Hey, everybody. This is Johanna. I'm the senior producer of the show. Today, we're going to share two short essays from the literary journal Off Assignment. Both of these essays ran in their column called Witching Hour. It's a really cool column that features these short, ambient portraits of a specific place at a specific time.

And today we have two stories of seemingly endless nights in the far corners of the world.

And first, we're going to head to a party in Antarctica.

So once again, Atlas Obscura goes off assignment.

Here's the episode.

2.30 a.m. in McMurdo Station is when your body can't dance anymore.

A friend calls to you from across the

rithing crowd, his voice echolocating through pumping limbs. You want to stay, but your back is

stiff and your joints ache. This is your third deployment to Antarctica, and for months you've

been working 60 hours a week hunched over a computer manifesting flights.

You're exhausted, not solely from the job. You're the third generation in your family to work

in Antarctica, and sometimes you wonder if you chose this or if it chose you. You're tempted to keep

returning, no matter how it wears on your body, on your soul.

You don't know it yet, but this is one of your final nights in Antarctica, the last time you'll

dance in a carpenter's shop. The floor is sticky with spilled champagne and sawdust, sheets strewn

over table saws and drill presses, creating a ghostly membrane between

labor and play. Leaving a party at the bottom of the world is a rebirth, a startling emergence

from humid, heavy darkness into piercing light and aching cold. The sun is always there,

circling overhead, going months without setting. Sweat evaporates

in snakes of steam, and black volcanic dust crunches underfoot as you march toward the sea.

It's been frozen all season, ice thick enough to drive across, but a storm churned through in the past

few days and left behind open water.

...