my brazen act of impertinence was not noticed by anyone. Anyway, I am in the remote corners of Northern Manitoba, where death is my only acquaintance. Malicious and spiteful, I made my way out of the remote and abandoned village with quiet and tentative steps before voicing out my protests of astonishment and incredulity. I know from first-hand experience that a useful skill in the art of successful litigation is the ability for an attorney to keep a calm and cool composure in any stressful environment. Even as a Federal Court Judge, I embody those values. With retrospect to that, I tone down my pernicious fury and quietly assess the situation.
    “The plight of these underlings is inconsequential compared to the political and economic issues that I have to deal with back in Manitoba,” I muse lividly.
     These imbeciles are preoccupied with preserving their traditions. Unfortunately for these savage and uncivilized beasts, they choose to keep their heads buried in the sand while they are supplanted by the iron fist of industry. The land will not remain theirs for long. They will forever be displaced from their livelihoods and ousted from their villages as if they are merely gears in a machine that have outlived their usefulness. They are merely pawns in a chess game that sinisterly runs on business cartels. 
     Just like the impartial treatment that I bestow upon perpetrators in my court, I shall bestow upon these uncouth barbarians the same impartial treatment that is morally correct in modern-day society. However, the questionable actions that I had carried out in the past few months can all be attributed to a reasonable rationale. I am simply doing what is best for my local economy. If the Natives are audacious and gutsy enough to revolt, I will undertake the actions necessary to crush them without any moral consensus or ethical guidelines. If an ant arouses a sleeping elephant with an annoying bite, it will inflict the giant with occasional bouts of pain. The elephant will inevitably be roused from its drowsy stupor and when that happens, not even the strongest ant in the colony can stop the massacre from ensuing. If the unimaginable but foreseeable contingency occurs, I solemnly swear that I will erase all traces of their heritage from the eternal fabric of time and space itself. I will incinerate every last bit of their ancestry in an everlasting bonfire and leave nothing of them in my wake. I am the living testament of a superior race, which eradicates all of its inferior adversaries with death and destruction. I will establish a business empire that runs on monopolies and cartels. I will exploit as many environmental resources as I can and live to see my private corporation expand until it is indomitable and unbeatable.
     “Come and get me, you old geezers. I am defenceless and vulnerable. What chances do I have surviving in the cold and harsh terrain?” I proclaim proudly with a shrill and hoarse cry, “I dare any of you who is still alive in this rugged terrain to kill me right now. My beer belly is the spot for your bone-piercing arrows and bone-crushing tomahawks to hit. Just like a piñata, the rewards to be reaped are my glorious and delicious innards, which I am sure you will enjoy.”
     I take a walk across the endless expense of an idyllic coastline. I cannot help but imagine skeletons enduring the onerous journey through the underworld to settle unfinished matters with me. They are merely malicious spiritual entities that have outlived their usefulness on Earth and resolved to a life of deceit and malice. They make desperate but foolish attempts to coerce me into joining them. However, I take solace in the fact that whatever is dead stays dead. These meaningless spirts will chant for my body to be casted into the fiery pits of Hell, and cry for my blood with unmasked malice and spitefulness. Death is inevitable, but one can still take the appropriate actions necessary to ensure a peaceful and unobtrusive passing. As long as my affluence continues to strike fear in the hearts of men, I shall not succumb to the likes of all of those who have fallen due to the ramifications of my deceitful decisions. Even against the brutal and naked force of Mother Nature, I will prevail because I am unparalleled in my superiority over the savage beasts of Manitoba.  They wish to return me the favour with as much vengeance and rancorous revenge as how I had treated them. I do not blame them, because Indians in essence lack the mental capacity to think and act rationally. They are naturally violent people and therefore, are prone to unjustified acts of violence. 
     I walk briskly to the nearby creek and stare at my reflection. I notice the unmatched beauty of my complexion because there is an inherent virtue in our race that is absent in the Natives. I notice how flawless my facial features are, compared to the blemished and disfigured faces of dead Aboriginals who are scarred with those horrible spots. I will not be the foolish hunter, Narcissus, who was excessively obsessed with his own physical appearance and forfeited his life in pursuit of vanity. I will not pay the price of blood for my pride and vanity. I refuse to meet my end in such a despicable and ignominious manner.
