Friday 21 March 2008

What am I doing here?

I have a nightmare: I am standing at the top of a mountain staring into the abyss. The only way off this mountain is on skis down a terrifyingly steep, icy slope. I look around. Every direction down this terrifyingly steep, icy slope involves a red piste (one step short of a breakneck black run, the most difficult). I have not been on skis for four years and only about half a dozen times in my entire life. I have forgotten every single thing every single ski instructor ever told me. I am rigid, not with the cold though it is several degrees below zero, but with utter fear. There are French people on skis and snowboards closing in on me, silently urging me to get on with it and wondering what I am doing at the top of this steep, icy slope, which clearly holds no terror for them, if I cannot get down it. The Frenchman says: "Come on, it's not as difficult as it looks" and launches himself over the precipice. I want to scream.

I wake up.

I am standing at the top of a big snowy mountain staring into the abyss...

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