Storytime: "Photographer's Spirit, Sniper's Soul"

[Lurkily]

This one was a little grittier than usual.  It's a bit of a contrast with other works.  No fantasy, no sci-fi, and more about what's unexpected in their personality, rather than what's interesting about them. 

This is around the time I began seeking photos for every story, as I noticed stories with a photo got more notice from people searching WordPress for things to read. This photo was not paired with the prompt.  It's surprisingly hard to find a photo of a rifle paired with a photo of hard liquor, especially on wood like that of a bar, that isn't ruined by something like a roll of $100's or a stack of joints.

Written to the prompt: "A photographer and a sniper meet in a bar. Neither is aware of the other’s occupation. They talk about 'how to take the perfect shot'."

Photographer’s Spirit, Sniper’s Soul

I looked at the mirror across the bar and surveyed the damage. The youthful man looking back at me was a mess.  My hair was full of dust; from the explosions, from the powdered concrete of ruined buildings, and from the ever-present road dust.  You couldn’t escape it.  The caked mud on my face was where the dust in the air had mixed with a bloody scrape.  I sipped at the beer in my hands – the first I had found in a week – and sighed, savoring this respite from the chaos.

My companion was a more grizzled man.  He looked like he was used to conflict.  His hair was cropped shorter than mine, a week of beard went unnoticed by any razor, and a jagged, torn scar snaked along the line of his jaw like a disfiguring rope.  “You’re new to this, ain’tcha?”

“It’s my first time ‘in it.’  I took some fantastic shots, but . . . it’s chaos out here.  This country is a wreck.”

He smiled, putting an empty glass down, and the bartender refilled it with an amber liquid that smelled like kerosene. “Y’get used to it.  Learn to function in chaos, or go home.  Got some good shots myself.  See that bell tower up there?” He pointed through the window – a church steeple was visible from a few blocks away.  The top of it had been destroyed, leaving only a broken wall, and the crumbling stub of a staircase. “Before they secured the city, got some of the best shots of my life up there.”

I turned back to my beer and sipped, sighing. “Must be nice.  All that elevation, just you and the wind.”

“Forty-x magnification.  You could see the whites of their eyes.”

I imagined it – the wind on your face, able to look down into the crowd, picking out individuals without worrying about them seeing you and changing their behavior, ruining a careful shot. You could practically read their mind if you could see their expression. “That’s serious magnification. It’s always best when they’re unaware. You can anticipate the moment, frame your shot two steps ahead.”

He gestured with the cup, pointing past it at me. “You know how it is. You pick your place, and you look for your shot. Sometimes you don’t get a thing, sometimes you just get the one perfect shot, and sometimes everything you do is golden.”

I nodded, knowing the feeling. “The day before yesterday, I was attached to some local forces guarding the west road. No visibility at all, just blown dust. Yesterday, though, the wind was up, it cleared the dust, and I was death itself.” I picked up my rifle and rested the forestock against my shoulder. I let my hand drift over the scope.  I had too much respect for the scope’s alignment to touch it; instead, I caressed the air millimeters from the glass and metal.

His brow furrowed, shock and horror creeping into his eyes. “You’re . . . talking about killing people.”

Confused, I looked up to meet his gaze. “. . . what are you talking about?”

[Kitten]

I love this! Was a joy to read!

[Lurkily]

Thank you!  I've been posting all my short fiction, bit by bit, over here.  I had quite a lot of fun with some of it.  "Storytime" prefixes all my submissions like this, so you could easily search them if you want more.  We're catching up with the current day, though.  I have fifty or sixty bits of short fiction bouncing around, but have been limiting my posting here to the stuff I feel the best about.

How many cats do you have?

[Jojo]

This is cool. I would have preferred if the ending was more of a mystery. Like we wouldn't know who the sniper was except maybe through very careful reading, but apart from that little thing this is great

[Lurkily]

In this one, there is a fairly obvious idea of who should be who that I turn on its head. The sniper has the youth, the unfamiliarity with chaos, even the artistic mind. I think if I were ambiguous, the reader would just conclude that they knew the answer, and it was a dull story. 

I could be more ambiguous about which is which, but I'm a big fan of internal contradictions in a character, and I feel like those contradictions couldn't be as interesting if I left the question open - mystery and confusion are never far apart. 

Do you still disagree? I'm open to trying a rewrite of this with a different goal, if you have a different imagining of the story. 

[Jojo]

I don't see how making it ambiguous would make it boring. I would love to analyze and imagine just thinking my own story, reading between the lines. That is why I would like the mystery. You don't have to rewrite it

[Lurkily]

Not change this, but write another.   I just feel like I'd have to remove or mitigate a lot of what might make them interesting, so there isn't an answer that appears more correct. A distinctive personality has a lot of clues, and whether it's the right answer or not, you can't have an answer that appears correct. 

[Lurkily]

I guess what I'm really getting at, is I'm curious how this story would play out, because I'm not sure I can see a way through it. 

[Kitten]

Quote

How many cats do you have?

I have a one bengal cat, named Sir Maxwell Fitz Shogun. I have an outdoor cat named Anubis and he's adorable! We're planning on getting another bengal cat that is a white female. I also foster a ton of cats and have a cat door on my bedroom door! owo

[Lurkily]

Two bengals?  I hear they're a handful.  I guess they can keep each other company, though.

[Jojo]

11 hours ago, Lurkily said:

I guess what I'm really getting at, is I'm curious how this story would play out, because I'm not sure I can see a way through it. 

If you are curious about it go ahead I would never tell anybody what to write (because that usually doesn't end in good results)

[Lurkily]

Story commissions CAN work, but you really need to find an author who's good at commissions for that kind of thing.  It takes a certain kind of mind, I think.

[Jojo]

2 hours ago, Lurkily said:

Story commissions CAN work, but you really need to find an author who's good at commissions for that kind of thing.  It takes a certain kind of mind, I think.

Agreed. Personally I think I wouldn't be horrible at it becaue I usually can find about anything that excites me in a story. I can imagine though that story comissions are quite hard for both side because writing is very personal and finding a ground of what the writer likes and the customer cannot be easy