Miles was frustrated this morning. No one could blame him. There was too much news, and it was ironic, since there had been excitement from the Olympics in Italy. He had deliberately not mentioned the Winter Games as they kicked off last week. Today, though, brought a story of triumph and tragedy, as Breezy Johnson scored America’s first gold of the Games.

And the sad, wailing departure from the mountain of legendary American skier Lindsey Vonn.

Miles looked around at the Lady’s Corner of the conference table to see if Melissa had anyone remotely on her staff who could credibly outline Lindsey’s commendable—if quixotic—attempt to return to a sport from which she had retired in 2019.

Holly was the closest in experience. She had been a ski patroller back in Michigan at the recreation area near her parents’ cabin Up North. She knew how to bundle injured people into little baskets on skis and had slept beneath the stars in a warm cocoon of down feathers. Accordingly, she knew something about standing outside in the cold as well as anyone. She was as close to an expert as Miles had handy, and he nodded at her over his mug.

She rose in her chair and began.

“Lindsey only returned to competition because the Games were going to be held at the site of some of her early triumphs at Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. Instead, she suffered a serious leg injury in a training run two weeks ago. But she vowed to return to the slopes with a brace on her torn ACL.

“We’ll skip the graphics of the incident, but it started with a dislocated shoulder and got worse. The whole life-defining event was over in an instant, finishing an epic story of determination, beauty, and courage—of a woman attempting to close a stellar career with Olympic medal bookends.

“Instead, another woman found glory in what turned out to be an instant of time shorter than the blink of an eye.”

Breezy Johnson pushed off at the top of the Women’s Downhill course and completed it flawlessly in one minute, 36.10 seconds, holding off Emma Aicher of Germany by 0.04 seconds. That less-than-an-instant margin gave Breezy a kind of immortality and deference in any future gathering, for as long as she lived. Like Lindsey.

“We may hear about Emma again,” Holly continued, “but it could be only in the narrowness of her defeat—maybe in an after-hours drinking game at Freddy’s Pace near the Lodge. ‘Who won the silver in the ’26 Women’s Downhill?’”

Blank looks around the table.

“Savage” McFeely rose and walked to the north wall, turning her pert 5’6″ frame to face the group. She got her callsign after an unfortunate occurrence in the NAS Sigonella O’ Club one winter afternoon. She had been an A-7 jock in her Navy days and was always an unexpected force in the Ready Room—unexpected exactly once by the wise.

“Not four-tenths,” she said, brows curled. “Four hundredths of a second. For the rest of her life she will carry the title of Gold Medalist. That partial blink in time will carry her the rest of her days.”

She paused.

“The rescuers said the beating of the blades of the medevac helo that carried Lindsey into another retirement had a baleful rhythm.”

General discussion followed.

Lindsey had been sixth to get on the course. She had been watching Johnson’s pace atop the leaderboard when she stepped into the launch box. The recollection of her own past there must have passed before her goggles as she waited for the buzzer on the iconic Olympia delle Tofane course. At the sound, she launched—legs pumping for speed.

But she cut a pole too close near the top.

She crashed hard, and the race was put on hold for more than twenty minutes to get a helicopter to the scene. There were audible cries as she was loaded up. The wait was far longer than the margin of victory.

So you could see Miles’ frustration.

There was a football game on the West Coast, he heard—Patriots versus Seahawks. There was a fondness for the Pats because of a Beantowner in the crowd, and someone else still in love with Tom Brady. There were Puget Sound folks as well, so it could be notable depending on which halftime show people watched.

Apparently the NFL had selected Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny to woo Hispanic fans, prompting Kid Rock to set up a competing show more attuned to whatever he thought Americans wanted to see in the middle of the most hoop-laahed event of the Sunday, clicking away.

There is a moment of glory in it all, but it passes in a split second.

Young Breezy’s climb to the absolute peak of her sport. Youthful.

Old Lindsey’s near-instantaneous fall from that summit of glory.
And for Emma Aicher? An achievement of athletic excellence in a silver medal—and an anonymity that will persist, that she was almost immortal. Determined by less than half the time a blink can descend over the eye.

It is a curious thing about time, isn’t it?

The kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie was still dominating the Fox News Channel on the north wall more than a week after her disappearance by—so we thought—kidnappers. There were reports- almost a minute of them- that officers had removed a paper bag from the house in the middle of last night. There was no word on the timing, but it fit with analysis of the travel of nerves from a twitch of fabric briefly catching a stationary vertical pole. It was probably shorter than the 0.04 seconds it took for Breezy to become immortal. Briefly, perhaps, but good for a lifetime of note.
And Lindsey might be able to tell her something about that.

Miles put his mug down hard.

“There is some other stuff happening out there that could be interpreted as the fall of the West. Great global forces are in motion, changing alignments East and West.”

“And North and South, if America is going to claim the Western Hemisphere,” Rocket said firmly. “That’s new. It replaces what has lasted since the legions were called back to Rome. It’s so huge we can only see it on the little glowing rectangles on the wall.”

“That happened fast,” said Splash. “I was hoping we could use that story we did in 2010 about a bad snowfall here in the Fifteen-Minute County.”

Melissa looked over, hoping Splash could get some recycled electronic ink out of a cold, bright Sunday. “Was it a good story?”

He smiled and fished in his messenger bag for the tablet, its display glowing with an image of an inch of powdery snow outside the window of Tunnel Eight, the old HQ in Arlington.

“We called it Too Much Snow. We thought it was interesting then. We had no idea what it would be like to be encased in SnowCrete for a month.”

“It’s supposed to get up to the middle 40s by mid-week,” someone said. “That should start the month-long melt.”

“It could be immortal,” said Rocket.

“For a while,” said Miles, who picked up his phone and began to think about lunch.

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com