“What is this?” the boy asked Bob, intrigued by it. Bob, who was sitting in his armchair, used its wheels to push himself, “Ah yes! It has been there since this morning! An elegant man left it. He was wondering where you were! I had to tell you, but I forgot to do it. Sorry!” Jerry did not hesitate to open the envelope and pull the sheet out. He read it quickly, and then put it back inside its envelope without noticing some flight tickets inside.
That same evening, after work, Jerry went home, he dined and finally opened the envelope. He pulled the sheet out and began to read with much more attention than that morning. The sheet had an invitation to take part in a special lecture in Washington that was coordinated by the U.S. government and New NASA Corporate. The letter suggested that inside the envelope there were two flight tickets that Jerry would use to reach the capital city of America.
The following day the young biologist’s mind was distracted. He thought of the letter that he had received the day before, but the most persistent thought was about his colleague Isabel. Just Isabel. Jerry was in college when he first had a crush on her. They were at the same biology class and since he caught her attention, he was immediately fascinated by her. Her skin was pale, she had cold eyes and fiery hair; he was skinny and clumsy just like an overachiever can be, but the sense of protection that he felt for her let him be quite funny. A beautiful friendship was born between them. Jerry, who had just awakened and was sitting on his bed, began to think about Isabel and how he could declare his love for her. This scene repeated itself punctually almost every morning. Just like every day, though, he was as much afraid of his feelings not being reciprocated as he was in love with her. But he got ready for going to the institute. He came into his workplace and greeted Tim, as he always did. Tim was a man in his sixties and he was the reception supervisor.
“Good morning, Tim! How are you?” Jerry asked the man that was standing behind a glass slab in front of the entrance of the complex. He, who could see him reciprocate his greetings but could not hear him from behind the glass, smiled and took the lift. Just as the doors were about to close, a hand avoided it. It was Isabel, who entered and went close to the boy immediately.
“Hey, hi! You disappeared yesterday… and I… you know… I need to tell you something!” the girl cried out in excitement. Her words upset Jerry, who could not imagine anything.
“Exactly! Yesterday I had a thing to do and I had to go away, you know…” Jerry answered with a little embarrassment.
“What did you need to tell me?” he asked her.
“There’s a person that fascinates me so much, but he may not know about this thing!” Isabel cried out. In the meantime, the lift doors had opened.
“This is our plan…,” Jerry said.
“How do you know that he doesn’t like you?” the boy kept on asking; he was in a hurry, as if he had had to take the train and had been late. He walked towards his office as if he were in the grip of an anxiety attack.
“Hey, is anything okay?” Isabel asked him. She changed her attitude for a while.
“It’s almost like you’re running away from me,” she added.
“No… it isn’t so… Why? Is there anything strange in me? Not at all…,” Jerry mumbled.
“Oh, okay! Anyway, you may know him well…,” Isabel kept on saying. Her excitement was back and Jerry was much more upset. He almost exploded due to the beats of his heart.
“I’m talking about Franz! Isn’t he one of your co-workers? Could you put in a good word?” Isabel asked him. Those words took the wind out of his sails. Actually, what Jerry had always hoped would never realize. He wanted that girl to be forever his, but she wanted to be with one of his colleagues, the one who, by the way, was a complete idiot. This fact destroyed all what he had imagined till then. His heart seemed to have stopped for a few seconds and the young biologist looked stunned. He stared into space.
“Oh Jerry! Jerry! Hello? Is anything okay?” He could hear the girl wondering, but her voice seemed far away and barely audible as if she were a few dozen feet away. Then he came round all of a sudden.
“Hmm… yeah! I’ll do what I can… I have to go before Bob blows the whole building up! See you around, Isabel!” Jerry said, walking over to his lab while Isabel was just standing there, looking at him and watching him with much puzzlement.
Phoenix, Arizona.
The day was sultry. The sun shone making the rocks, the ground and even the air incandescent. Everything would seemingly burn at any moment. A rattle snake stirred looking for semidarkness on some rocks to protect itself from the heat that surrounded the firing range where a platoon of PFCs was about to fire. Metal targets, which were a bit rusty, were there, incandescent, waiting for being shot by the bullets shot from the weapons of those young soldiers who were on the hills one mile away from them. Ten Marines that were led by their Chief Master Sergeant Lucas Douglas were getting ready to take point.
“Down, everybody! Take point!” the sergeant told them, so they all obeyed and took their own points, lay down and loaded the sniper rifle and waited for him to give the signal to commence firing. Lucas Douglas, for his part, took it easy before giving the signal. They waited for his signal several minutes. He had been used to the Arizona blistering sun since he had been serving in that helluva place for more than twenty years and he knew that he had to make them – the ones that he considered as the runts of the litter – understand that life in the army was not a game and that it would lead them to difficult decisions and exhausting waits under very hard conditions. Lucas Douglas, who was an Afro-American big-hearted, high-spirited man in his sixties and a very hard worker, too, was there today. He meant to get the best out of his seven men and his three women who were waiting for him to order them what to do. Some of them were getting impatient; others were already covered with sweat but no order had been given yet. The sergeant’s wait appeared to be intentional… He only had to yell the soldier’s name and this one would fire a shot. But he had not done anything so far. After getting a big glass of lemonade off a table under a nearby sunshade, the Chief Master Sergeant took a quick glance at the troop and immediately got an idea of whom would do one’s work well during that intense workday. He grabbed his binoculars and watched the faraway silhouettes, and then he yelled out, “MONTGOMERY!”
He barely uttered the whole name when a rumble caused by the gunshot pierced the air. The silence of the valley was replaced by the screeching of the bullet that shot the metal silhouette right on its right shoulder.
“Well done, Montgomery! Next time aim at its head!” The sergeant’s heavy voice directed its words to the young man, who murmured to himself in a low tone of voice, “What am I supposed to have aimed at?” He was a bit disappointed. He started watching the silhouettes from the monocle of the rifle.
“PINCHER!” the Chief Master Sergeant shouted again and another shot was fired by the soldier who missed the target completely and ended up behind the metal silhouettes among gravel and cobbles under Lucas Douglas’ gaze.
“Pincher! You did fucking miss it completely! You wouldn’t even be able to shoot the ass of an elephant sitting right in front of you!” the sergeant exclaimed, which elicited a smile from a few fellow soldiers. The guy that had shot, who was a bit angry and disappointed, did not laugh, but stood there and waited for further instructions. The soldiers, who were waiting for their own calls, took their own points again in the blistering sun. One of them was Emily Parker, a young soldier with light brown hair and brown doe eyes. A drop of sweat ran down her forehead to her right eye, the one that she was not using for looking through her monocle. She tried to
