What the Cold Wants

Total mind control, obviously, though it might start with a simple ceviche, ample off-street parking, and a mostly believable alibi. Generally speaking, what the cold wants is ridiculous. The problem with the cold is that it comes from more of it. It’s divisible only by one and itself. The cold is not invited to many weddings. Among the cold’s lifetime achievements: every touch of a stethoscope, zero for sixteen from the floor, Shackleton’s last note. According to experts, the average temperature of the entire universe is negative 454.76 degrees. Room temperature is a miracle. More than anything else, that’s what the cold wants you to believe, that it’s perfectly normal, that it should be allowed to feel right at home as it seeps beneath the doors in search of a meal whose first course is your bare toes. Like a hungry predator, the cold saves the warm, wet heart for last. The cold is a form of surveillance. It’s mostly just time. Safe at headquarters, the scientist listens to the batteries in the radio collar slowly die, but she knows the wolf is out there still. From you, the cold wants nothing. Only in.