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“Dirty” Dirk Hardly has always enjoyed working as a sniper, but his life seems to have taken a dramatic -and very confusing- turn for the worst.
* * * “
Dirty” Dirk Hardly is sitting alone in a bright, sterile, windowless room wearing bloodied military fatigues. Everything in the room is white - chairs, table, floors, walls, and doors. Not eggshell white, cream, ivory, Navajo white, vanilla, ghost-white, or baby powder. Just old-fashioned white.
Someone has laid out a large plastic sheet in the middle of the floor, the kind used in Mafia movies when they are about to kill someone but don’t want to clean up the mess.
As near as he can recall, a few seconds, an hour, or a whole year ago, ‘Dirty’ was strolling along on the side of a busy dirt road in [redacted] Middle East when a US military jeep broke formation, veered to avoid an IED, and crashed into him.
He worked as a military sniper. And a damn good one. Each work day he would roll out of bed, throw on his uniform, choke down some shit coffee, pick up his gun, and head to the fifth floor of an old apartment building and wait for targets, whether “terrorists,” civilians going to get water, or heading to the Mosque at 5:00 AM.
He took pride in a job well done. There was no wasted ammo; no one left screaming all night like you see in the movies; he showed up for work on time; never left early; and only occasionally fell asleep on the job!
Everyone loved his ‘gallows humor.’ Like the time Timmy Tee read a letter from his wife saying she had ‘dumped him,’ and he gave everyone the official nod, and walked straight into the head without saying a word. Without missing a beat, Dirk said: “Looks like he has gone to have a toaster bath.” And it was true! It blew a fuse, and the power was out for 25 minutes. For the entire base!
Woman: It sounds like you made the best of things.
Christ. Suddenly, a guy and a woman are sitting at his table. They are wearing white robes. Not fancy Egyptian robes, either. Just plain bathroom robes. Hell, maybe he’s dreaming.