Page 157 - Musings 2022

The Sniper

Tushar Mittal
2019A4PS0496P

Begins with a sniper scope staring at a half broken loose wall nowhere in the middle of a desert.
Then the scene changes to two military officers in which one is the sniper named Robert and

the other is the spotter named James. Both are lying beside a rock with ghillie suits and cover

of some bushes and are staring towards a site of a gas pipeline where the same wall is seen
from a different angle. They are there for almost 22 hours, only drinking water occasionally

and tirelessly keeping an eye on the site. Both of them are covered with dirt, sweat and are tired
and sleepy. Their mission is to spot and neutralise the threat that has killed six workers and two

army personnel constructing the pipeline. There is no cover nearby and the threat is nowhere

to be found.
James, the spotter, seems to be worried about the skills of the threat and mentions about the

killings being headshots. There seems to be a little bit of frustration starting to form in Robert
about the type of threat that has done the killing. Robert believes that the threat was a bunch of

thugs that came in a wagon, but James is thinking it might be a skilled sniper. Finally, James
hesitantly agrees to Robert. Then Robert starts wondering whether the threat is no longer there

or not. After tirelessly staring at the site for almost a day, the sniper, Robert, gets frustrated and

stands up to reveal his location despite multiple attempts of James trying to stop him. Robert
then says look nothing happened to me and starts walking towards the site for reconnaissance

and clearing the site for further work. James, on the other hand, will provide spotting cover and
try to spot the threat. Some banter takes place between them about the rigid walking and body

language of Robert.

After some minutes of walking, he(Robert) finally reaches the pipeline and says there is nothing
here and it is silent as it may. Due to a gust of wind, the binoculars of James get foggy and

nothing can be seen through it. Robert, after reaching the site realises that the threat appears to
be a sniper as all of them are headshots and starts to worry. All of a sudden, a crack sound

breaks the silence and the threat which is now confirmed sniper shot Robert in the back thigh.

He groaned loudly and realised his mistakes and lack of patience as he fell to the ground. He
then called for help from James. He started running to the site wearing a helmet and, in a zig,

-zag manner to deceive the sniper. The sniper shot repeatedly missing several shots. James took
cover of the broken wall in the first scene, just beside the fallen Robert. The sniper now tries

to shoot Robert but fails to do due to a curvy edge of desert. Now after a while of James

157