a testament to thin air. Anthonie

Madness was a temperament Anthonie would gladly embrace in exchange for enjoying the fickle weathers of the Swiss alps.

The promises of thrill was enough to keep a nineteen year old fed for the entire season. What more could he ask for than the sheer adrenaline of a good ski session?

They say passion dwindled when made into a career, yet the teenager barely out of his adolescence found ski patrol as an excuse for work experience, and was enamoured in an instant. Despite the occasional hour or two spent over a broken arm, or planting flags for impending races, spending an entire day on skis, even with the caveats of responsibilities, was a dream in reality. And getting paid for it? Even better.

His morning shift blissfully coming to an end post an avalanche check, while his coworkers exchanged the enjoyment of a powder day for staff training, Anthonie’s job’s part-time nature granted him the freedom to explore the backwaters of the resort. Racing down the familiar lanes of his childhood, after sixteen years nothing yet everything seemed to have changed. As he raced through the moguls, skis slipping into them entirely, a rashness his family would have never allowed overtook him, and a laugh escaped him, beyond his control as the sound ricocheted out of his lungs and into the mountains.

As late afternoon dipped into early evening and the conditions took a turn for the worse, the lines of the past few days’ sunny nature tapered out into a few dedicated skiers, before disappearing entirely. Without the irritation of a queue, Anthonie slipped passed the bars and onto the chairlift, barely stopping to slow until he was onboard and lowering the bar over himself. Tucking his poles cautiously under his legs, he checked his watch, and decided he would enjoy one final run. One final run that he would make count.

His gaze then drifted to the scene of the slopes, where he could barely make out the faint edges of the rare dotting of skiers below, but then again he could barely see the straps of his own boots. Reckless, self-sabotaging, masochistic — skiing in the sky’s current predicament was an act only committed by those who carried loathing for themselves or found an odd sort of comfort in the inability to make out their own surroundings. It was a sort of embrace by nature, a smothering, perilous embrace, but an embrace nevertheless.

Reaching his station and hopping off of his chairlift, his skis soon hit powder with barely a noise, sinking into the depths of silky snow. Snow battered onto his face, and reluctantly, he exchanged difficulty breathing for the privilege of warm cheeks, tightening his ski mask under his goggles. His body sealed from helmet to boots, only the stray strands of golden hair bore specks of white on their tips, iced in the harsh conditions of the Alps’ most ugly. While others relished the days of beating sun after unrelenting snow, it was the torturing haze and winds of a blizzard that buried his troubles in mounds of snow. As the stronger draughts of northern breeze picked up, he smiled into the nothingness below, and indulged in the sound of its whistle past his ears.

On the downhill run was scattered a handful of figures, each a different colour and shape, all wearing the same mask of hesitancy. He counted five in the periphery of his vision, far more no doubt smothered by the fog. Four huddled in a group together in the futile attempt to check a map as it flapped in the wild gales. Yet one lone man caught his attention, pensive under the shadow of a sign marking the route as ’42’. His shift was over, obligations be damned, yet the natural instinct for assistance arose, and he found himself taking a left and cruising slowly on the flatter part of the hill. His poles dug into the snow, and as the lane widened, a few short turns brought him parallel to where the man stood.

Anthonie slid to a hockey stop downhill from him, bright red ski patrol jacket a smudge of colour against the whiteout. Planting his poles into the powder, he surveyed his surroundings, or what he could make out of it. The run, for the visible five metres at least, was empty, with most at the foot of the mountain enjoying after-ski in the clear weather. The guiles of nature were deterring even the boldest of skiers, leaving only the deranged, the delusional, and the idiotic. Surprisingly for a man of his refinement, Anthonie was not ashamed to be classified as one of the three — perhaps all.

Giving the stranger a curt nod, Anthonie pulled down his ski mask and articulated in crisp French: “Vous vous êtes perdu, monsieur ?¹”

1: Are you lost, sir?

@Santiago Peralta | Banner by Prat Pass

“Techniquement pas.”

“Techniquement,” Anthonie repeated, French playful between his lips. At some point both would have sensed the tongue was neither’s preferred language, yet Anthonie had too much pride to pivot to his native tongue of English. Instead, he snorted in a scoff, and drew out his words in a drawl as he spoke, sounding only half-convinced. Accompanied by a nod and a smile in dismay, “Ouais… d’accord. Perhaps you know where are right now, but I suggest you lose a bit of ego rather than your health going downhill blind.” He grinned, and hidden only by wisps of fog, it was something wild, feral, and utterly untamed. Uncouth for an heir to a name as his own, but these were the moments the nineteen year old lived for.

“Yes, I am quite familiar,” he reassured. Anthonie straightened, and casted a glance downhill. A slope that tapered onto a cat track through trees, that spilt onto another slope, that connected them to a section of snow particularly ridden with moguls. Passing a few lift stations — they could use them as waymarkers — until the final path would lead to a snow park, that opened out at the moutainfoot, a warm lodge waiting for a few meals to enjoy and memories to reminisce on. From there on, it would only be a short walk from the family chalet. He did not just work here, he had spent each winter here for sixteen years, and with each additional year, he was discovering just how much it paid off.

The wind bit his cheeks with blistering cold, and soon, Anthonie was pulling up his ski mask as he adjusted his goggles. Snowflakes were already lining the folds of the fabric, and they had clung onto the tips of his hair, whatever was peaking out from under his helmet. He shook the abundance of white off of the surface of his skis. He lifted his poles, and decided in one swift remark, “Suis-moi.” Formalities were dropped. Before his newfound stray skier could react, he was pointing his skis downhill and setting off in a series of turns, sliding through the powder snow as if he were skiing on clouds.

And as he began, he did not stop. A few times he threw his head over his shoulder to check if the lost — even if he claimed otherwise — skier was still behind him, and discovered that he could keep up handsomely. At times he quickened his pace, and rather than against him the snow seemed to carry him along. Glorious, holy liberation — and with the nothingness of the void ahead, it was almost as if he was flying. As they moved onto the cat track the man jumped in hopes of velocity, but a lightweight body meant the stranger was soon reaching his side. He broke the comfortable silence between them, one that was only backdropped by the whistle of the wind, and introduced himself without any ceremony of a surname. “Anthonie.”

“Use the trees as your guide. Sometimes you get sick from not knowing where the sky and ground is.” He gestured at the greenery that surrounded them, now topped with a fine coat of white. The winds had calmed in the pathway, and the snow grew to be a gentle bestowment, a soft kiss on their gloves, their boards, their faces. They rounded a corner, “And I do recommend clicking your poles when you turn in such weather; it’s good etiquette.”

Then, Anthonie laughed, the sound as crisp, sudden, resolute as an avalanche. He threw Santiago a good-natured grin, the kind that ski masks would have been unable to hide. The air between them loosened. “Well, who am I to lecture you?”

“Don’t worry, you don’t need to regard me as your saviour too much.” Or a guide. Or an instructor. Or any other label of that matter. As if to prove himself, he skied closer to the man, purposefully spraying just a pinch of snow onto his boards. It would have made no difference in the powder anyway. Then, he casted his gaze upon Santiago;s, and spoke words he hoped would mean a shared drink grabbed. His eyes sparkled, and reflected in his goggles was possibility born out of predicament. “Simply, a friend.”

Translation: yeah... okay.
follow me.

@Santiago Peralta | Banner by Prat Pass