As I arced through the air left foot first - like a dancer performing an impromptu windmill kick - my right ski dug into the snow, applying torque along the length of carbon fibre to my airborne leg. My foot, held rigid by the rented ski boots, didn't budge. The next joint up - my knee - attempted to bend to the momentum of 80kg of Asian male travelling at 40kmh. Time slowed, as if all of life was to culminate in the following split-second. Over what seemed to take a minute with curiously little pain, my anterior cruciate and lateral collateral ligaments - lifelong links between my femur and tibia - strained briefly, then reflexively slackened to avoid tearing. My right knee gave way with a jarring 'pop'; like a drumstick you dislocate from a barbecued chicken maryland. Its mission to injure complete, my right ski dislodged from the ground - when it should have come off my boot the moment torsion started - and I was once again fully airborne. Time stopped - a silent standstill - then rewound for my benefit; so that I could see what had led me to this point.
My childhood dreams of white Christmases were dashed when I came to Australia. Raised on Disney Tales and Little Golden Books, I believed it was only proper to eat turkey and build snowmen before leaving out cookies for Santa. Hell was every other place on earth where people couldn't live in a place rich with snowflakes. But snow didn't fall in our backyard in Australia. To add insult to injury, the seasons were all wrong. What had possessed my parents to move here?
I hungered for snow. I needed it to validate my status as being a cut above the ordinary. Abstaining from ski trips in university to save money for food and clothes only left me hungrier. Now that I had the disposable income to afford a trip to the Victorian snowfields, I packed my hubris with my warm clothes and boarded the plane to Melbourne.
Melbourne is an antidote to the terribly Mediterranean city of Adelaide. The unpredictable weather remains a novelty for a few days before you start wishing you were somewhere else. With three times the population of Adelaide, Melbourne is three times as cosmopolitan. Unfortunately, this underground vibrance is offset by three times the dull, faceless suburbia. Hectares upon hectares of housing estates sustain the pocket of sophistication along the Yarra. Family dogs, quaint backyards, and clay roof tiles sporting bent aerials abound. The drudgery of the residential suburbs is thrust upon you, as to get anywhere in Melbourne means a trip along the freeways, cutting through neverending fields of human gopher mounds. In conditions of sparsity, uniqueness is beautiful; like the main street of a small town. In abundance, uniformity is more pleasing; like the giant apartment complexes of Sydney. Melbourne's suburbs are an abundance of non-conformity. In other words, a mess.
Needless to say, I didn't stay there for long. Half a day's bus trip found me at Mount Buller, at its very whitest in the peak of snow season. I was so excited that as soon as I'd checked in I ran outside for a long walk. The walk was more like a trudge, as my waterlogged legs sank knee-deep with each step. Still, I had fun making snow angels and writing my name in the snow. (In, ahem, yellow.) The day ended with myself and my frozen toes getting ferried halfway back to base camp on the back of a police snowmobile. But no matter! The sun was still out, the tree branches were covered in snow, and there were icicles on the roofs. Icicles, for God's sake, icicles! I wasn't in the real world anymore, but indestructibly spinning through the winter wonderland of my childhood storybooks.
Still in the grip of that mania I decided, thawing out on my bunk that night, that I would try skiing the next day.
There isn't much to do at Mount Buller apart from snow activities. The entire mountain caters to one exclusive group: rich skiers. God help you if you don't fall into that category. Transport is expensive, accommodation is basic and expensive, equipment is expensive, and partying is expensive. Even food from the local supermarket is a few times Melbourne prices. There really is no substitute to good clothes, gloves, and boots, but I tried to make do anyway. What I couldn't live without, I hired.
My ski lift pass included a free lesson, and wisely restricted me to the most basic of beginner slopes. As I staggered to my lesson, young children and aged people whizzed past, nimbly slaloming around me. After an hour with a group of similarly un-coordinated people I could snow-plough and was free to ride the lifts. The vistas from top of Mount Buller's ski lifts are unbelievable, especially on the rare days when the sun shines and the snow is thick. The air is crisp, the horizon is endless, and the mobile reception is excellent. Try skiing or snow-ploughing down and you add terror to your already overwhelmed senses. The concept of the snow-plough is simple. By pointing your skis to form a wedge in front of you, friction with the snow is greater and your speed becomes a fraction of the maximum.
And there's the catch: on a slight slope where the maximum is 30kmh, your speed becomes a leisurely 15 kmh. But angle up a few degrees until the maximum speed is 120kmh and no amount of snow-ploughing will slow you below 60kmh. Such angles are likely on the beginner's slopes. I tried to zig-zag, but that introduced the risk of colliding with beginners. Faced with killing children or falling over I always chose the latter, though the falls left me bruised and bleeding from many open but frozen wounds. It is astonishingly easy to fuck yourself up skiing. Sacrificing myself for a fluorescent-yellow twelve-year-old was my undoing, as it was on this fall that things went out of control. The ski that was supposed to detach, did not. The knee that was not supposed to sprain, did.
The next sound I heard was the crash of my body hitting the snow.
The present running again, I turned my mind to the future: returning tomorrow to my cousin's place and limping with her to 'We Will Rock You'. I spat the white ice out as it began to freeze my lips and began, numbly, to get up. My right knee was starting to get stiff. As I rose, it popped violently back into place and I knew that I would start a months-long journey of pain before the day was through.
Still, I snow-ploughed down to catch the lift and then back down the other side of the mountain, to return my gear and avoid the late charge.