    “No matter how questionable my physical or mental state is, I will forever be superior to those foul-tempered and rebellious mutts. I have little patience for rebellious mutiny and without any qualms, hesitation, or ethical guidelines, I will undertake the immoral actions necessary to attain absolute control. By possessing an unmatched and unrivalled status as harbinger of both law and industry, I vow to crush every last one of them with the heel of my boot like the vile insects they are,” I scoff insanely as I grind my boot in the sand, “These unreasonable amateurs have made political claims that I have publicly repudiated petitions to ban urbanization in Northern Manitoba. They will pay the price of blood for every defamatory and slanderous claim that they have made against me.”  In the sweltering heat of the day, I feel inexorably drowsy. 
     “Is that a person over there by the trees?” I conjecture apathetically as I struggle in vain to discern fantasy from reality.  I gesticulate my genuine surprise as I wave frantically to the spiritual entity. I hope that with the forceful assertions of my movements, it will eventually relent and reveal its true identity. However, my pleas are not reciprocated and the ghost surreptitiously slithers into the forest. All of a sudden, I break out in a sporadic series of fitful cough and I release my handkerchief to find it stained with blood. 
     “The preliminary stage was supposed to have advanced in a couple of weeks. Instead I have to deal the terminal stage at this moment and in the remote corners of Manitoba,” I frantically thought. I will have to wait until I return to my hometown, where I will be safe from the merciless elements of Mother Nature. 
     I cough several more times into my handkerchief. It got covered with so much coagulated blood that I no longer feel the urge to use it. I roll it into a ball and toss it into the dew-covered pastures, where the blood returns into its original liquid state and begins seeping into the Earth. I refuse to vanquish from this Earth in such a horrendous way. I will not be sucked into the same abyss that those uncivilized and barbaric troglodytes were so unjustifiably siphoned into.
     They have lost the right to destroy me for my ignominious actions the moment they themselves succumbed to the pestilence. They will be foolish to think that they can take their revenge on me. However, I am far from being reassured and in fact, I am seething with rancorous rage at the prospects of my fragile mortality.
     “I will not pay the price of blood for my actions that resulted in the deaths of these inferior underlings, whose lives are dwarfed in their significance when compared to my own,” I declared as I swelled with pride. 
     “Come and get me, you wandering spirits. You are long dead and therefore cannot lay a finger on me. However, I dare you to try your luck.” I squawked arrogantly, with the power and majesty of a c***erel.
     Alone in the rough wilderness, I venture on a hike and seem to notice dead bodies lying everywhere, defiling the sheer idyllic beauty of the Hudson Bay Coastline with scathing reminders of our frivolous mortality. My sensitive nose picks up the intoxicating whiff of decaying matter as I feel my heart pounding in my chest. Taking refuge from the blistering heat, I find a suitable resting spot in the green pastures. In a very surprising turn of events, the world around me bursts in flames and I am enveloped in sweltering heat. The chilly hands of corpses reach forward to drag me into the abyss with them as I endure their bloodcurdling screams. They moan for the consumption of my flesh as they stare into my soul with their pale dead eyes. Their faces are all covered with ugly black scars, symbols of a virulent pestilence and much like the ones described in the diary.  I find myself choking and retching on the sulphurous fumes of Hell and the stench of rotting bodies. For the first time in my life, I feel that my safety is truly in jeopardy. Their fingers are caked with blood and their eyes are almost popping from their skulls as they rapidly siphon my vitality and strength. They are entirely consumed by a savage blood rage. The intoxicating whiffs of adrenaline-motivated fear pushes them into becoming more violence.
     “You will finally reap what you have sown and pay the price for your heinous deeds,” they proclaim as they chant rhythmically to the ominous and heart-stopping pounds of a bone drum.
     “I will not end my live in this horrific manner. You will not lay one finger on me because I am invincible and there is nothing you can do about it,” I retort defiantly.
     With that said, I mercilessly defend myself against the demonic inhabitants of the Underworld. I will keep fighting as long as I have breath left in my body. I stab my fingers into their eyeballs and kick several of their hind limbs off with my feet. But a striking revelation dawns upon me almost immediately into my scuffle with the denizens of Hades. I discover very quickly that I am severely outnumbered. My fate is sealed just as how an embalmed mommy is sealed in an Egyptian tomb for eternity.
     As I find myself surrounded with no escape route, I wish far beyond the parameters of my human capacities to be magically lifted out of this enchantment and to be transported back to the real and sane world. If that does not work, I will kill as many of these horrible creatures as I can before I am dragged down into the abyss.
