Silas

I met Silas when I worked in the mountains in Switzerland. It was a time of many faces. Most saying goodbye as quickly as hello as their travels took them to the next must see European destination.
Silas was Swiss. His brother had hooked up with my friend Trilby. Silas was very young, his brother even younger, a teenager to Trilby's mid 20's, but nothing was too young for her, so the brothers became part of the gang for awhile. They were like a singing duo, very accomplished at guitar for their young age. I never knew either of them well. I was very focused at that time on snowboarding every.single.free.minute I had to myself. I was not interested in little boyfriends hanging around and going to the pub. My nights were trying to find a ride home down from the mountains...and going to sleep to get up in time for the first lift.
In the summer however...there is no snow. At least not where I could afford to get to. So you take up other activities that are free and plentiful. Hiking.
Hiking the Alps was something we did quite a bit. When Silas was hanging around we decided one day to head out for a particularly big trek. Steep. Not for the vertically challenged. There were seven of us, all but Silas very accustomed by now, to the passes of crumbly rock and blazing sun. The feeling of all around you nothing that was desirable to break a fall. No soft landing.
We walked and as we did the path, that had been eroded by winter ice and wind- became narrow. Narrow and was shrinking still as we went, ten feet apart so as to distribute our weight. My body was agile by a winter of snowboarding heel to toe, heel to toe. Placement of steps were cautiously executed and quickly became difficult. Talk hinted at turning back then, and as we all breathed a collective sigh of relief Silas fell. Fell off the path and down...far down. We could see a discheveled figure about a hundred feet down. We could not see his face, his eyes, we could not see blood, we could not hear him. He was in a coma. Two stayed and the quickest left for help. The helicopter brought him to the hospital as the sun was setting and the mountians, even with the heat of summer upon them, turned cold and almost mean, saying things like "yup, uh huh, i can do this...and you had better remember that missy"
We lost Silas about a month later. He was in his hometown in the hospital there. Only Trilby and one other went to his funeral. I decided it was a good time as any to get my ass to Spain and get away so I could get a bit of perspective on things. I'm not sure if I did get any perspective, or if any was even there for me to grasp at the time. Something so random.
Like being reminded of Silas after all these years of forgetting by my daughter on the chairlift yesterday, saying to me, "I wonder if anyone has ever fallen off?".