The American rode in the van up the coast. The sky was bright and the highway went north in Jeddah, past many monuments: the giant camels, the balanced globe, the car on the flying carpet. Jeddah was full of sculpture and the American looked at all of it. His father had been a sculptor in Arizona, welding huge eagles out of steel with a torch. The American missed his father very much; they had been close friends. And his father would have loved to hear about the American's time in Saudi Arabia. Now the van arrived at the beach club and the gate opened. The American paid 70 Riyals to enter, and for this he received permission to swim and a ticket an ice cream cone. The American loved ice cream. He had been lonely a great deal in the last three years and he had used ice cream to overcome some of his loneliness. It was wonderful company even though it never lasted long. The American was with friends today and so he wasn't lonely. He hadn't been lonely in all of Saudi Arabia. In Riyadh, there had been no time to be lonely. They were always meeting Saudis and speaking to them about writing. The American was a writer and had been writing all of his life and one of his favorite things was to talk to other writers about what they were creating. Writing is creating. That was what the American knew they all had in common, a desire to create and a desire to be understood. The American wanted to be understood by others, of course, and he had had some trouble understanding himself at times in his life. He walked with his friends toward the sea. They placed their watches and cameras and towels and shirts on the teakwood lounge chairs and they stepped into the brimming sea. The water made the man smile. He loved the ocean. He was big in his love for the ocean. He loved all the oceans and there are supposedly seven oceans, but the American secretly thought there might be more. He had never ever been in the Red Sea and now he was in the Red Sea. A bright blue and green fish with yellow fins brushed his leg and the American looked into the water and said to the fish, “Hello to you too.” His friends swam out into the Red Sea and the American swam out in the warm water. The wind was blowing. It wanted to blow them all back to the city, but they swam against the wind. I am in the Red Sea, the man said to himself. He was smiling and happy to be in this rare place. Because he was a writer, he thought it might make a nice story for someone he loved. After swimming and observing the many bright fish in the reef, the American crawled back toward the stone steps and felt himself cut his foot on the coral. He did it twice and then again. When he walked out of the sea, his foot was bleeding. He was glad to see the red blood from the little scratches. It is good to be reminded of your body, though it was embarrassing to have this little injury. Traveling far from home is often prized and celebrated, and it is a valuable endeavor, but it always has an element of loneliness in it. The American sat with his friends drying off after swimming in the Red Sea. They were laughing and telling stories and they even took a photograph of their scratched feet. He was not alone in cutting his feet. And now the American, who was already happy to be in the wondrous country of Saudi Arabia, and happy to have these pictures and the story he would tell, knew something else. He knew he would now have a sweet walk back to the van and on the way there with his friends there would be ice cream. - SG Ron Carlson is an award winning novelist and author and a former professor of English at Arizona State University and former director of its Creative Writing Program. He is currently a Professor of English at the University of California, Irvine. __
