As I Am

By Rhiw Sider

I wrote this work as a prelude for a longer piece which has since been published. It would be interesting to see how this works in ebook format. The setting is Saudi Arabia, in one of the many compounds where expatriate aircraft and ground engineers are earning their money teaching local men new roles. All professions can be found in these places. Nurses, teachers, accountants, recruiters, oil men, steelers or architects. FlightPath work for the Saudi air force. Down The Hill, nurses, dentists and doctors work at the hospital, living in other compounds. Some are here with their wives and young children, some are only here with their wives, and some without any support at all. Many of the single men are married back home, some of them are single in their own right. They all have their reasons to be there, each has their own agenda for their own future. In surroundings we like to see on our foreign holidays these compounds are their prisons and their homes.

Stephen Bannister is one such soul, working on the airbase for FlightPath. Nicole Lyons a nurse from the hospital is visiting her friend Casey on the compound. Their lives may never met until Stephen cracks his head open falling into the swimming pool and Nicole saves his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rhiw Sider
• Release date: Mar 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310956881

Rhiw Sider

I'm new to Smashwords but I have outlets on Wattpad. Born in Hampshire my parents moved next door to Sussex when I was very young. Without a clue what I was going to do for a career I found myself in the RAF when I was eighteen. How I survived nineteen years I will never know. Europe was my main home but I always wanted to live In Australia. The dream nearly paid off in 2002 but since then I've come back to the UK. I now live in south Wales with my wife Sue and our two cats. I am not a prolific writer yet. I say that because I seem to spend a lot of time getting to grips with the electronic world. Then there are the challenges. What to write about? There is so much going on where do I start? I must also read. I am always looking for an angle but the angle I want never seems to be there so getting the little grey cells to pave the way is a story in itself. I am going to explore some more short stories but I am not sure that is the way I want to go.

Book preview

As I am

In the isolated splendour of the British compound, set ten thousand feet high into the mountains of The Escarpment, Nicole and Casey sat in the rear garden of Casey’s wooden bungalow sipping ice-cooled, white wine and lime spritzers, under a very bright and hot Saudi sun. Above their heads the white canvas shade rippled slowly whenever a waft of breeze caught it, otherwise it was still. Very few birds gathered at this height, no great flocks of sheep could be heard grazing on the barren mountainsides, no unpleasantly loud or harsh music threatened to break open the quiet vault of peace in the peaks. Sound carried easily up here and the cries of competitive laughter from the nearby soccer pitch were distinct in their ears. A light breeze sifted its way through the dozen stumpy trees that shrouded a mottled view of the Asir centre, their barks matching the light khaki earth from which