Born Like This

The Brazilian raises his left hand from the stock of his rifle to the rosary around his neck. He squeezes the wooden crucifix, the body of Christ presses into the black patent leather of his fingerless glove. He mumbles a short prayer but stops midsentence when he hears the sounds not coming from the east. What was eight minutes of continuous gunfire is now nothing more than the sound of the wind stirring up the dust in the valley.

Eileen asks the Brazilian if it is safe. He drops the crucifix, letting it bounce against his desert camouflage jacket. He rubs his fingers through his thick black curls.

“Don’t know.”

There was so much gunfire, all different types of rounds, all from different directions. As soon as one stopped firing another began.

Eileen brushes her fingers along the pocket of her beige suit, feeling the metal lighter in her pocket, reminding herself that it is still there. “How many do you think there were?”

“Não. Maybe…five or seís.”

Too many for it to stop so abruptly. He thinks they must be using some sort of radio communication. He never saw where the shots were coming from, just the fallen bodies of his fellow soldiers. These are not insurgents they’re dealing with, not if they’re this coordinated. But they can’t be Americans either; the ceasefire is still in effect.

Eileen rubs her thumbs against each other and her right leg begins to twitch. The Brazilian touches the black earpiece on his right ear. He calls the Sergeant, his only commanding officer now that the Lieutenant has been shot. He calls him first in English, then in Spanish and once more in Portuguese. The last friendly chatter on his earpiece ended right before the shooting began; now all he hears is static. The Brazilian looks at the tiny blue screen attached to the stock of his assault rifle.

There’s a little cross in the center and every three seconds a white pulse radiates from the middle to reveal any warm bodies in the vicinity. There are no dots on the screen but the Brazilian knows that this doesn’t mean anything anymore. If the detector were still working properly he would at least be able to see himself and Eileen on the screen.

“Maybe we should find some place to hide.” Eileen keeps brushing back her frizzy blonde hair. It doesn’t seem to want to stay put.

“Lemme…lemme jus think for a second.”

The Brazilian looks at his screen once more and then back at the empty shacks and broken windows of the deserted town. He looks forward where the foot of the cliff forms the opening to the valley. The wind picks up even more until a small cyclone of brown dust rises to the height of the cliff.

“The rendezvous is a…how you say…tres kilometers outside of the town, we will be safe there.”

They both begin to walk toward the foot of the cliff. The wind blows the dust in their direction, the Brazilian squints his eyes and Eileen covers her face. The roar of the wind is so loud the Brazilian almost doesn’t hear the voice behind them, screaming in Spanish and English to drop his weapon.

“¡Entrégate! Surrender or you will be fired upon!”

Eileen freezes midstride. She lowers her head, staring at the ground as she slowly raises her hands. The Brazilian does not respond at first. He considers running, but when he glances at Eileen he decides not to. There’s nowhere to hide in the desert anyway. He bends his knees and gently sets his rifle on the desert floor; the wind blows some of the tiny pebbles over the barrel.

“Now step away from the civilian!”

The Brazilian looks at Eileen for a moment, but she doesn’t turn her head. Slowly he raises his hands and walks to the right without looking back.

“Faster! Move your ass, let’s go!”

The Brazilian picks up the pace, he is about ten steps away from Eileen before the voice tells him to stop.

“Now turn around and face me, slowly.”

The Brazilian keeps his hands at ear level as he turns, his boots crushing the sand and stone beneath his soles as he takes several baby steps toward his left. His eyes are focused on the ground in front of his feet. When the voice tells him to stop the Brazilian slowly lifts his eyes until he sees the rifle the gunman is holding, black finish with a silver scope and a sound suppressor attached to the barrel just like his own.

“Okay,” says the Brazilian, “I give up.”

