Smelly scenes for Sailaja

The air smelled of gunpowder. And shit rotten shit that had sat around for months without decomposing away, farting out gas in amounts excess enough to burn down an iceberg. Sailaja coughed. They had warned her about this, they called it a quaint and rural area with a heart for explosive fun. She had failed to grasp the full significance of the 'explosive'. Ah well. Nothing she hadn't really seen before. The malodorous mix of the two smells of mayhem was new to her still but now she could claim to have seen and smelt everything.

The thick brown haze that seeped into the tightest corners blanketing the ares, nasty as it was, added quite a character to dusk and dawn. She looked at the jagged mountains from where the Sun had just peeked out. She had never seen sky this shade of bright orange-yellow. She would buy it if she were told it were a scene out of a robotic lander on Venus. At least we have the pretty sunsets and sunrises. A technique to ground yourself from being overwhelmed was to count the things you were grateful for. Cool scenery, wild animals sickly as they might be, cheap-ish food. Yeah. That was all the place had to offer. This was a job not a vacation, and as workplaces went you could do a lot worse.

Welcome Sailaja ji! Hope it's been easy for you,  

the Colonel called out loud from behind the Caftan. She looked over at the garden where he stood all sweaty in his jogging clothes, the daily newspaper in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.