Time to Hunt

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We are in the presence of a master sniper.

He lies, almost preternaturally still, on hard stone. The air is thin, still cold; he doesn’t shake or tremble.

The sun is soon to rise, pushing the chill from the mountains. As its light spreads, it reveals fabulous beauty. High peaks, shrouded in snow; a pristine sky that will be the color of a pure blue diamond; far mountain pastures of a green so intense it rarely exists in nature; brooks snaking down through pines that carpet the mountainsides.

The sniper notices none of this. If you pointed it out to him, he wouldn’t respond. Beauty, in nature or women or even rifles, isn’t a concept he would recognize, not after where he’s been and what he’s done. He simply doesn’t care; his mind doesn’t work that way.

Instead, he sees nothingness. He feels a great cool numbness. No idea has any meaning to him at this point. His mind is almost empty, as though he’s in a trance.

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