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*****
After so long at sea, the men couldn't believe they were finally ashore.
That was a new place. The woods were untouchable and the air fresh. It didn't smell like settlements nor boats. It smelled like pines. The men took a deep breath, letting the cold and scented air fill their lungs. They smiled and hugged each other.
They let their guard down. The smell didn't lie. They were alone.
The leader of the expedition asked in shock, "Is the world endless?"
His grandfather left Norway to settle in Iceland, then his father went to Greenland, and now, he was here, in a whole new place.
"Will we ever see the end of it?"
Everyone heard his questioning. No one cared. The other men wanted to stretch their legs, lie in a bed; they wanted to rest after the uncertain and challenging trip. Only the leader thought that philosophy was as crucial as things.
But even he was limited by the body.
"Does it matter?" He looked around, then to see and back to the new place, "It took my family three generations to get here. If there's an end, I'll never know. Maybe it takes three more generations to get the answer; maybe it takes ten more," he sighed, "I'll never get an answer, so I should stop questioning."
The leader cleared his mind and went to help the other men. There was much to be done in that place and in life. But the leader knew that he only had enough time to conclude one task, and it wasn't the one he really wanted to finish.
Shrugging, he went to the boat to unload everything they needed to the new settlement.
He died years after setting foot on L'Anse aux Meadows. He never learned that the world is finite, but it didn't matter because, in the end, he realized that his world was infinite.
The leader died with a smile and with more questions than answers, "The way is supposed to be."
THE END
*****
L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site of a Norse settlement dating to c. 1000 on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Archaeological evidence of a Norse presence was discovered at L'Anse aux Meadows in the 1960s. It is the only confirmed Norse site in or near North America outside of the settlements found in Greenland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%27Anse_aux_Meadows
