Land of Muddy Skies

I'm living in a land that is so dusty that the sky turns a faint brown like a muddy river when it is full of clouds and about to rain. In extreme cases like today, the brown darkens and morphs until the entire sky is glowing orange. When I look out the window and see a radioactive orange sky, I can't help contemplating apocalypse. In fact it thunderstormed and hailed muddy ice chunks tonight, while I lay in bed in the dark thinking about an incident that occurred a few days ago at the checkpoint near the school that has shaken us all, and serves as a severe reality check. Erbil is not Mosul, or even Baghdad, but still, part of the security that it boasts is provided by under-trained teenage boys. Since when is it ever a good idea to stick a loaded Kalashnikov into the hands of a 20-year-old boy? Mad-Eye Moody's sound counsel comes to mind now: Constant vigilance must be taken when living in a land in which "that could have been me" is no longer an empty fear, a statistically insignificant phrase.