Sublime

Although his own employment in the State Security force was frequently unpleasant he understood its necessity, the necessity of guarding their revolution from enemies both foreign and domestic, from those who sought to undermine it and those determined to see it fail. To this end Leo would lay down his life. To this end he’d lay down the lives of o

human mercenary instinct.

Ever since moving to North Korea, I’d never felt truly alive; part of me had been walled off, silenced. After a while, I felt that that part of me had simply withered away like a limb that atrophies from lack of use. I pondered the terror that had dominated my life—the never-ending surveillance; the lack of autonomy; the fear of expressing an opini