The breath is slow, rhythmic, almost musical, from the nostrils the smell of sulfur and dust slowly creeps into his body aching from the position for too many hours, always the same, always the same. He wants to stay lucid, he must do it!
For more than two hours, cadenced hits come from the street, while mortar bombs hit the area in front of the warehouse at the corner.
Scrutinize the avenue on a regular basis following a parallel route, finished the one hundred and fifty meters that lead to a gray roundabout begins the path climbing along the walls of the gutted buildings, every window, every hole could be a threat, but this does not bother him: nobody will survive this life.
An anomalous silence seems to have taken possession of the road, the blows have given way to the rustling of the wind, wonders whether it is a brain deception or if it is already dead and does not know it, but no!
It is impossible to die in the company of his own breath, while a hand touches his shoulder, it is time to slowly turn his head to the right and left trying to release the tension.
As the mind begins counting hands, they leave the plastic handle alternately and stretch, one finger at a time, as if to seek a greater extension of the limits imposed by physiology.
Take a sip from the black tube that smacks of plastic and saliva, hit the sole of a boot with the tip of its own and start the dance again on those one hundred fifty meters of road, on that square in front of the warehouse and along the wide gutted walls, always with the rhythmic breath, always without haste, involving the five senses because it is not necessary only to scrutinize or to feel it is necessary to perceive the intention, to foresee the action, to contain the effect, to neutralize the threat.
Time always runs the same, but expands into its essence, because an account is to imagine the abyss, an account and fix it, without stopping, perceiving every detail, going beyond the limit of the three dimensions and filling it with sounds, smells, tastes, feelings.
All this has a name, a deep sense, but above all a sensor: the sniper's eye.
Andrea Pastore
(photo: Canadian Armed Forces)
