The Ski Trip

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I walked like a walking stick, hunched over against the elements, cold, wet snow blowing into my face. My body was as stiff as a dead parrot and ached like a lovesick teenager. I cursed myself for the umpteenth time that day, what on earth was I doing here? I knew the answer but didn’t want to admit it, I’d been thinking with my dick again instead of my brain and had it got me any closer to Alena? No of course not, if anything it had done the opposite, I’d just completely blown it.

‘Come skiing with me,’ she’d said a few weeks before.

‘I’ve never skied,’ I said.’

‘Doesn’t matter, it’s not about the skiing, it’s about the snow and sun and hot wine and the cold air. The great outdoors.’

‘But I can’t ski,’ I protested, while thinking that I didn’t much like the great outdoors either.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ she said. ‘I’ll teach you.’

So, of course I said yes, a weekend away with the girl I’d been trying it on with for four months was too good to turn down. A chance of a romantic tryst with the girl of my dreams, I’d be a fool to say no.

So here I was up a bloody mountain without a clue. When we got here Alena had looked at me with a look of disbelief when I reminded her I couldn’t ski. She’d conveniently forgotten that little fact. She didn’t say it, but I could see she was thinking so what the bloody hell are you doing here then? It was exactly the same look I had given her when she’d turned up with 6 of her friends including Zdenek, who was my rival for her attention. ‘What the bloody hell are they doing here?’ I’d said in my mind while attempting a smile.

So Alena had joined her friends and Zdenek on the slopes, leaving me trying to work out what the hell my Czech instructor was telling me on the nursery slopes.

They call it nursery slopes because it is full of kids, 15 kids under the age of 7 graduating to the main slopes while 1 adult over the age of 30 could not figure out where the brakes were on these things.

I longed to be back home, in a warm café, drinking coffee and reading a book instead of being barked at by a ski instructor with the bedside manners of a grumpy nightshift doctor. Alena had promised me sun, but while my phone told me the sun was shining in Prague, up in the mountains it was stubbornly grey, snow and clouds, I was being blinded by the white.

I caught sight of Zdenek and Alena whooshing down the mountain, I could recognise her laugh anywhere. I looked over at them jealously and saw Zdenek come towards me.

‘Hey Eddie are you coming up with us?’ He said, a mocking tone in his voice. ‘C’mon you can do it, it’s only a little slope.’

‘Yes c’mon Eddie, come down with us.’ Alena smiled. I noticed she was holding Zdenek’s hand.

Testosterone coursed around my body, I puffed my chest out, I wasn’t going to let these skiing idiots make a fool of me.

‘No!’ I said firmly. ‘Do you really think I will risk killing myself for you.’ I said to Alena. And with that, I stomped off to the warmth of the lodge for a well-deserved hot wine.