The Edge of the World — Saudi Arabia

[Series: Riyadh in Ramadan: Saudi Arabia] Vol.2 The Edge of the World

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(작가 블로그 가기)

Dust kicks up from the desert floor.

The scent of bone-dry sand stings the nose.

Piercing through the biting sun, I reach the crest of the hill.

For a second, my breath catches. A soft gasp escapes me.

A massive, sunken floor drops away beneath my feet. It looks like an ocean trench, drained of all its water.

‘Is this what the seafloor looks like when the ocean runs dry?’

It rivals the sheer, dizzying drop of the Seven Sisters in the UK.

Yet, stripped of blue waters and green pastures, the void left behind is utterly desolate.

An ocean of earth blazes before my eyes. ‘The Edge of the World.’

I finally understand why the ancients gave it this name.

My body sways against the fierce wind. Whoa— I instinctively crouch down, terrified of a single misstep.

I lower my head and walk, letting the wind push my back.

Looking up by chance, I am met with an unreal, pastel-pink sky.

It looks like pink cotton candy has swallowed the earth.

The sun has started to set. Beneath it, the golden sand shimmers as if shattering into light.

It feels exactly like a dream.

The Weight of Ritual

Our guide calls us over, settling everyone into the car to rest.

He, who had been playfully joking all day, suddenly steps away alone.

Soon, he finds the flattest patch of dirt.

He carefully unrolls his mat and kneels.

Pressing his forehead to the earth, he then raises his gathered hands to the sky.

I watched him through the car window. A prayer in the wilderness, where even the wind seemed to hold its breath.

I know that form and ritual aren’t everything. But a ritual filled to the brim with absolute sincerity is undeniably sublime.

A moment later, his prayer finished, he shakes off the mat and gets back in the car.

“Thank you for waiting!”

As if nothing had happened, he tosses out his signature jokes, filling the drive back with laughter.

I love this dichotomy.

What I once viewed as a heavy, solemn religion was simply his natural, daily routine of reverence for the Absolute.

Questions in the Age of Technology

Heading back to Riyadh. My steps feel light, relieved that the day’s work is done.

But my mind is heavy with questions.

People all over the world worship the gods they believe to be true.

They bow down before their absolute with such pure, sublime devotion.

Then why are we so desperate to tear each other apart? Why do we fiercely argue that being different means being wrong?

‘What is truly right and what is wrong?’

My everyday life, buried in cutting-edge tech and sheer speed.

Days spent constantly calculating efficiency and proving I had the “right answer.”

This indescribable desert landscape, seemingly frozen in the ancient past, violently shakes my hardened mindset.

Before this vast abyss of earth, we are all nothing but tiny specks of dust.

In the most exotic of places, I learned the most universal form of humility.

The Edge of the World was precisely where my narrow worldview ended.

(End.)