Government Nouns: Antarctica

Black birds in an otherwise white world, flapping warmth around, flightless and surviving in huddles. Fatly swimming penguins in schools of krill, nomming, expertly dodging hungry blubbery mammals and big fish. Camouflaged for months of night, in a howling freezing ear-cracking silence, unwishing, asleep, tucking their littles in the little warmth they can save. 

Suddenly, a winch breaks ground and ice, skillfully coring the freeze through history. Inching world wars, footing colonialism and disease, yarding rock-wielding naked cannibal bipedals. The team of polar scientists smiles through their balaclavas - you could tell from the scrunching of their crow's feet, dreaming of the six or more impending publications from these data, fulfilling intended and unintended taxpayer contributions. Ancient creatures, dead, pickled, perhaps dauer. The stories they would tell.

Shivering through the cold nervousness, handling the core like a newborn's neck, they enviously wrap it in warm clothes, as they slowly trudge their slipping truck back to the research ship. 

They crack open a can of preserved soup, de-icing their insides. The satellite radio booms that a few latitudes North, there was talk of a mysterious new disease, that could shut down international borders indefinitely. The dark whizzes through their incandescent lights, as they count their remaining cans. Then they count themselves. They huddle like penguins over the radio and wait.