sniper

Truth has a resonance to it that fills the cracks where falsehoods lie.

The Sniper must not be susceptible to emotions such as anxiety and remorse,

Bolt actions speak louder than words.

I fell in love with a sniper - a man whose basic training instills psychopathic tendencies. I loved a professional dehumanizer. I loved a man who lived in a world where empathy was suicide. I loved a man who had to be ready to put a bullet through a toddler__ skull if necessary. I loved a man highly skilled in burying his emotions, resurrecting them if and when he chose. I loved a man who saw me as his enemy. I loved a man I was disposable to.

I'd put him in the spot where he got hit. It was my fault he got shot. A hundred kills? Two hundred? More? What did they mean if my brother was dead?

-the apartment had been directly in the sight line of a Serb sniper across the river. Teta-Jozefina was a devout Catholic, but she somehow managed to believe in essential human goodness, despite all the abundant evidence to the contrary surrounding her. She felt that the sniper was essentially a good man because during the siege, she said, he had often shot over her and her husband's heads to warn them that he was watching and that they shouldn't move so carelessly in their own apartment.

Nine people had died today. And it didn't matter what the FBI had thought of her actions. Her career as a negotiator had ended before it had even begun.