Winter’s Remnants

glimmers of spring in the air passing out of winter there is a gentleness in transition a beauty in the remnants of winter      

@ficlelis

The objective was not difficult to find. Not with her habit of attending literature readings by prominent Indian professors. 

The locale for the current reading was full of excess. Female noncombatants in shining fabric and clutches, men in suits and graspable nooses, as if so content to strut the ballroom with a length of fabric synched so tightly around their throats. The women were no better, so constantly adorned with chains and jewels, little thought given to how simple it would be for a hostile to fist a hand in the shining extent and jerk, a simple snap.

Just more evidence that Volke was immersed in a world that he yet failed to understand in any meaningful way.

Not that such evidence didn’t forever abound, though Volke was not so incapable as to be distracted by his own lacks. Instead he narrowed the area of his scope, closing in on the objective as she stepped from a cab a street over.

The objective had company for the evident, a large man stepping beside her as they made for a side alley that turned to the left, spanning through the midst of the buildings, until it let out on the event’s brightly lit block.

Volke debated, always disliked to terminate a target within reach of a non-combatant. Seemed messy, imprecise.

He did not have to worry, for the man darted back to the vehicle a moment later, the objective’s shadow protruding from the inner midst of the alley. Volke wasted no more time, saw that she must be standing just beyond the back corner of the building, and fired. The bullet passed easily through the two layers of brick, if inescapably skewed. An adjustment Volke had evidently accurately prepared for, as a moment later the shadow shifted, and the objective fell forward, a dark hole tucked up against her hairline.

Not so accurate as his father would have been, but Volke have never really expected to emulate that talents of such a man.