Cold

It is tough to feel anything out here. I thought it would just be a cool, stinging rain, but the water fell in heavy, icy sheets. Barbara taunted me to come inside with the sweet smelling steam of hot cocoa and a red knit blanket big enough for two, but she couldn't move me. I was frozen to the porch, barely feeling my face, fingers, and toes. Ice coated the road in front of me, transforming it into a skating rink for squirrels. But even the squirrels weren't out in this chill. They didn't need to feel coldness to the core; they didn't need to see the world around them change. They curled up and slept through it, just like Barbara.
An icy wind began to blow. Frozen pieces of water flecked my face and stuck to my eyelashes. I tried to dry them, but the fuzz of my mittens kept sticking in the corners of my eyes. I pulled off one of my mittens. The tingling on my fingers turned to a burn as the once enclosed hand was shocked by the land of ice being built around it. I quickly wiped my eye clean and felt a melange of hot and cold sensations before I slipped my hand back into the mitten. My fingertips were still wet, and the tips of my mittens froze almost immediately. I curled my fingers out of the tip and into my palm in protest. The round, frozen tip of the mitten hung limp over my pink knuckles.
I looked out at my car, a crystalline fossil, like a preserved relic for men and women or aliens of the future to find and learn about our mechanical technology. The vehicle looked so useless; it was so useless in this frozen world. I looked at the trees. They stood naked but stoic while ice whipped past them, sticking to some of their branches like a hair or a fungus. They could freeze and refreeze, feel the shattering chill or the burn of the earth, always with repose.