Adventures In The Far Reaches

Chapter 4

OUTSIDE THE BUILDING, Chris and I were welcomed by the cool breeze of the Iranian morning air, perhaps coming from the snow-covered mountain range far to our right, balanced with the warmth of the Sun now above the horizon. More smoke towers were made visible. But our delight was short-lived with how horrible the whole place was. Dust and all sorts of refuse tumbled with the wind like tumbleweeds in the desert, and the smell was close to unbearable. Football field-sized parking lots surrounded the airport in the sides and the front, a road going in a circle separating the spaces. But instead of cars, evacuees, some selfless volunteers and army personnel sprawl the place with their makeshift tents. As we walked along the steel-roofed pathway to the left along the road out of the airport, I could see stripped-down kids and babies crying their eyes out at their parents for food, an old bony man speaking at himself and the volunteers almost at the point of losing their heads. It was horrible and heartbreaking.

"Look at all these people," I said as Chris pointed the camera to them. "This is just terrible." I plugged my nose with my hands just in case the terrible smell might trigger an uncontrollable cough, but the reek exponentially worsened for every meter we passed. The scene reminded me of the concentration camps of the Jews, though nothing in the world would compare to that horror.

"Holy shit!" Chris said, covering his nose. "This smell's killing me!" On the other side of the road were a dozen big green plastic containers leaking with some kind of gooey brown and yellow thing on its lids. One got tumbled over and spilled its contents – vomit, pieces of shit both solid and liquefied, blood, and a fucking rat – in the middle of the road. Flies feasted on it.

"Oh my God," I said, almost fainting. The stink was so terrible that I couldn't even speak to the camera. It burned the linings of my nose and my sinus, and it seemed to have penetrated my skull to poison my brain. It's so terrible that I couldn't think of a proper hyperbolical phrase to match how horrible it was. But that was not all. After the first curve, I saw several yellow bags laid out on the middle of the road. "What the hell is that?" There was a dark hand protruding from one of the bags. "Shit, are those...? Oh my God!"

"Dead people," Chris said. I almost threw up. It's almost like MERSCOV or bird flu or some form of mutant rogue virus paid this place a visit and just wreaked havoc. I've watched like millions of films with countless of lifeless bodies, some even chopping those bodies like poultry meat, in them but seeing them personally was traumatizing beyond words. Those bodies once walked and talked, and now they just lay there like meat about to be sold on a market. As I walked, I looked straight covering my peripheral sight with my hands.

"Holy shit, look at that," he said. I moved my hands out and beheld two men toss a dead body into the pile like garbage. I squealed and embraced Chris like I just saw the worst sight of my life. The way its arms and legs moved as the body was dropped really drove me crazy. I cried, every bone in my body shaking beyond breaking point.

"Oh my God!" I said, my face pressed hard against his chest. "Oh my God!"

"It's alright, it's okay. Keep moving, come on." Goose bumps almost tore my skin out and my whole body shivered like nuts. My chest filled with disgust, fear, trauma and everything else once could associate upon seeing a dead body getting tossed in the middle of the road right in front of me. I, and sure Chris did too, felt my legs weaken. I thought seeing really violent movies would make me immune to things like this, but nothing beats the real thing.

I regained my composure shortly and just started talking out of instinct, but I still trembled from deep my bones. "These people have no access to food, water or proper medicinal care for more than a month now, and they're like dropping like flies out here. They tried to run away from the war but... I guess it caught up with them."