Frost III: Numb

Good morning. Today begins the third décade of Frimaire, Year CCXXXII. It's the month of frost. Our theme this time is numb.

I don't know if Jack London's "To Build a Fire" is still mandatory reading in middle school English classrooms, or if it was even required outside the mountainous region where I grew up and freezing to death was an actual possibility if one were to be as arrogant and ignorant as the story's protagonist, but it is the best and most horrific description of numbness that I have ever come across, and it's stuck with me for decades.