Damp Morning

      Jesse finished his cigarette and stamped it out. It was a cold winter morning, although it was eleven o’ clock, it was foggy and damp and uncomfortable in general. He didn’t mind though, he never minded.

He casually checked the bolt in his 7mm rifle, although an efficient weapon, it wouldn’t have been his first choice, but he was hired and given a weapon to do the job and it was best not to question it. He was under strict orders to do this job quickly and efficiently, without any complications to slow down his getaway. Kill and get out, a simple directive that rarely bothered him and frequently paid well.

 There was his target, just like his source had told him. He didn’t have a problem with his profession, killing. It was the only thing that he had really ever been able to understand, it was quick and it was definite. There was no uncertainty about it. He had once been an accomplished man, in his country’s military. He was proud of his accomplishments as a man who had once helped defend his country. He didn’t like to think of himself as a man who took life, he instead liked to think of it as trying to make a living.

He let out a deep sigh, he considered lighting another cigarette to calm his nerves, but he had been considering trying to quit smoking and decided not to. He went back to his personal thoughts. Somewhere, he had a son, he had had a wife as well but she had not wanted his trouble. He missed his Jacob, he missed the way that he laughed, he missed the way he cried, he missed everything about his son. His thoughts were pleasant ones about his family and the time (no matter how short it might have been) that they had spent together. He wished that he could find a way to get his old life back, his life of normality and trust, not this life of grey areas,  no rest,  and constant fear that he might be caught at any given time. But all these thoughts were foolish ones, and he was a professional who tried to rise above sentimentality in order to perform the task he had been assigned.

It now dawned on him that he had wasted precious time in his thoughts, his target was still there though, his life of grey areas still waiting on him. He, without putting thought into it, lined up the target in his scope and pulled the trigger. He walked away that day thirty-thousand euros richer, and he convinced himself that it had been worth taking a human life in order to obtain it. But it was his sincere hope that he could, someday, have a normal life again.