A Night to Remember

I'm back. I'm here again and nothing can stop me. The world is
spread out beneath me, mine to watch, mine to want, mine to have. I
breathe in the cold, crisp air, gasping slightly as it freezes my
lungs, then relaxing as it revitalises my body, feeding my soul and my
wants. It's been so long?too long. I should never have left, I curse
myself now as I realise what I threw away last winter, how much I have
missed this feeling.

I'm standing on nearly mid-air in Switzerland, 4000 feet above sea
level. The air is clean and unpolluted; it seems to rinse my lungs of
the London smog with every breath I take. It's cold - about minus 20 -
but I'm sweating in anticipation. The sun shines directly into my
goggled eyes, but from here it is so bright I have to squint in order
to see the slope properly. There isn't anyone else around; no one can
be bothered to trek this far across ar?tes and peaks just for half an
hour of ecstasy. It's taken me all day to get here and it seems further
than last year. My legs are shaking under me, and the familiar weight
of my rucksack is gaining pounds by the minute. But it all fades into
insignificance compared to what lies in front of and beneath me. I can
see in all directions, the sunlight glinting off distant slopes where,
if I stretch my imagination to breaking point, I can see tiny black
dots speeding towards each other, colliding and skidding, bouncing and
breaking as they tear down slopes that are far too challenging for
their meagre three weeks experience. I avoid them on purpose. The
loudmouthed English from suburbia, shouting into mobiles and at local
ski instructors, trying to persuade them that they can ski, honestly
these bloody idiots what do they know of skiing, if Prince Andrew can
do it they bloody well can too. Children bawling for their absentee
mothers at the foot of the mountain, sitting in Starbucks and wishing
that the shopping was more interesting. Wobbly three weekers who
believe that a snowplough turn will get them down a 45 degree black
run. Teenagers from the village below, absolutely fearless, skating
down the mountain like Alberto Tombolo, their personal hero.

It's extraordinarily vivid for me, after all I was there only three
hours ago. The beaten track is far too beaten for me; I am a
connoisseur of the less popular ski runs. Like this one. There is a
thin metal sheet across the entrance to the slope with only a few
centimetres access either side. This is no problem to Houdinis such as
me; I will simply skate down to a lower entrance point, just behind the
rock outcrop beneath me. The snow is thick and fresh, with a slight
crust on top that crunches and swallows your foot as you walk, making
the hike here twice as difficult. It is very windy, being so exposed,
and my hair streams out under my dark helmet. I imagine myself as some
Viking goddess, conqueror of mountains, with my heroic pose and skis
strapped over my shoulder. I smile briefly, but now is not the time for
such reflection. At the bottom of the mountain, perhaps, but for now I
will call my brain to attention. I begin the familiar routine of
checking my equipment, setting my bindings to six and half, testing my
avalanche beeper. I take a quick drink of water but eat nothing. I may
throw it up after such vigorous exercise, and out here there is no
point in wasting such a valuable resource. I sling my rucksack back
onto my damp back, tighten the straps and lay my skis horizontally
across the snow. Stepping into my bindings I take a last look around,
brush a stray strand of hair from under my collar and push off into
oblivion.
It's glorious. Better than I had ever imagined or remembered; this is
truly a private heaven on earth. The mountain wall rises steeply behind
me, and I know that to lose concentration now will mean certain death.
I can never remember everything about this run, everything becomes a
jungle of jump turns and sudden swerves to avoid the rocks hidden
beneath the surface, only detectable by the slight rise of snow in
comparison to the downy surface I am now descending. My skis are
responsive and smooth and I can feel myself gliding down the slope,
falling like a feather. I'm out of breath and my legs are beginning to
shake beneath me, but stopping is not an option. To change rhythm now,
to skid into silence, to bring my legs under total control is
impossible. For a start I am going too fast to stop - a 70 degree slope
and jump turns have given me a speed of over 60 miles an hour. I need
to conserve my speed to get out of the bowl at the end; otherwise I
face another long trek before getting home. Thirdly I don't want to.
The rush of the wind in my hair, the silence of the mountain, the peace
that you feel when you are wholly concerned with just one thing?It is
too fantastic to stop. I am addicted to this rush, merely chemicals in
the brain, that makes you float and the pain stop an-
I can't breathe. I can't breathe and I can't think and I can't stop, my
head is jolting and my legs have finally gone numb. At least it will
stop the lactic acid pain, I think briefly, before I am hit on the head
and finally sink into a blissful unconsciousness.

