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The sniper didn’t need to close her eyes to see death. It was there in front of her eyes most of the time. The memories never far away. She should be on the open road with Arlington in the rearview mirror, but she had never been good at leaving things behind. Whether wanted or not, the past was haunting, always present, and ready to consume. She felt like a zombie—eyes wide and blank, roving about on autopilot. It was the same way after every kill, though she stupidly expected a different outcome. The anticipated high was never quite achieved. There was no fulfillment of desire, no culmination, no feeling of reward—just a mission set and mission accomplished. Taking life was like attaining a long-desired goal, only to realize reality stripped it of its charm.
She was settled in a corner table at a coffee shop about eight blocks from Wilson Place. There was a TV mounted on a facing wall where the events from that morning were being broadcasted as “Just in.”
She stirred her coffee, watched as the liquid swirled like a mini whirlpool, the cream creating little bubbles. Just like agitated water, around and around, furiously pounding, and currents meeting and reacting. She removed the spoon from the coffee but dropped the piece of cutlery on the table, causing a clatter.
Three groups of people looked over with sharp expressions on their faces. She stared back at them blankly, and they returned to their idle conversations.
Their reactions to a dropped spoon were about the same as the people at the site of the shooting—brief and fleeting. Sure, a crowd liked to hype up disaster, but eventually, folks returned to their own lives, moved on, with little regard for what had taken place. That is unless they were personally touched by the tragedy—and sometimes even so, humans were much like wild animals, feeding off the carcass of misfortune, sucking it bone dry for their own advantages, whatever those may be. This had been quite evident when she had stood at the edge of the police tape with a gathered crowd and had asked one officer what had taken place. In response, like a zombie, his eyes blank, the officer had said, “For your safety, I ask that you stay back.”
The people weren’t saying much, either—at first. Just whispers carried on a breeze, marked with curiosity and suspicion. “I think someone was shot.” “I think there was a sniper.” As time passed, the speakers became self-assured, talking in the definitives, establishing themselves an authority, trying to magnify their own importance. As if they had something meaningful to offer the world with their juicy tidbits of knowledge.
The sniper picked up the spoon again and stirred the coffee. The stainless steel struck against the ceramic mug—clink, clink, clink—and some coffee sloshed over the rim.
The female television newscaster went on about the shooting, but the people in the coffee shop paid her no attention. They were too absorbed in their own trivialities and selfish ambitions.
While the sniper couldn’t hear what was being said on TV, the ticker tape at the bottom read AN ACT OF TERRORISM?
Of course they’d leap there!
That’s how the media always liked to portray unexplained acts of violence. Blame it on a foreign enemy or one who infiltrated themselves onto native soil. Don’t understand something, and it must be an evil entity at work. It was sickening, as was the human condition.
So many of them paranoid, scampering, trying to carve out a life of meaning but failing desperately to reach the mark. The solution was to stop searching for purpose when none existed. The sniper was all too familiar with the unfairness of the world. Enough to know that no matter who was to blame, it didn’t erase the consequences. They rippled out, like water from a stone tossed into water. Spreading…spreading. Some waves caused destruction; others were hardly felt.
The sniper had turned her life around by harnessing the darkness, befriending it, welcoming the churning waves and riding them. She took charge of her own existence, paved her own way. Any lesser person would have been destroyed, broken, a word she couldn’t stand. It was a sweeping label that excused responsibility, though in that context it held some appeal.
She stirred her coffee a few more times, then let the spoon clang to the tabletop again. This time, only one woman looked at her, bearing a scowl and arched brows. Unmoved, she took a slow draw on the coffee, and when she lowered the cup, her eyes landed on the TV screen and the ticker tape.
THE FBI TO INVESTIGATE THE SHOOTING IN ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
The sniper let go of her cup. It hit the edge of the table and smashed to the floor.
Everyone was staring—the sniper could feel it—but her eyes were on the television. Sweat was gathering at the base of her back and neck. If she had any hope of finishing her mission, it was time to move.