Sixteen degrees.

That's our current temp at 8:30 AM.  

Everyone locally agrees this is unusual weather.

My friends and I were talking about the homeless.  I'm thinking about them as I gird myself to walk to the coffee shop.  The town has opened two shelters.  The shelters are open three nights a week.  We're unsure what the homeless do on other nights.  I know two hotels let a few homeless sneak into their places for the night.

Last night's low was forecasted to be 30 but somehow it dropped to sixteen degrees.  The snow that fell last Thursday still covers the ground.  Frost and ice slick and blacken the roads.   

I'm gritting my teeth for the walk.  I know how cold it is.  Several times earlier this week I forced myself to do the cold walk.  Yesterday that cold was like a chisel splitting my forehead apart.  The cold mocks my jeans;  long johns are needed.  Even with gloved hands, I arrive with reddened frozen fingertips. I can't imagine being homeless in this continual harsh, cold weather.  

What's that word for comparing the world and how it might be with how it is?