Stars are lights that guide the way

The moon fades and then hides itself. After that comes a moment of darkness. There is nothing more wonderful than darkness. I crouched from my position in the tree, ignoring the urge to move them legs. Damn, I was stiff from having to sit so long in that dang tree. And we don’t get a decent meal until Friday. A rustling in the bushes. Forgetting the food, I put the crosshair to my eyes, locked and loaded. A helmet popped out. Or more importantly, a helmet on top of a human head. The rush of adrenaline as the trigger is pulled. One shot, one kill. The soldier drops dead, a bullet to the brain. I give myself a minute to mourn. That one was young. They were getting younger as the days went by. The dead kept piling up, while the fat old men in their silk shirts talked about the glories of war. How they would talk if they had a dozen bullets lodged in their fat behinds. The image of the Prime Minister, a fat old man kneeling over the operational table, with the surgeon dislodging rounds from his rear end with a jack knife almost caused me to chuckle. Almost. The two things most likely to kill you in war are sound and light. Never make a sound, and never step into the light. There is nothing more wonderful than silence and darkness. Because all the things you do under cover of silence and darkness are not discovered. God doesn’t judge lives in war, we do.
A shot fired. The damn idiot didn’t even bother to silence his weapon. It was like broadcasting to the world that there was fresh meat available. But the shot was close. Too close. A meter to the left and I would be seeing out of his ear hole. Damn. I hate this part. Being a sniper was a fine job. There was considerably less risk than a regular foot soldier. Obviously you needed to be good. If you wasted a shot or if your victim somehow survived, you were in danger. Snipers don’t have the opportunity to move around so much. That’s why they are called snipers. We sit in a spot and pick off enemy troops with great efficiency. There are times, however, where some idiot discovers your spot. Any wise man would move. The last thing you want is semi-automatic weapons pouring rounds in you.
I slowly moved one leg. Then the other. Not a sound made from each movement. I truly am a master at this, killing people and then running away when they find out where I am. I swing himself down from the tree silent as a panther, and always in the darkness. There is nothing more wonderful than silence and darkness. What have we been reduced to? Did God create us to kill our own species? To shun the light and the orchestra of sound that the world produces in favor of a silent and dark world? War is a perversion of nature. I move silently. Now to find that idiot that made me move. That tree wasn’t so bad after all. At least there weren’t thorns or anything. I look up into the sky. It was a clear sky. No stars, and I could not see the moon. Perhaps it was a new moon. Stars are lights that guide and show the way Haley. Those who can’t see the light will lose their way and die. I creep silently. There was the fool. Standing in the middle of the moonlight. Hmm…Was it not a new moon? No matter. I take aim. The rush of adrenaline before pulling the trigger. And pain blossomed in my chest. I had been hit. No need to look. It was a mortal wound.
I fell backwards, his face facing the sky. The stars were shining bright. Funny, they weren’t there a minute ago. Perhaps I really lost my way. Maybe light and noise are more wonderful than silence and darkness. Maybe there is a God after all. Nah, there probably isn’t. Moonlight shines upon the guilty and the innocent alike.