An hours-long sandstorm in Iraq grounded flights at Baghdad airport and sent hundreds to the hospital. It’s the fifth time sandstorm in the past month.
The sandstorms cause often cause respiratory problems and make transportation difficult, if not impossible. Experts say climate change is to blame, while others point to water mismanagement.
Could you imagine going on forced lockdown for hours at a time, multiple times a month?
Imagine a future dystopia where the desert regions of the Earth extend far out from the equator. Humans are faced with two choices: living in densely populated cold and rainy areas or sparsely populated desert regions.
Part of the world is prone to flooding, and the other is prone to sandstorms.
The story’s main character is the son of a patriarch in the desert, overseeing the well-being of his family and nearby neighbors. At the beginning of the story, we see his father leaving him behind and going to a meeting with a rival clan.
Off-screen, the patriarch and the rival get caught in an intense sandstorm that lasts several hours. Then, the patriarch is never heard from again. The explanation? He was caught in the open during the sandstorm after the meeting and died.
The son finds out that the rival clan member is on his way to his home and runs at his mother’s urging, leaving behind his younger siblings and mother. He ends up in the wet, densely populated regions of the north. We see a fish out of water story, a desert man going into the city.
In short, a reverse Dune.
The young man blends in and works hard, becoming an expert with an ax as he works as a lumberjack.
His life is turned upside down when a messenger from his former home finds him and reports that his mother has died—there’s suspicion that she was murdered. It turns out that the rival clan leader, who took his mother as his wife, is about to make his younger sister his next wife.
Additionally, his father’s murder is confirmed. The sandstorm was a stroke of luck, masking the ambush.
The young man takes off with the messenger in a quest to take back his homeland. He cuts down his rivals with his ax, freeing his subjugated family, and takes his place as the new patriarch.
