A Vision of Hell

A Vision of Hell


Sand stretches endlessly in every direction, dotted by dark brown spots of sun dried earth. Heat rises off the edge of the horizon like water rippling in the wind. The sun beats down in a cloudless sky. The winds, unimpeded by the barren landscape, carry sand for miles slowly eating away at the various rocks and shrubs. Water has not touched this landscape in many months; even the most enduring insects do not live in these grounds. Huge dunes of sand slowly moved by the wind like a hot thick ocean constantly change the layout of the land. Never ending expanses of brown crusty earth, unavailable shade, and cloudless skies make up this backdrop to hell on earth.
Though the landscape is barren and devoid of life it gives off signs that there were once animals that roamed. Camels, able to go long distances in the desert without food or water, would wander into this expanse of nothingness not realizing that they were wandering to their own demise. Sun bleached bone, though sparse, dots the land for hundreds of miles marking how far each animal was able to go before certain dehydration took its toll. When the harsh winds do take a reprieve and blow gently the strong odor of decay follows faintly. Death knows this ground; it has resided here for many years.
Night time is quite a different phenomenon, when the sun slips behind the horizon and darkness takes over. Just as the sun sets the heat waves on the horizon turn a bright ghastly red, like blood flowing into the sky through a gaping wound. The winds start to pick up and sand blows even harder, biting at anything it can, and with the wind comes the nighttime coolness. All the browns turn to blues as the moon rises over the dunes, distorted by the heat in a steel blue-gray color. Temperatures begin to fall rapidly, without stones, trees, grass, or any other forms of foliage the heat cannot be retained. The sands cool off quickly due to the still increasing winds, night is no longer present, darkness has taken its grip over the landscape and the temperature falls drastically. Frost is still unable to form due to lack of moisture in the still dry night air. What was just hours before a blisteringly hot wasteland that can only be described as hell on earth, now has the icy grip of death over it.
The red flashes over the horizon are the only break in the thick blackness, lighting up the sky like a fourth of July show. The wind has slowed down but now carries the new odor of acrid smoke, burning wood, metal, and fabric. Chemicals mixed in the smoke cover the desert floor with a black sooty like powder. The vibrating air and shaking ground with the sight of the falling bombs and missiles, falling onto the horizon, are like a metal rain from above. If this barren backdrop of blight wasn’t hell enough before it has just regained its authority on the land with the advent of these metallic harbingers of death over the horizon. As the sun slowly and lazily climbs back into view it looks upon a changed landscape. Blood, black as the starless sky shoots from the craters left the night before, raining from the sky into the sun cracked flats, covering everything in a thick ooze for hundreds of miles. This land will always be in a cycle of relentless heat and cold, devoid of life and water, a desolate place, covered in sand and dust, a forsaken landscape; Iraq, a hell on earth.