I'm lying?head up? Feet up? I can't remember. I am packed in tightly,
surrounded by white foam. Except it's not foam, it's snow and I'm in
Austria. Austria? I would shake my head to clear it but it is crushed
against my chest, with only a tiny air pocket under my shaking lips.
I'm not in Austria. I'm in Switzerland. I attempt to bring my arms up
to my head; one is bent painfully beneath my right leg and the other is
flung across my chest. I'm taking shallow breaths, maybe my air will
last longer. It's strange, I'm not cold, I'm warm. My legs are warm and
safe, there's no pain in them anymore. I try to remember what happened,
but all that I can see is the horizon glinting in my sun-soaked eyes.
There must have been an avalanche. What an idiot - out by myself, no
one knows where I am, no one really cares. I swear profusely at my
childish arrogance but there is no use blaming myself. I have to get
out.

I begin to wriggle my left arm, crushed across my restricted chest,
when a sharp stab of pain in my shoulder reminds me that I don't even
know to what extent I am injured. Slowly, I extend the fingers of both
hands, pushing into the cloying snow, waving them slightly. No pain
yet. Gently, my right hand brushes against my thigh, tender but not in
agony. I try the same with my feet, crushed against my boot. My right
foot immediately breaks out in agony as I realise I cannot move my toes
and instead try to lift my ankle slightly. It's probably a fracture,
but I have no way of knowing whether it is compound or just another
greenstick.
Then comes the problem of my chest, my shallow breathing insufficient
to raise my chest more than a few inches. I can feel a sharp pain in my
right side; it can't be a punctured lung as I would have suffocated by
now. Silently, I thank my thick, padded ski suit and helmet that must
have offered at least a small degree of protection against the sheer
rocks either side of the narrow gully. My leg is starting to ache and
the blood in my head is pounding menacingly, beating against my brain
and driving ice into my skull.

My survey takes about three minutes, by which time I am running short
of oxygen. The snow is packed around me, tight enough that huge amounts
will not dislodge should I happen to escape, but loose enough to enable
small, repetitive movements. Light filters in from somewhere, so I
can't be that deep under the snow. Using tiny circular movements I push
my right shoulder into the snow, ignoring the complaints from my
groaning, creaking joints. After maybe another ten minutes I have built
myself another well of filtered air, fresh mountain air that only?God
knows how many hours ago?seemed to be the breath of life. Now the
stench of wet blood, of urine soaked trousers frozen to the snow and of
cold hard frostbite fills my lungs and poisons me, killing me slowly
from the inside.

I need to get out. I need to I have to I want to I need to I need to
breathe I need to get rid of this pain oh God my pain rushing through
my body hammering into my head and obliterating my sense biting into my
heart and slowly always slowly eating at me biting me and eating me and
biting me and eating and biting and biting what would my Father say now
he can't say anything he died remember and biting and biting
until?.
Without realising I start crying, the tears pouring from my face and
filling my goggles, lying askew on my red, raw face. I sob and scream,
I would pound my wrists against my pure white prison but they are
trapped. I know I am wasting water and air but I don't care anymore,
even if I do climb out I will have to trek about six miles to the
nearest village with medical facilities. My leg is weak and every time
I try to move it screams at me to stop, begging my mind to stop and lie
still and wait for it to mend. I cry for hours it seems, the tears
running freely before I manage to regain control. My mind is fixed in a
pure rage against myself, and ignoring the stabbing pain in my shoulder
I scrabble at the snow with my immobilized left arm and push my right
arm further out, away from me and my cell. The anger clouds my eyes as
the tears did before, but I still cannot bring myself to move the leg.
It lies there, useless, as I gradually clear a space in front of my
cramped head, swivelling my helmet upwards so that I can raise my head
a further inch, removing the crushing pressure from my chest. Urine
trickles down my leg, soaking me and freezing me from within my warm,
stuffy, ripped suit. I can only see the tops of my thighs, but I can
detect a small trace of berry bright blood lying in the snow. I stop
and stare at it, frozen in time, hanging in the pure white snow as
final, exact evidence of my own stupidity.

I stop digging. There's no point anymore, even if I escape it will be
impossible for anyone to find me. At least the snow provides some sort
of warmth and protection against the wind, which by now will be beating
the slope and rattling the dark stones across its surface. I realise
that the light of my cell has dimmed to a pale, dirty, yellow and that
soon the sun will set. No one will be missing me, in my small
self-catered chalet with its lonely bed and gritty hip-bath. No one at
home will be calling my mobile, so safely tucked away in my
long-forgotten rucksack. My sheer loneliness hits me in the face like a
sock full of sand, battering my worn defences. I have no tears left to
cry. Instead, I let my head drop back onto my chest.

I was born on the mountain. I only ever lived when I was racing down
it. And finally, the mountain has come to claim her own, the bent head
of the peak mocking my own sunken eyes. I close my eyes, a last signal
of love for the only thing that ever made me whole. It goes dark, and I
haven't seen the light since.