"I did it on purpose," said the iceberg, from its hospital bed in a small Norwegian fjord. "I was bored, it was cold, they were there. What can I say?"

"Why are you confessing now?" I asked.

"Look at me," it replied. "I couldn't chill a Liz Taylor martini glass right now. My time's up, I'm melting quicker than Pop-Rocks on a fat kid's tongue."

"When you say on purpose, do you mean-

"No," it interrupted. "I didn't mean to hurt them. I just wanted to stop them for a little while. I wanted to hear the music and see the lights. Like I said, I was lonely, I just wanted some company. But boom! The damn thing hit me like Ali did Foreman in Zaire. Talk about embarrassing. I wanted to just float away as if nothing happened, you know, like you humans do when you walk into glass doors at the mall."

"But you didn't leave," I said. "Why not?"

"John Jacob Astor," it replied.

"Excuse me?" I pressed.

"Have you ever seen a millionaire trying to swim in a three-piece suit with top hat 'n tails? Trust me, you'd stay and watch too. It's one of those surreal experiences that only come along once in life. "

"Most people blame the lookout," I said. "They claim he didn't see you in time. So maybe it wasn't really your fault at all."

"It wasn't his fault," confessed the iceberg, with a sigh. "We decoyed him. Me and another berg. We all used to do it when things got slow. One of us would slip underwater while the others crept alongside the ship in order to distract the lookout. Then the point berg would spring up and clink -- watership down, baby. Time for momma and the little ones to hit the tiny boats."

"Have you seen the James Cameron film?" I asked.

"My doctor brought it to me last week," laughed the iceberg. "What a soporific waste of celluloid that was. The damn thing was loaded with more untruths than the front page of a 1950's copy of Pravda."

"Such as?" I asked.

"Well, the band for starters," chuckled the rapidly disintegrating berg. "Those boys hit the lifeboats quicker than Ted Kennedy hits his hotel's mini-bar. They were ass-over heels into them suckers before the first flare went up -- and that Jack and Rose scene? Forget about it. Their real names were Ida and Ned O'Brien, from Belfast, and she didn't reluctantly allow him to slip beneath the waves, she shoved his ass under."

"She killed him?" I gasped.

"Like Yanni in a mosh pit," it replied. "You really can't blame her though. The chick was on a tiny board and had thighs like twin Greenland's in summertime. Space was limited, if you know what I mean. Ned had to eat salt."

"What about the rumors of men dressing up like women in order to get on the lifeboats?" I asked. "Was that true?"

"Yes and no," replied the berg. "They were dressed like women, granted, but that was way before they ever hit me. You have to remember the times. Back then, you could be forgiven for offing a few females and a kid or two, but wearing your spouses panties was just plain wrong."

"Any last wishes?" I asked, while noticing that the berg was now nothing more than a puny cube of ice.

"Yes," it whimpered. "There's a wild little berg named Ursula, who hangs out just off the northern tip of Iceland. Tell her that I'm sorry, and that as far as I knew and according to my doctor at the time -- that frostbite disease was supposed to have been long dormant."

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