Boy on a Sled

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Boy on a Sled

A small boy lies flat on a sled, chin up, just beginning to slide down a crust of frozen snow.

The sled barely moves, then creeps, overcoming stillness.

Below, the hill is so enormous, its bottom, if there is a bottom, is a thin gray line, misted by wavering light in gleaming morning sun.

The sled gains speed, and boy is exhilarated.

Friends and snow hares flash by. Is that Root Richardson? Was that David?
Miss Morton claps her hands; boy knows he'd better be quiet. Is that a bugle blowing?

Sunlight glistens on the frozen crust. Boy hears hissing sled runners.

Speed gains; now boy is nervous, so he drags the toe of his right boot.

But the frozen crust is hard against the steel runners and skips his leather-covered toes - they merely bounce on the surface.

The sled goes faster. The bottom, the end-line, now slightly wider, is dark.

The boy's jaw itches in the icy wind.

He reaches up one mittened hand to scratch, but to no avail.

Holding now the mitten in his teeth, he reaches up again to scratch with bare hand.

He is shocked to feel ... a beard!

The sled gains momentum.

The sun angles ahead then the sled finds a mogul and, for the first time is airborne. He peers down.

Below, his sister holds out her hand, their fingertips brush; she stands barefoot on hot black Rappahannock sand.

Another mogul, higher this time, and from mid-air he peers down at lips. The snow hisses and makes a kissing sound.

Suddenly a woman straightens her skirt as she climbs out of a steep drainage ditch; across the street a major's body lies crushed.

Wind stronger, sled faster, afraid now, he holds the stiff steering bar of the sled tightly.

The bar pretends to give steering but in truth can only cause the slightest veering in the sled's path.

Boy shuts eyes and grimaces. He listens to the schussing sound of his sled's runners.

A small house with pale yellow siding and a muddy back yard, then faces flash by; a high-speed movie. Sal? A lynch mob in Poughkeepsie?

A sudden lurch and again the sled tips up - he holds on tightly and listens: computers whir, keboards clack, new babies cry, motorcycles hum, and tears fill his eyes. Is it the cold air?

Boy kicks both feet, toes down hard against the icy crust. Slow down! he shouts at the wind.

A few snow-crust chips fly up but a sled is never deterred by toes.

Pulling tightly on the steering bar the sled veers slightly to the the left, then back to a down-slope run.

Faster. In quick succession snowbanks bulge, then a mogul jars sled and rider.

Eyes wide, he sees a bearded man nailing plastic roofing on a new porch. A tire track mars one corrugated panel.

Someone else is painting the returns on the Seneca Howland house - where is the snow?

Now eyes shut tight, he hears dripping water, hail on a metal roof, motors run then sputter and stop, and he thinks he smells oil burner smoke.

Is that possible, here on the frozen snow covered hill?

The sled's speed increases. The dark line at the hill bottom widens. An abyss.

Boy stares in amazement as a baby blips by beneath the snow: cold, still, blue, silent. Who was that? He knows, and he doesn't.

An enormous snowdrift: now sled and boy sail over the Hudson River, past naked swimmers in Lake Awosting, higher still to the Quetico where ice edges ebony water.

Boy opens eyes and peers down: is that cactus below? Burros? Tortillas? He screams as loud as he can, a moment of joy.

Sled slams hard onto the frozen snow with a tremendous whack; boy, speed ever greater, holds on for dear life, but he is warm.

The dark line at the hill bottom is a canyon.

He cannot see into it.

2023/07/22 & later, transcribed from phone notes written in el Jardin waiting for Jennifer

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