Imageless

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During the day, Jill Worth was a mild-mannered research assistant at McMurdo Station, but at night she mixed drinks with the best of them down in Ross Island's Ice Cave Pub.

She greated Tony, Ted, and Stacy as they approached the bar after an unusually tough day of work.

She flashed them a smile, "The usual?" Before they had a chance to respond, she set a pair of pint glasses under the tap for the men and reached for a bottle of wine to uncork for Stacy.

"Not tonight, Jill," said Tony. "Tonight it'll be the good stuff. We'll have the finest scotch that you got back there. It's a celebration time."

Jill grabbed a set of whiskey glasses and grabbed an unopened bottle of Johnny Walker Blue Label from the shelf. "What's the ocassion?"

Stacy answered, "Ted's alive."

For a second time seemed to stand still. Jill was visibly surprised by the responce. "That is an ocassion to celebrate. These drinks are on the house tonight, but you gotta tell what happened, Ted."

He cleared his throat. "We were out on the S.S. Nightingale 'bout eight in the morning and everything seemed normal. We were out surveying the sea ice. You know, measuring from a frame of reference and photographing the results. I was about to drop a temperature probe down into the water to get readings at different depths when all hell broke loose. Something, not sure what, banged againgst the side of the ship. I'm talking a big, heavy bang. It was big and it was loud. I flipped over the side of the railing and all power got knocked out on the ship."

Stacy continued, "With the communications system down, I couldn't radio to Tony at the ships control room to use the crane to lower a rescue boat, nor could I manually override it because there was no power to drive the crane. I rushed to the toolbox and quickly grabbed an ax to cut the ropes on the rescue boat. Splash! Right into the water with Ted."

"Long story short," said Ted, "is that I hopped into the little rescue dingy after about two excruciating minutes in the frigid water and then waited for another 15 minutes while power being restored to the ship. During that short span of time I saw something really, really big with the head of a lizard, the body of a snake, and the tail of a fish. I kid you not, we got attacked by the King Kong of eels. I think it was trying to knock of Stacy when it knocked itself into the ship."

"Oh, shuttup," said Stacy.

"A toast to Ted," said Tony.

"To Ted!"

"And to never seeing that sea monster again," added Tony.

"Amen!"

Original photograph by Stephan Herz on December 29, 2005 at an Ice Hotel near the village of Jukkasjärvi, Kiruna, Sweden. The image depicts a room that contains the Absolut Icebar. Ice hotels are reconstructed every year, and are dependent upon constant sub-freezing temperatures during construction and operation. The walls, fixtures, and fittings are made entirely of ice, and are held together using a substance known as snice. More details are on Wikipedia.org.

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