At about 2100 hours, I get out of the shower, put on my Army PT shorts, and with a brown towel hanging around my neck I begin to walk the 100 or so steps back to my room. I use the little LED light on my keychain to guide me back towards my canister. After walking a dozen steps away from the latrine, I stop for a minute, just to take things in. I am in Iraq, I remind myself. This is, reportedly, an actual combat zone, and the cradle of humanity. Every few days here, I force myself to stop and to breathe, and to experience this experience. I flip off the flashlight.

It is dark where I am, but there are a few ambient light sources which allow some observation once my eyes adjust. The surround sound of Al Asad fills my freshly-cleaned ears with the seemingly endless noises of industry. Back and to the left of me is the sound of a tractor, likely coming from the garishly-lit maintenance area north of our camp. I wonder why a tractor is operating at 9 PM. Whatever its reason, that same tractor is always busy at this time of night, every night. Twenty paces in front of me, some chatter: a group of very young-looking men and women are standing in a circle, all in the same grey t-shirt, some of them smoking. Occasionally, a burst of laughter punctuates the conversation. I cannot make out many of the words, but one particularly sharp word seems to slice through the night air to me every 15 second or so. Farther ahead are the sounds of cars, trucks, and buses moving along the road behind the concrete barriers which surround our cans. From above me comes the crescendo-decrescendo of planes, mixed with the occasional helicopter or osprey. One aircraft has green lights on its propellers, which results in a neat laser show in the sky a few hundred feet above my head.

The air is hot (more that 100 degrees still), but pleasant anyway. A light breeze seems to do nothing to cool it down, and the balminess feels exotic and luxurious. I imagine myself on a tropical island in the 1950s a la Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, or else dropped into the watercolor universe of a Donald Fagen song:

The surf was easy on the day I came to stay

In that quiet island in the bay

I remember the line of women all in white

The laughter and the steel bands at night

But the smells around me are not of the sea or the sand. Instead I am greeted with the familiar refrain of dust and diesel, this time mingled with cigarettes and a faint smell of burning plastic.

I start on my way again, and walk by the group-in-grey. These are a few of my medics: a tall blonde kid from Minnesota who has a wholly-feigned world-weary look; a stocky Hispanic kid whose young appearance belies his wife-and-two-kids responsibleness; a dark-haired, dark-eyed girl who looks younger than Maddy; a heavily-tattooed, musclebound white guy who is at present time dominating the conversation with a story which sounds likely to be “topping” a previous one. They stand up a bit straighter when I walk by, and offer a genuine “hello, sir” but I choose to mosey along, and enough steps away from the circle so that my exposed white belly goes unobserved. I offer a heartfelt “goodnight” to them, and wave over my shoulder without looking back. Not the time for a conversation. I make my way back to the trailer.

————–

Earlier today, I rode my bike around the big loop which completely circumnavigates the Al Asad airport, or “flight line,” as it is called. The wind blew me mercilessly during the back portion of the ride, so I was slowed to a crawl for about seven miles. Because of this, I ran out of water, which I keep in a special “Camelbak” canteen, which wraps around my torso and hangs off of my back, its two-foot rubber tube allowing me to drink as I ride. Pretty nifty device, but it works much better when there is water in the bladder, which holds three liters. I had about six miles to go when my supply ran out, and the large depositories of water bottles which are so commonplace in the “city” are nowhere to be found out here amid the nothingness.

I had some concern about the lack of water in the 110-degree heat, but I knew that I could make it back to camp safely, as I felt very well-hydrated at the time I took the last sip. Further up the road, I came across a pallet of unopened bottles which had likely fallen off of a truck. The bottles were sealed, and I knew they had to be relatively “fresh,” as they were not there on my prior bike ride three days ago. But I did not partake. Part of me did not want to pour that 110-degree water into my Camelbak and drink. Part of me was simply afraid to touch these things on the side of the road. Here in Iraq, we tend not to touch anything which has not been proven perfectly safe, preferably by a instrument, rather than a person. I once came around a curve in the road and saw a mattress lying there, smack in the middle of the asphalt. I rode over towards it, thinking to push it to the side of the road, so that some unfortunate person in a speeding vehicle would not encounter it. But I had second thoughts; I don’t want to be remembered as the foolhardy doctor who managed to find the only IED on the entire base. So I left it there, and rode a wide circumference around it.

I decided against the “gift” water and rode on, past a one-room, abandoned brick building of a sort seen often on this post. As I passed this one, though, I noticed something moving around it, and then the thing noticed me. It was a small, red, dog-like animal with clean, abundant hair like a Husky. I would have guessed it was a fox, but I’m not sure that those exist out here, and my internet connection at present won’t let me google to find out. Whatever it was, it had buddies. They were convinced that I was about to lay claim to their fancy brick den and after conferring for a moment, they were now abandoning ship. I stopped my bike and watched the group scatter towards and eventually under the barbed-wire fence. I watched for a while as they scattered, hoping that none of them would find an IED.

There aren’t too many people who regularly venture out past the airport, at the limits of where they allow us to exercise. It is a long way from home, and I imagine that a flat tire would make for a long and miserable trip back to the city. But it is strangely spiritual in the desert. When the dust level is low, I can look out over the barbed wire, into the vast “buffer zone” which surrounds this base, and the land looks starkly beautiful, and immensely large. There are a few brown bushes, and some red-orange hills and plateaus, but mostly there is just land, as far as the eye can see. I remember as a kid riding to grandpa’s house in Kansas, past seemingly endless fields of corn and wheat. The feel of that place was similar to this (except greener).

There is a Joe Jackson album (”Big World”) which has about 20 songs built around a concept: although the singer has been “everywhere” and his world seems to be shrinking, he has these occasional, brief moments of stunning realization of the greatness of it all. These moments come as he sees vast expanse, or utterly unique sights:

Strange how the world got so small

I turned around, and there was nowhere left to go

So sad, the dream almost died

Each new arrival closes places in my mind

 

But I will dream

Before I go

Of smells that I don’t recognize

 

But by the river in Shanghai

The color of the sky

Is something I’ve never seen

After the summer rain

Children smile

Curious and kind

And the world is big again