Iced Tea

So there was this great big gash in the hull, and the North Sea gushing in, and we passengers were mad as hell, I can tell you. And right at the top of out shit list were icebergs, shoddy ship builders, and clueless communication companies that couldn't find iceberg warnings important enough to forward.

"We're mad as hell and aren't going to stand for this anymore!" we shouted. "Especially if we all drown!" Right. And also scared as hell about the drowning bit, but definitely not going to stand for anything anymore. Especially if we drowned.

"Right you are!" someone bellowed. "Me, too! No one could be more pissed off than I am! Time to kick asses and take names! You just follow me, hear?"

"Hear, hear!" my co-passengers and I indeed responded.

I was also looking for the source of that confident, angry voice. And found it, finally. It was coming from a jagged mountain of ice that was protruding through our gashed hull.

"Um, you're an iceberg," I said.

"It's those damn' navigation rules!" the iceberg continued.

"Tell it!" screamed the passengers.

"Er, the iceberg, as a matter of fact," I squeaked.

"'Watch where you're going!' 'Steer clear of icebergs.' What tommyrot!" declaimed the iceberg.

"Rah, rah!" cheered the passengers.

"That's a restraint of navigation, that is!" cried the iceberg. "Icebergs are the salt of the sea! They float the fleet!"

"Yea! Yea!" cheered the passengers.

"Why, if the crew had just sailed straight on, none of this would have happened! A flotilla of icebergs would have carried you right on through! That's how the oceans work! You just leave 'em alone, and they take care of everything! The Founding Seamen knew that. They called it the Freedom of the Seas!"

"Hurrah!" cried my fellows.

I guess I had never had it explained to me like that before. I could see the iceberg's point. Its tip, at least.

"Down with restrictive navigation rules!" roared the iceberg.

"Hear! Hear!"

"Now," said the iceberg, "I want each and every one of you who survive to fight for the Freedom of the Seas! And the unleashing of the icebergs."

"But isn't it because we ran into you that we're sinking like a rock?" whimpered someone plaintively. "Shouldn't we spend more time on how not to hit icebergs?" There's always one, isn't there?

The iceberg shook its tip sadly. "You're just showing your anti-sailing bias there," it said, not without pity. "The cause of this disaster was not recklessness. It was insufficient recklessness."