Photo:
Stephan Matera

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

See also Contest 02: Panic

See also Contest 03: Squalor

I Have a Dream
By DENIS BERTHOUD

The evenings grow shorter, but the oppressive heat remains. The ceiling fan spins overhead as I lie splayed out on a bed too warm to share. Curtains flutter ever so slightly in the minimal breeze of a Montreal heat wave. Outside, the city air is heavy with frustration. Voices drift to my ears. They come and go among the constant white noise of traffic, sounds so familiar I confuse them with silence: a crying cat, a slamming door, a motorcycle.

Sleep seems so far. Two issues of Powder lie by the bedside and I contemplate opening one for the seventh time. Immobility gets the best of me and I continue to stare at the blurry wings above. A trickle of sweat forms on my temple and drains down the side of my head and behind my ear. Eventually, impossibly, I drift away to that place I know so well...

Mounds of white snow like ice cream scoops. Runs buffed flat. No towering mountains, no tricky couloirs, no tight East Coast tree shots. I've never been here before, but the place is utterly familiar.

I look like an animation. I ski with my legs wide apart and a slight wedge in my planks. I move up and down the hill with the same effortless straightline. Occasionally I catch a little air. Everything is rounded, even the people. The resort is warped such that I see them all. No trees obstruct my view and the lifts always seem to be on the other ice cream scoop.

Why I come here, I do not know. No face shots or exposed terrain, just these small vanilla ice cream scoops and a shaky snowplow. This is how it started at age 11, and how it still starts each season.

A shrill cry shatters my sleep. I hit snooze and lie on my back, again staring at the ceaseless rotations and cursing the unrelenting heat. My body is slick as I get up and head to a cold shower.

But the skiing lingers inside. It's early September and I've started to dream.

                                                                                        Next: number 2


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