The White Slope by confusedalarms . (reading an ebook .TXT) 📕

1

A hard slap in the face and a splash of water woke me up.
‘What the…?’ I said, head still half-asleep.
‘Wake the fuck up dude!’ Mike’s voice, shouting in my ears, sounding amused. ‘It’s go time!’ Him and his stupid pranks! I’m gonna kill him one day, I thought, but on the other hand, I would’ve laughed if it had happened to him, so I let it go. ‘Alright, you fuck, jeez,’ I said and got out of bed. It was the first day of skiing. The group of friends, people I’d known since childhood, was sitting at the table drinking energy drinks (we shared our disgust for anything to do with coffee). When you got right down to it we were just a typical group of college friends, except maybe for our long history together. We joked around a lot, sometimes more than any of us could handle, and we made all kinds of bets, ranging from who could get the most pussy in one week to who dared throw a stone through the window of our Business Economics teacher’s house, and sometimes we got into trouble. But we had fun. We had so much fun. And deep down we all knew that even when we were forty, settled down in the suburbs with wives and (maybe) kids, there would still be this wonderful friendship, and there would be many nights of drinking beers on the porch of one of our houses and reminiscing this time, these years, our childhoods. So we were making the best of it.


2

About half an hour later, after we’d all had breakfast and put on our skiing outfits, we left the hotel where we were staying and went out into the cold, supporting our long skis with our shoulders. It was a short walk to the lift that would take us to the slopes, but walking with ski boots on is very tiring, and by the time we got there I was already starting to sweat. Contrary to my friends I had never done this before, and though I would never admit it I was scared. I knew it was an irrational fear, but that didn’t really help. It never does. You can tell yourself a hundred times there’s no reason to be afraid, but the fear won’t go away. The cowardly part of my brain kept reminding me of horrible skiing and mountain climbing accidents I’d seen on the news or read about in a paper or a magazine. Of freak avalanches, that came out of nowhere and killed a group of young adventurous skiers that had left the slopes and gone up the mountain. A group just like us. As we neared the lift I could feel my stomach tighten with fear.


3

We passed through the little gate that checked if we had passes and then we were standing next to the lifts. Unlike Mike, Josh and Jake I didn’t know what to do when I saw a cabin arrive and head toward us, and when I saw them place their skis in a little compartment outside the cabin and get in before I’d even taken mine off my shoulders. ‘Come on!’, Jake yelled, ‘Hop in!’ The cabin was almost going back up again and I was having trouble with my skis. Just when I thought I wasn’t going to make it a man who obviously worked there took my skis from me and told me to get in. I did. I saw him place my skis next to Mike’s with ease. Then the door closed and we were off, heading toward the white mountains with surprising speed.


4

‘What the fuck were you doing?’ Jake asked me, but he didn’t sound angry. In fact he sounded amused. ‘Well, I’m sorry, but I’m not a professional lift-enterer,’ I said in an angry tone, but I was laughing inside too. It was one of those typical moments that we sometimes had together, where even though no-one weren’t visibly laughing, we somehow all knew every one us was laughing inside. And that was all I needed to put the anxiety of the past few minutes out of my head. I watched through the window as the lift climbed higher and higher, I watched the station where we’d gotten in become smaller and smaller and eventually disappear, blocked from view by the mountain we were climbing. Then I turned around and saw with surprise that the exit was very near. ‘I thought it was a 4000 foot height difference!’ I said.
‘These things go fast, Aaron, and you better get used to it, because we’re gonna be on so many of these things you’ll be sick of them by the end of the day,’ Josh said. He was always the quiet one, the one who was a little smarter. He was also usually the one who got a little less drunk and looked after the rest of us, and made sure we didn’t do anything that was really dangerous. I guess you could compare him to Kyle from South Park.

The cabin swayed into place at the lift’s end station, the doors opened and Mike, Josh and Jake got out, again faster than me. But this time I did manage to at least get my skis out of the compartment on my own. ’See? You’re getting better already!’ Jake said, and he patted me on the back. We walked out onto the snow, ad immediately I had to close my eyes against the brightness of the sunlight it reflected. ‘Put your goggles on, dude!’ Mike shouted. I had forgotten them. I reached up and pulled them down. I could see, but everything had a little orange tint to it now. It looked a bit weird, but I guessed I’d get used to it. ‘Alright, let’s go. We gotta teach you some basics first! You ready?’

