I was walking to the Keihan Station the other day in Hirakata City when I saw a man selling watermelons on a bridge. Suddenly, I started to remember another time when I saw a man selling watermelons. I was living in Jerusalem at the time, and it was one of those hot days in the Middle East when you start to sweat profusely every time you move. I was with my friends Adam and Oscar, and we were just wandering south along King David Avenue when we saw a man selling watermelons. He was driving a donkey cart along the road calling out “watermelons, watermelons”. Behind him on the cart was a pyramid of beautiful green watermelons. They were green and perfect. We just had to buy one. I ran up and got a watermelon from the watermelon man, and my friends and I went to a park to eat our watermelon.

There is a large park south of the King David Hotel, and we found a tree to escape from the sun, and we sat down with our watermelon. We couldn’t wait to eat it! It was such a hot day, and each of us could picture in our minds how delicious and thirst-quenching this watermelon was going to be. The problem was that the only one of us to have a knife was Adam, and his knife was one of those tiny Swiss army knives popular with backpackers. Adam stuck his knife into the watermelon, but the blade of the knife was maybe only three centimeters long while the watermelon must have been at least 30 centimeters wide and 60 centimeters long. We didn’t know what to do. Just as we were losing heart, a man started chuckling off to our left. He must have been in his fifties, and he had short grey hair and about three day’s stubble on his chin. My first reaction was to feel uncomfortable and to wonder why this man was laughing at us. I guessed that he was an Arab from East Jerusalem, and I figured he thought we were stupid American Jews. Then, in Hebrew he said he would open the watermelon for us. I still felt a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that he was talking to us, but Adam gave this man the watermelon and the Swiss army knife. The man then opened up the watermelon like magic using a few swift strokes with the knife and then cracking it open so that we could eat the juicy flesh inside. We were amazed, and thanked the man profusely while Adam offered him some of the watermelon. The man declined our offer and wished us a good meal. He then walked off smiling.

Inside that watermelon we ate in the park that day were the seeds of peace. If only I knew how to plant them and make them grow so that they could bear fruit and make more watermelons.