[Critique Group 2] Emailing: The Capricious Face of Fate- for 3-25-21 critique session.

[James]

The Capricious Face of Fate: flash fiction
C By Brad Corallo
Word count 604

Wednesday2030 hours

He waited. Crouching in the lush jungle undergrowth. Slowly he refined the
aim of his long range sniper's rifle. Adjusting the precision night vision
laser sight until he had the target in his crosshairs. His target was a
combination fuel dump and ammunition storage magazine. Actually not the most
brilliant plan for the distribution of resources he fleetingly thought. But,
the enemy was not known for their brains. At least, that's what he had
always been told. His state of the art rifle shot high velocity shells which
then exploded inside targets scattering cascades of burning phosphorus. It
had been developed solely for the purpose of igniting anything which would
result in disastrous fires and on lucky days, devastating explosions. 

He took a deep breath, pulled the trigger and seconds later all hell broke
loose. A vast section of the surrounding jungle was engulfed in a blazing
firestorm. His next imperative was to hall butt out of there and reconnect
with his Special Forces team. Though he took nothing for granted in his
surreptitious missions, he had to admit that he had created one hell of a
diversion to aid his escape. 

Dusk was rapidly turning into night, he wore excellent cammo, and the enemy
was not well supplied with night vision technology. Stealthily he began to
move southwest from his sniper's nest. He followed a path he had carefully
created with bits of fluorescent tape that he had applied to trees as he
entered. He had about a mile to cover before reaching the beach where he
would unearth his under water power sled, and make a tricky invisible
retreat to the vessel that awaited him. He was one of four operatives from
the team who had been assigned highly specific clandestine missions.

When all had returned to the transport vessel, it would activate its
incredibly powerful engine and hall ass back to the Fire Hawk warship that
awaited them safely and legally in international waters. Then once back in
port, he could finally get a break from: the heat, dirt, insects and could
put away huge quantities of astoundingly good Scotch whisky. He could almost
taste it. 

Saturday 2330 hours

The city of our allies where he was on leave was a bustling, dirty,
sprawling settlement which was more like a large disorganized squatters'
encampment than an actual city. The place was the repository for hundreds of
soldiers from various countries who were on well-deserved leave. The traffic
was legendary! There were many merchants and hustlers all over the city that
offered a bewildering array of pleasures and entertainments. In military
circles, the place was known as Paradise Lost.

As our intrepid sniper exited a famous, glitzy, stripper bar, much the worse
for wear, he held the hand of a stunning local bar girl. They were headed
back to the tiny apartment that she shared with 3 other girls. 

They were paying much attention to each other and very little to their
surroundings. Suddenly our sniper felt an enormous impact and was instantly
catapulted into the air. The battered, ancient, nondescript car accelerated
away.  . In that moment, the absurdity of his life echoed through his mind
like the tones of a grimly tolling bell. His rapidly falling body was
impaled on the points of an ornamental iron fence enclosing a small park.
The young lady, shaken but uninjured, made her way home alone. She purposed
to try the same bar tomorrow night. Perhaps she would make enough money to
buy a couple days worth of food this time. 

jamesstarfire at gmail.com  
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