v1.0 (17-mar-01) Scanning, layout and quick proofing by 4i Publications.
She put her chin on the wood below the window. The wood was cold and shinyand smelled. She kneeled on the seat; it smelled too, but different. The seat waswide and red like the sunset and had little buttons that made deep lines in it andmade it look like somebody’s tummy. It was dull outside and the lights were on inthe cable car. There were people skiing on the steep slopes beneath. She couldsee her own face looking back at ‘her in the glass; she started to make faces atherself.
After a while the glass in front of her face went misty. She reached up andwiped it. Somebody in another car, going down the hill, waved at her. Sheignored them. The hills and the white trees tipped slowly back and forward.
The cable car swung gently as it rose through the mountain air towards thecloudbase. The trees and runs on the slopes beneath were equally white; a freshsnowfall and freezing fog blowing up the valley overnight had coated thebranches and needles of the trees with a crisp white wrap of crystals. Skiers cutand scythed through the new plumpness of the fall, engraving -a carved text ofblue-white lines onto the bulging fresh page of snow.
