"She had felt cheerful on the sheltered concrete of the viewing platform, relaxed on the broad stairway with its sturdy bannister, and well enough on the roadlike path that looped behind the reassuring mass of the restaurant. The narrowing, roughening, and horizon-lowering that had turned that path into this trail had been gradual. Now its quality of teetering in space made her want to get on her knees and crawl."
"Vroni turned on a dime and came back, bounding like a chamois. She stood before Julia, casually shifting her weight around, her beanie pushed back over her hazelnut hair, her questioning eyes an opaque brown. For all the exertion and the cold, her skin tone was even and yellowish, like a chain-smoker's, although she wasn't one. She rolled her own cigarettes to save money; this took time, and couldn't be done non-stop, so the spots on her teeth did not entirely match her eyes."
Julia stands on a narrow, slippery mountain trail above a ridgetop shrouded in gray cloud and hears distant moos and cowbells. She becomes intensely frightened and slows to a crouched, trembling gait as loose grit and softball-size rocks threaten balance. Her German friend Vroni moves ahead confidently and returns with agile sure-footedness, displaying a casual, yellowish complexion and practical habits like rolling cigarettes to save money. Julia contrasts as pink, patrician, cautious, and prone to choosing safe romping where falls are acceptable due to osteopenia. The trail's narrowing and horizon-lowering transform familiar paths into a space that compels caution and fear.
Read at The New Yorker
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