Existential Sniper

~ short story

The bullet was in the chamber.

A heart beat its last.

~

For her, it always began with the same question: does anyone deserve to die?

~

This time it was a politician. Or a warlord, depending on your perspective.

~

Death is the finale. Bullets and blades change the course of history. There is no recourse with a fatality, no turning back from the path of that darkness. The final solution to a person-sized problem.

~

She’d never missed her mark. Not once.

~

And yet no crime, no injustice, perhaps no evil, is truly eternal, non-temporary. A bad man can become good. It had happened many times. It might be difficult, near impossible — but never say, well never. There was always a chance.

And so, death can be considered an easy answer but perhaps never the right one. For to end another man’s life is to deny him the chance to see the light, escape his own darkness, right his wrongs and come out better for the passage. Perhaps, to kill is to become a piece of the very darkness you hope to quell in the action. Lest we forget, a Kill creates a Killer.

~

One shot. One kill. In reality, the machine did all of the work: the scope, the barrel, the bullet. The hard part was getting to the spot.

~

These questions always came to mind before she pulled the trigger. Before she put down another “bad one”, as she had done now for many years. She was good at it and it was how she made a living. Initially, she believed in the mission. These aspects could not be ignored. However, that didn’t make it easier. The lives taken were never easy to hold. And even after all these years, she was never truly free of their weight. It seemed the sharper her skills became, the more insightful and ponderous she became on the nature of what her own hands were doing. Counterintuitive perhaps, but inevitable. The nature of her work forced her to be hyper-aware. This had bled into her internal moral considerations of each and every job. Nothing was simple and none of them were easy. But it wasn’t her call to make, she knew that most of all.

~

She always paid attention to the aftermath. Watched the news, read the papers. Against her better judgment, she wanted to know what her work meant. This one would be no different.

~

And so, despite the turmoil and the eternal questions, the sights were trained in and the triggers pulled. Every single time.

~

She tightened her grip. Eye closed, she trained in. Holding her breath, she released.

~

She did not blink now, or ever before. She only needed the one moment. The musings, the continuous considerations on the art, they were the only cost thus far. There were always endings, but still no resolution.

~

The target dropped. Shortly thereafter, she was in the wind.

~

Always, the same question:

What becomes of a killer’s soul? ~