Sledding

He dragged the saucer-shaped sled up hill that he used to run up as a child. The snow crunched beneath his boots as he walked, and his breath huffed out in little white clouds. His muscles and lungs ached, but he was determined to reach the top.

As his wobbling legs crested the peak of the hill, he collapsed in the snow. He peered down the snow-caked hillside, well aware of the rocks hiding underneath. He could scarcely believe that he used to make this journey several times an hour every weekend during his childhood winters—or that he could barely make it even once now.

His breath caught, he sat the sled and began to scoot forward on it. He could feel the momentum start to build and tucked his legs beneath him, letting gravity take over.

Wind rushed through his knitted cap and bit at his unprotected nose and cheeks as he rushed down the hill. The air left his lungs in a whoosh.

“Yahoo!” he yelled with glee. A smile froze onto his face.

A rock snuck up from beneath the thick snow and hit the sled directly under his coccyx.

With an “oof,” he was sent spinning off course and landed near some bushes.

For a moment, he lay in the snow, groaning in pain. Then he laughed. And laughed again. He stood up, laughing while he held his bruised tailbone and turned toward the hill.

“I did it, Dad!” he cried out. “I did it!”