January 17, 1896
A fortnight ago, our ship, The HMS Arctic Dog, smashed into an iceberg and became stuck. Since then, I’ve been stranded on this ice floe with only one man, Francis. However, I’m not worried about my fate. Like most things in my life, I feel confident this situation will eventually kind of sort itself out and I’ll be fine. But, despite eating only a dwindling supply of provisions for the last 14 days and shivering through temperatures far below freezing, the worst part of this situation has got to be dealing with Francis.
January 19, 1896
The shifting ice floes are slowly crushing the ship, which Francis was oh so quick to point out could kill us. Okay, I guess he’s like this big ship expert all of a sudden?
January 20, 1896
During my second dinner, Francis told me that we needed to “ration our food better.” I was so taken aback by this. I reminded him that if we run out of food, we could just eat ice. Francis started muttering something that sounded like “we’re going to die,” but I couldn’t hear him because I had started practicing my scat singing.
January 25, 1896
Francis and I haven’t spoken since I accidentally shot him with our only flare when I was pretending to be a cowboy. He’s on the other end of the ship and has set up a fire. Luckily for me, all the provisions are on my side. So, Francis wanted to trade a burning ember for some food, but I declined because he didn’t say “please” nice enough. He pointed out that my hands had turned black from frostbite. I told him they had always been that color to not give him the satisfaction of being right.
That night I saw him praying before going to sleep. Pfft, yeah right. God isn’t going to help someone like you, Francis.
January 26, 1896
Okay, apparently Francis is building a “life raft.” I kept telling him it was pointless because the raft would just crash into a smaller iceberg. He ignored me so I kept saying it over and over again until he acknowledged me. I sensed he was mad so thought it would cheer him up to pretend to be a cowboy again. But Francis just kept building his raft. He couldn’t even admit that I had gotten better at it, even without the flare gun.
January 28, 1896
Francis was planning to take off on his little death trap of a life raft today. I kept sarcastically saying “oh no, please don’t go,” in hopes that he would take the hint and just leave. But, just as Francis was about to set sail through the ice and snow, a ship appeared in the vast white expanse. Francis started doing that embarrassing thing where people jump up and down and scream for help. I didn’t want to look so uncool, so I just pretended to be asleep.
However, the ship didn’t see us and disappeared into the distance. For the rest of the day, Francis wept. But, what does he have to be upset about? He’s not the one stuck with him.