and stops on a dime. But we both keep flying like a child on his first bike ride, feeling the wind in his hair as his dad lets go of the handlebars. Another two crunches of the snow. Then silence. We lay there for a minute, not uttering a word. Too scared to admit defeat, that the arms were right, that the stump had won, that we broke another sled. But in one moment, we jump up as eager as that first leap out of our warm beds. We run back to the top as if we weren’t covered in snow and it hadn’t snuck through the cracks of our suits into the worst crack of them all. We carry the colorful plastic, fighting the whole way up for the right of that “inaugural ride.” We wipe the evidence of nature’s attempt to force us inside from our noses and ready ourselves for the inevitable defeat that waits for us at the bottom.
27