Only in Dreams

I was on the West Coast. It felt and looked like Big Sur only I knew that I was further north. And by further north I mean British Columbia. The Olympics were still going on and so high on the mountain side overlooking the ocean I found a back entrance to the games. I found a room type gym locker place where a bunch of athletes were gathered around. Apparently the US bobsled team had something tragic happen to three of their members. They wouldn't be able to compete because they only had one guy to man the bobsled. A kid about my age spoke up and volunteered to ride in the front and steer the sled. I volunteered to ride middle. The actual olympic athlete would ride rear. I explained very thoroughly that I had no training but really, how hard could it be? Granted I wasn't planning on winning or getting a good score but at least we would have been able to compete. The older athlete had been training his entire life for this moment and we wanted to give him a chance. At the start of the run I was extremely nervous. I could see my self on TV with family, friends and co-workers watching us at the top of the run. I grabbed onto the little handle on the side and we started to push. Only the bad thing is that we had false-started. We tried to hang onto the handles and dig into the ice track with our feet to stop the sled. Embarrassed, we dragged the sled up back to the start line and tried to recover and start over but the emotional damage was already done. Wanting only to finish we launched again. I was supposed to count out four steps then jump into the sled but no one had told me before hand. I only counted three and jumped in. The sled behaved like a canoe on water and the nose went up knocking over the kid in front. He started to slide down the track, unable to stop. The athlete in the back was hanging on being dragged down on his stomach. I balanced on one foot for a while until I fell out to the side and tried to hang on as the sled sped down the track. When it was all over the athlete looked at me in disgust. His wife and two daughters shook their heads as I walked by. Everyone was disappointed. Funny thing was that I didn't really care. I wasn't even qualified to race a bobsled so it wasn't my fault no one told me to count 4 steps before jumping in. I went back home to my normal life and no one seemed to notice that it was me who had botched up the US bobsled race.