The Bullet

She kept still, checked the window pane again with flitted eyes; still shaded.

Her eyes drifted to the watch on her inner wrist. The motorcade was due. She slid her forefinger into the trigger.

Down below the street was lined with crowds giving those fake cheers.

He’d be standing, she thought, and take her last shot where his falsely gained medals were pinned, his white uniform suddenly marked with red.

Her last shot, she murmured, again. But the shot was not hers. Her last thought, as she lay dying, blood drop rolling from her temple, was how her watch had splintered in her fall.

But it was not the body that the team with the carpet ready to roll her into focused on. Not the type of rifle, or the lack of ID they knew would not be there. It was the message pinned to the open wooden shutter, fluttering too gently in the intermittent wind.