     Without a warning, I am suddenly lifted back to reality.  However, I still find myself squirming in the sand with fear. I make a beeline for the lake, in order to purge myself of my tyrannical and malicious sins.  Still feeling sick and nauseous, I stare at my own reflection in the water and discover that I have black and ugly spots covering my face. I once again feel sick to my stomach. It was a genuine lack of foresight on my part that I was unable to foresee the occurrence of this tragic event. Perhaps my time has truly come to an end, in the most dastardly and unfortunate way possible. I have now accepted the harsh reality that I had fallen victim to this incurable malady.
     I once again begin to cough, but this time no blood comes out. This is reassuring for someone like me, who has lost his grip on reality and is incapacitated with delusion. My ability to function is smothered in surmise as I continue to experience strange and bewildering apparitions. I spontaneously and erroneously lose my mind. A snake slithers in the sand with the elusiveness of the ghost I previously encountered and without hesitation and doubt, I instinctually grab it. In the spur of the moment, I crush its neck in my bloodied palm. Not finding my malicious fury fully satiated, I chance upon beetle crawling harmlessly in the grass and decide to crush it with the heel of my leather boot. Out of the blue, I am hit with a wave of overwhelming guilt and grief as I walk briskly to another part of the lake to wash this filthy witness off my hands. No matter how many times I wash my hands with water, I can still smell the sickening stench of blood. The smell of blood is so strong that all the cloying perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten my wrinkly and shrivelled hands. My hands will forever be stained with innocent blood as my personality will always remain enamoured with spiteful hate and malevolent malice. I am the instigator of travesties that bring darkness and destruction to nature.
    I begin to doubt my own existence, and I am suddenly lost in an ensuing conflict between two completely different facets of my personality. One of them dictates my malicious streak. I can inflict great pain and suffering on someone without feeling any regrets and qualms, as long as it is considered morally right. For example, I have no qualms about sentencing a convicted murderer to life in prison because I consider manslaughter to be one of the most heinous crimes that perpetrate society. The second one dictates my benevolent instinct to give generously to people who deserve rewards. For example, I will expand my business cartels in order to promote the economy and provide jobs for local communities to thrive. Perhaps I have officially turned insane and will therefore be placed into a mental asylum against my will, where I will cower in fear for the rest of my pitiful life.  I am be unable to endure the torturous nights of ghostly apparitions and strange premonitions of vengeance and death. With that said, I will probably commit suicide alone in the raw and harsh wilderness of Northern Manitoba, safely ensconced away from the watchful eyes of society. I feel myself in the shoes of those Natives who passed on in the most unjustifiable way possible.
     “When the next morning arrives, we were going to embark on a hunting expedition when we noticed a strange thing floating in the water.  We originally thought that it was a makeshift canoe that capsized due to the combined factors of poor conceptualization, planning, and execution. Without any hesitation, we reached out for our canoe de maîtres. We paddled ourselves towards the mysterious object to discover what it truly was. We came close enough to discover that it was the body of a man in his early fifties, whose face had rotted so much that it was far beyond recognition. Surprisingly, his disfigured face was clean and free of blemishes. He did not have the black and ugly spots that plagued so many people in our communities, so the reason of his death was probably suicide. He must have endured so many rough nights to have ended himself in this sorry state. His body had swelled to become a buoyant puffball, due to the gases that have accumulated inside his body. It was in danger of exploding, but we managed to pull it back to shore. We noticed the clothes which he had on him, he must be one of those foreigners from down south.”
The watchful eyes of a stranger scan his surroundings before frantically jotting down more notes.
“It is indeed puzzling to encounter a dead white man so far away from civilization and in the middle of the wilderness. However, strange things have happened before and we simply have to adapt to them. The strange sickness that pervaded these lands have once affected our close-knitted communities greatly. After a span of twenty years however, it has lost its influence because we have developed the immunity and resistance against it. If this was not true, I will not be standing here right now to tell you this story, provided that someone apart from us has discovered this riveting excerpt and told the world about it. This fine gentleman probably had many setbacks in his life and he had relinquished his will to live. I am still unsure about the details of this scene, but I can say this for certain. Whenever he walked along the idyllic coast, he would see a reflection of himself with blistering scars on his face. He would scream in disbelief and to seek sanctuary from this pandemonium, he jumped into the lake and frantically swam as far as he could from the shoreline. When I picked up the red handkerchief left by the portly chap, I took a sniff of it and realized that it was merely the juice of cranberries. I reckon that he absentmindedly ate the cranberries before using the handkerchief to wipe his mouth. It is such a pity that he paid for his inattentiveness and carelessness with his life.”