Photo:
Grant Gunderson

See also Contest 01: Chairlift Encounter

Vertigo
By JONATHAN TAPPER

The day's light seeps away as we ascend on the cold steel chair. The fog is thicker in the Northwest Territories, where rime grows heavy and the sun disappears into the folds of the hill. We move through the cloud as the top shack materializes from the darkness.

A deep, massive, deathly silence looms, created by a mountain we can't see. Schralper is yakkin' in my ear, but it sounds small, so human. Swinging off the ramp, he rockets down the cat track and vanishes. I buckle up and kick off as the euphoria sets in.

The green dots, like alien traffic lights, lure me through the blue-white milk. They are my only guides on this icy ribbon and I slowly glide past their ghostly bodies. Then within a few feet the world goes grey. I lose all focus and feel as if I'm falling, tumbling. God, I can't see! Is that the edge? How far does it drop? What lies below?

My eyes scramble for definition that isn't there. I feel strangely lost in my own mind, trapped behind the gold-tinted television lens that presses my face. Blindness hangs on my hands. 50 feet? 5 inches? How far? Gravity and terror push me along. God, what is this place?

I am exposed before a horror unknown. Can't fall now, keep steady! I struggle for balance and move through the darkness. Shit! I'm slowing down—or am I? I stub a wind drift and nearly lose it. So I am moving. But to where? Backward or forward?

Where is where? What is where? Who am I? What am I doing out here? 50 feet or 5 inches? Jesus, I am blind. I'm just on a cat track...just on a cat track. Stay close to those green dots. Watch out for that wall. Yes, the wall! Something I know. There's the left edge. Now let it run...just go with it. Shake out the grip. Breathe. Breathe.

At last I see a black coat in the distance, then a full-face helmet shaking, laughing, exuberant. I pull up, lost for words. I can just make out the sticker on Schralper's skis: "Smoke Crack and Worship Satan." After this, anything seems easy. Just breathe. Breathe.

                                                                                        Next: number 4


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