Three shots strike the Brazilian in his chest before he falls to the ground. The Brazilian coughs and gasps for air. He tastes copper in the back of his throat. One of the bullets must have torn through his lung, he thinks. Each breath fills his chest cavity with air. He feels his lungs collapsing as the gunman walks toward him, the rifle at his hip with the barrel aimed in his direction. The Brazilian reaches for the service pistol, a forty-five caliber handgun, holstered on his right leg above his knee. As soon as his fingers touch the grip of the weapon the gunman fires three more shots. The first shot hits Brazilian in the shoulder. The second one strikes him in his collarbone causing him to tilt his head back while the third bullet enters his skull through the bottom of his jaw.

the bullet rips through the Brazilian’s

tongue and shatters the

bone at the roof of

his mouth. as the

bullet passes through his

temporal lobe his mind takes

him back to the

beaches of

Rio de Janeiro.

it is the week after the Brazilian’s thirteenth

birthday, he is an altar boy and wants to

become a priest when

he grows up.

he is on his way to the

marina where he is going to spend this

week’s pay

at the ice cream stand.

the bullet caresses

his hypothalamus

while he walks barefoot through the

sand

the sun

warming his

naked shoulders.

the Brazilian is holding

the hand

of the same brown skinned

girl who in three

years will give

birth

to his first daughter.

their fingers are

intertwined

he rubs his thumb across hers.

her skin is soft.

there are no

clouds

in the sky when

the bullet pushes through

his corpus

callosum.

when he looks out into

the

ocean

he can see the cruise

ships far off

in the faded

blue

horizon

his sweat makes the wooden

crucifix

of his rosary

cling

to the center of his chest.

the girl leans over and

kisses him

on his right cheek

her kiss is

wet

the Brazilian

smiles

and the bullet pushes through his cerebral cortex.

he can smell the girl’s

hair

when she

kisses him

the scent reminds

him of the

lavender oil

his mother burns with

candles

in their apartment

on

Sunday evenings.

He’s never noticed it before

The bullet exits the top of the Brazilian’s skull, leaving tiny fragments of itself inside his frontal and parietal lobes. Eileen stares at his body lying on its back in the dirt, his lips curled back over his teeth making it look like he has a smile on his face.

“You! Get down on your knees and put your hands on the back of your head!”

Eileen forgets where she is for a moment. The look on the dead Brazilian’s face reminds her of her husband after they finish having sex. She turns her head when she realizes the gunman is talking to her.

“Down on your fuckin knees! Let’s go!”

Eileen falls to her knees, the pebbles digging into her shins as she puts her hands on the back of her head. She hears the sound of the gunman’s shoes crushing the pebbles as he approaches them. Her body numbs when she sees the gunman’s black running shoes and the cuffs of his black jeans.

“Look at me.”

She lifts her head and sees a worn leather jacket, it might have been black at one point but it is now just an odd shade of brown. The cuffs around his sleeves are falling apart, a single brown string is dangling down toward the finger on the trigger of the rifle. Underneath the jacket the gunman is wearing a dark blue sweatshirt with the hood hanging out of the back. Beneath the sweatshirt is a thin black vest. She recognizes the vest’s material from her work. It’s made from a tightly woven fabric stretched over a lightweight bullet-proof ceramic material, the same kind which Rolls Royce plc uses to coat the bodies of their latest line of unmanned-air-vehicles. It isn’t yet available for purchase by civilians. She wonders how he managed to get it molded into a vest.

In his left hand the gunman is holding a small black rectangular device. He touches the screen with his fingers and the digital clicking noise it makes lets Eileen know that it’s a camera. She stares into the gunman’s face as he watches the screen of his device. He is wearing a dark gray skull cap, just like the one Longhorns was wearing she thinks, only there are no messy tufts of hair sticking out from this one. His nose and mouth are covered by a black bandanna with little white decorations scattered around it.

“Hold still.”

On the screen of the gunman’s device the photograph he had just taken of Eileen’s face is paired up with another photo, the woman in this second photograph is wearing a dark blue business suit with her hair fixed neatly in a bun. Her blue eyes appear much brighter and there is a smile on her face just big enough to show her white teeth. Little green dots connected by green lines appear on the faces of both women, forming a grid that begins flashing when the word MATCH appears on the bottom.

The gunman tucks the device into a holster on his belt and raises his gloved hands to his face. He pulls down the bandanna and Eileen can see a thin mustache connected to a goatee. His skin is the color of false wood, the same kind that lined the desks in her dorm room at MIT.

“On your feet,” he says, “let’s get the fuck outta here.”

let's switch it up. i'm working on a long-short story for my short story collection and I really need honest feedback (don't care if it's long or short, just as long as it's true) so for everyone who leaves me feedback, I'll return the favor by critiquing a fiction piece of yours. just drop me a pm. peace to all the gods and planets.