Love and War

A Story by Ashley

A paper written in response to The Sniper. A short story i read in english.

A woman hurriedly walks down the moonlit, empty alley, scouring the rooftops in hopes to find her estranged lover, She knows that this is not the best idea she has had, to walk the streets of Dublin during one of the biggest wars of her time, in the middle of the night at that. None of that matters to her though.

She has a tattered shawl wrapped around her head and shoulders, only letting her eyes show through. She does this for the hope that if she is caught after curfew, they might mistake her as an elderly woman, and spare her life. Yet, war is unpredictable, and the only thing she could do was pray.

An armored car clambers past her in the ally, its headlights bathing her in their glow. Startled, she quickly moves out of the lights path, and looks into the passenger side of the car, wondering if he was in there. She only saw her reflection in the window.

When the car has passed, she feels the gust of wind that it brought with it begin to seep into her bones, making her shiver. Scared, she begins to walk at a faster pace, wishing she would have stayed back at home, instead of trying to be brave. There was no turning back now though. Home means walking to the other side town. She decided to finish what she started and continued walking down the alley.

Clouds pass over the full moon, masking the alley in darkness. She stops in her tracks for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the pitch black. As she is at a stand still, she hears a muffled shot echoing in the alley. She doesn’t know if it came from the alley, but she decides to not risk it and wraps the shawl tighter around her, and briskly walks towards the flickering street lamp at the end of the alley.

She reaches the street lamp, realizing that she was actually on the main street now. She looked down towards the south, and knows that if she takes that road straight, she could make it home. She sighs, and looks at the abandoned factory across the street. Atop, she sees a shadowy figure, and makes out his silhouette to be that of her lovers.

She looks around the street for any kind of help, and sees the armored car parked just a few yards away from her. She practically trips over her feet as she runs to the car, tapping the driver’s side window when she reaches it.

“How may I help you miss?” a man with a heavy English accent asks as he rolls the window down only about half way, just enough so she can see his eyebrows. Her body went numb with terror as she realized this could be the enemy. One wrong thing said, and she could surely be murdered.

“My husband…” she mumbles, her voice almost silent like the night. “Excuse me?” he responds, leaning over a little bit so he can hear her. She points up at the roof of the abandoned factory murmuring, “Him, my husband.” Hoping he understands what she means.

The man, assuming this woman is not one of the enemy, gets out of his car to see exactly what she is pointing at. He opens the door, and peers into the darkness, not seeing anything. He turns to the woman, to tell her that there is nobody on top of the building, when he is shot in the head.

The woman’s scream is ear piercing, and she begins to run back towards the alley that she came from, but it is too late. She is not even ten feet in front of the car, before she herself is shot in the head, and falls onto the empty street.

The man feels elated, happy to have killed more of the enemy. He peers down, taking one last look at his accomplishment, and walks away, making his way down the building. He doesn’t know though, that when he gets down there, he will find his wife lying in the street, not the enemy.