The Hill

The Hill

***

Speeding down the hill as the wind whipped by my face, I felt the exhilaration of excitement, knowing that I had taken the challenge. The snow still fell heavily as my fingers began to get colder, and now I had second thoughts. I thought back to how I got into this situation.

The forecast last night was for zero to two inches of snow mixed with rain. Who knew that a rogue blizzard was going to hit?

We met up at the top of Deadman’s Hill. It was aptly named for its slope’s steepness and because the hill’s bottom part was an unguarded cliff edge. My friends and I often sled down the hill with no problem. We would build up a barrier of snow at the bottom that curved off to the side path, just in case we couldn’t steer ourselves onto that path.   We also took the precaution of starting our descent in the middle of the hill so we wouldn’t go so fast. 

However, today was different. We didn’t expect this kind of wind and snow. Although our parents warned us to be careful and not go down this hill, our teenage invincibility prompted us to do it anyway.  

Add to that, and I’m not sure who suggested it, but I can imagine who did; we thought, why not try it from the top this time? What could possibly go wrong? The wind was blowing against us, so surely that would slow us down, and the snow was probably soft and high enough to create its own barrier at the end of the hill.

Somehow, I was selected to be the first to try. I’m pretty sure when asked who wanted to go first, everyone but me took a step back.

What the hell was I thinking?

It usually took about two minutes to get to the bottom of the hill when we started in the middle. But being that it was snowing heavily and the wind was against me, I wasn’t going as fast as usual, though it was fast enough, and I was picking up speed after all, I did start higher up on the steep hill.

Some people say that just before you die, your whole life passes before your eyes. In this case, I was about two-thirds of the way down the hill when not my whole life passed, but instead, wanting to live finally reached the logical cortex of my brain. 

Sleds are not made with brakes, and with trees on both sides of the hill (Did I forget to mention that?), steering off to the side at the speed I was going was not a healthy option. So I did what any other panic-stricken individual in fear for his life would do. I pushed myself off the back of the sled and, at the same time, dug my feet into the snow and let the sled make its own way down the rest of the way. 

Checking myself for injuries (luckily, there were none), I was tempted to scream up the hill (not that they would have heard me), “That was great! Let Ronald go next!” Instead, I slowly trudged up the hill back to where I started and convinced everyone else to go to a normal hill to sled, which we did.

When we got to the other hill, I had to double up with others on their sleds.

I’d tell you what happened when I got home minus one sled, but that will have to wait for another day. 

***image created by CoPilot – Microsoft Bing