poor planning

The snow started falling just after dinner.

The first few flakes spun themselves into shooting stars as they fluttered down through the glow of the street lights. When I looked next the shooting stars had transformed themselves into a riotous meteor shower blocking out the mountains, the buildings and even the other side of the street. I could hear the crunching of my feet in the snow but when I paused to see the trail I presumed to be at my back I discovered that instead my foot prints held no more permanence than if I had left them on the beach between the waves. The night gave silence and ever changing drifts of snow but no permanence.

By morning the silent fury of the night’s blizzard had passed and left behind the razor sharp bite of intense cold and blinding sun. The harsh lines of rocks, trees and buildings fell to an endless blanket of snowdrifts glittering with the rainbow.

The wind had built a cornice from one end of the bowl to the other providing a medieval barrier to the featureless plain of powder below. Gravity, my skis and the irresistible urge to jump propelled my body over the wall and into the cold rush of space. The crystal light of day vanished into the featureless white darkness of snow. Sinking and flexing, my skis found their grip and shot my body to the surface as I exhaled a built up ball of adrenaline. Dropping to my knee I charged into the first turn and again lost sight of the world as I burrowed below the surface.

Suzanne’s voice cut into my brain, “Will the ceiling fan go any faster?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“You don’t need to bark at me.”
“Why did you have to ask me that now?”
“Poor baby. Were you lying here in the heat having some auto-erotic fantasy?”
“If you had interrupted one of those fantasies I wouldn’t be so pissed.”
“So what were you dreaming about?”
“The train.” With a resounding thwack Suzanne’s hand hit my chest as she scowled at my non-answer.
Struggling to control my self pity and anger I replied, “I dreamed that we were not roasting on the plains of the Indian subcontinent in April.” A bead of sweat slid down my bare chest and I instinctively slapped at it mistaking the sensation for the six feet of some unwelcome insect. “We’re the only idiot tourists in this entire city right now.”
Suzanne flashed her best sarcastic smile, “We should fire whoever organized this itinerary.”

I am nowhere near a big enough man to admit that my wife can occasionally be right. My planning brought us here now but I am not about to give up my job of trip director either. Instead we are catching the first train to Darjeeling as I was 'planning all along.’