I wasn’t sure.


5

After trying for about three minutes to get into my skis, something I would also have to work at the coming days, we were off, going down a beginner’s slope. As a fist time skier I barely had control of my skis, and I almost fell down before we’d even skied ten yards. Then suddenly they all stopped, and I skied right past them, going on for ten more yards before I found a way to stop moving: by just leaning to the left until I fell. It hurt more than I thought it would, but my friends were next to me within seconds, so it was all right. ‘Would you like us to teach you how to brake?’ Mike said, laughing. They were all laughing, even I was.
‘Yes please.’
‘Alrighty then, you can start by getting your ass off the ground.’
That sounded simple, but was far from it. When I fell my skis had crossed and my right one was stuck in the snow. ‘How the hell…help me please, guys.’
‘Move your skis so they’re parallel to each other, and facing sideways, not forward because then when you get up you’ll slide away again and fall again’ Josh said. Now he said it it seemed very obvious how to do it. So I did what he said and they helped pull me to my feet. ‘OK, Aaron, I’ll explain it to you. When you want to go fast you put your skis parallel to each other, and when you want to slow down, you move the fronts of your skis together like this.’ He showed it to me. ‘That’s enough for now I guess, but when we get round to doing more difficult slopes I’ll try and tech you how to slow down without doing this, because frankly, doing it like this isn’t very effective and also looks kind of stupid.’


6

After that we stayed low for a while, nearer to the valley, doing only beginner slopes so I could get the hang of skiing. And I was doing so faster than I ever thought possible. Of course Mike, Jake and Josh were still at least three times as fast as me, and when I finally managed to get all the way down a slope they would whine about wanting to go higher up, to the more difficult slopes, and I told them no, because evidently I wasn’t ready yet if they had to wait five minutes for me at the end of every slope. But still I was rapidly improving. In the past three hours I had advanced from going straight down and then crossing my skis to slow down like a little kid, to making relatively smooth turns, not parallel but surprisingly close to it. Nevertheless there were still 7-year old French kids that were somehow better than me. They seemed to come from nowhere, speeding by with amazing smoothness and control. I guessed they live here. After another half hour or so we decided it was time for some lunch, so we went down to the village.


7

I approached the village a little more cautiously than I’d been before, because there were a lot of skiers here, and I was afraid I’d bump into someone. Another minute passed and then I could see my friends waiting for me about twenty yards, so I decided to show off what I’d learned by not skiing straight toward them, but making a lengthy turn to the right and then making a sharper bend and rapidly braking, thereby also showering them with snow. ‘Well look at that! I guess you’re ready for the real deal. We’re going higher up after lunch, okay?’ Jake said, grinning.
‘Yeah, sure, I guess I am ready. Now let’s eat. I’m starving.’

We took off our skis and walked down to a little café in the snowy street. We each ordered a Red Bull, even though they cost ¤5 (‘Stupid greedy French, Josh said, ‘They know we’ll pay no matter how expensive it is.’). ‘You’re gonna need that energy Aaron,’ Mike said, ’The higher up you get, the more intense and tiring skiing becomes. We’re gonna do some intermediate slopes first and then at the end of the day we’ll try some advanced ones, alright?’
‘Alright.’ All the fear was gone now, and I was ready to take on anything. I thought how hard can it be? With the things I can do now I can get down any slope, even if it takes half an hour. Jake said so. We ordered two pizzas, half a pizza for everyone, and it tasted great, but was again expensive. Oh well, I thought, we’ve still got plenty of money. We’ll just eat something cheaper tomorrow. After eating we all felt revitalized and ready to go again. We got on another lift, something I could now do just as smoothly as any of my friends, and then we were off, heading to the top of the mountain. I was excited to try harder slopes, to ski faster and become a better skier. But that nagging feeling that had been gone for the past three hours was also back. That feeling that there was something wrong, or that something would be. And no matter how much I ignored it, no matter how many times I tried to dismiss it as ‘beginner’s fear’, it remained in my head, like a leech that just won’t let go of your arm. But a leech that sucked not blood but courage from me, making me feel like a coward again. Back to scratch, I thought, and then man up, will you?