Snow Blind by Richard Blanchard Page A

Daniel’s neck. He sees glistening green ahead of him, with black clouds at the crest. The grass begins to shift; each footstep pulls the carpet of grass further behind him. Bepe is falling behind but Daniel offers no help.
    Up and over the next crest, surely only one more hill left to reach the house. The rain is a consistent sheet of shimmering power. It is a body of water as much as any river. Daniel slides onto his bottom from half way down and reaches the cold pool of the valley floor. Bepe tumbles forward onto his chest and flips over, arms flailing without fear. Sitting in seven inches of rain, Robert appears again with a garden hose that weakly trickles water onto Dan’s shoes. Bepe is coughing ingested rainwater, struggling to catch his breath, lips trembling blue with cold and fear.
    Dan gets up one more time, but the hill rises ahead as a sheet of brownblack mud. The grass carpet has slid away to the valley floor. Dan starts his first footsteps up the hill. The hill gets closer and closer to his face. Bepe gets up and places his first steps on the hillside; somehow he has strength beyond his few years. Daniel is sandwiched between the sheet rain and the mud wall in front of him. His linen jacket is dissolving with the rain; a sleeve falls off his arm.
    Then as if he had let go of life himself he knows Bepe has gone. His grip on the hill was poor, falling backward, arms and legs reaching upward towards his dad. Daniel watches him fall forever, never seeing him reach the torrent of water below. Bepe’s face is covered in the innocent expectation that he will be saved.
    My head hits the wooden bed head, stinging on the edge of a carved flower design. I am sweltering from the combination of a feather-down duvet, what must be the maximum setting on the radiator and my exasperating dream. A snoring Chris brings me back to Chamonix. I cannot tell if the sharp pain has produced a cut. A shaft of light is gloriously released in between the curtains, highlighting leaden socks cast carelessly on the floor. The thump of blood in my head reminds me of the healing gouge. Why would I just plough on regardless of Bepe? I curl my knees into my chest, hoping to relieve the renewed ache of yesterday. I would never let him out of my sight now; I would drown in my own blood before he would be left to walk alone.
    My God, I am skiing today, why oh why did I agree to this? I make a naked journey to the toilet, picking up my iPhone from our junkstrewn cabinet top. The sweat on my body dries patchily as I sit astride the toilet. I fight back the only way I have at the moment.
    I sit on the toilet and search for another track for Bepe.
    â€œWhat are you doing in there? Are you crapping yourself about today? Let me in for a piss eh.” Chris intervenes after a minute with a clunking fist on the toilet door.
    â€œJust making some work notes.” Brother, there’s too many of us lying.
    â€œBollocks to that, it’s your flaming stag do. Let’s get out into the mountains.” Why did I lie to him?

C HAPTER 13
    Dan 08.56
    I am blinded by the low direct sunlight as I emerge from the ski shop, my head filled with a potpourri of hot wax and sunscreen. The body shapes of my tribe cast black shadows onto the fresh snow in front of me. This soaring fresh new day can’t easily lift the heaviness in my soul as I prepare to rediscover fear.
    I stumble a little in my new ski boots; the unbound clips tinkle their disapproval as I try to remember how to balance in them again. My skis slide against each other face to face, blade edges catching and scratching. I clasp them together to use them as an expensive walking stick. Ungainly and unnatural acts played out in nature’s playground. I stare at the wave logo of O’Neill on my jacket sleeve as a means of mental distraction and focus. What authentic brand heritage, I dare to dream of the campaigns that I could work up for them. I slip on my shades and