Abstract Target

Day 2

The sun had not yet risen above the horizon; dawn was mere moments away.

Taylor, having kept watch all night without blinking, had briefly drifted into sleep. Suddenly, a rustling noise and the creak of an old wooden door in his earpiece snapped him back to full alertness. Vigilant, he gripped his sniper rifle’s stock and carefully scanned the courtyard.

In the gloom of the outer yard, a woman’s silhouette appeared — she was carrying a tea kettle. Stepping softly, she approached the well and poured water into it. Then, dissolving back into the darkness, she re-entered the house.

A moment later, a faint light flickered behind the thin curtain of the window. The woman’s clear shadow was cast against the fabric. For a few seconds, she stood motionless, her posture straight. Then she raised both palms to chest level, folding them together.

Behind his scope, Taylor understood everything. The woman was praying. In the desert silence, at the very epicenter of war, it was a profoundly peaceful and sacred sight.

Having finished her prayer, the woman came outside. She grabbed an old, frayed broom standing against the wall, sprinkled a little water from a bucket over the dusty ground, and began sweeping softly.

After cleaning the yard, she moved to the side of the house, where a couple of posts supporting a piece of slate formed a modest lean-to shed. She gathered a bundle of small twigs from the shed and walked over to a brick hearth. Stacking the wood inside, she placed an old copper kettle on top and kindled the fire.

Before long, the water in the copper kettle began to boil violently. Its lid rattled, and thick steam rising into the darkness became visible.

The woman went inside and returned with a small porcelain teapot. Wrapping a rag around the kettle’s soot-blackened handle, she poured the boiling water into the teapot with a warm gush to brew the tea. Closing the lid, she placed it near the warm ashes at the edge of the hearth to let it steep.

Taylor heard every detail through his microphone, even the sound of boiling water pouring into the teapot. The horizon was gradually brightening.

Taylor opened his own field ration. Tearing the sturdy foil pouch at the designated notch, he poured a little water inside and mixed the meal. Once prepared, he began eating quietly, occasionally taking a sip of water through the rubber hose at his collar.

Down below, the woman by the hearth was starting her impoverished day with hot tea, while on the ridge, the sniper ate his dry ration, his eyes glued to the scope, continuing his watch.

Soon, as the woman sat on the raised wooden bench awaiting her children with brewed tea, her daughter approached, rubbing her eyes. “Mom, what are we going to eat today?” For a mother, this was the hardest question in the world. For days, she had been unable to give her children a proper meal. Their daily sustenance consisted mostly of bitter tea and whatever hard bread remained. By this morning, even that stale bread was gone.

Every other day, she milked their single thin goat for the children, but it was far from enough. Finding feed for even one goat in the middle of a vast desert was nearly impossible. Moreover, the poor woman feared depriving the little kid; she knew that if she milked all the goat’s milk, the young kid would starve, so she could not bring herself to give all the milk to her own children.

Not knowing how to answer, the mother looked down at the ground. “Well, Lalmo, today is the day we milk our goat!” she said, offering comforting encouragement.

“Awesome!” the little girl exclaimed, her eyes sparkling with joy.

Lalmo immediately ran over to the little kid. Stroking its tiny head, she spoke to it in a surprisingly serious tone: “Don’t worry! We’ll save some milk for you too. You get to drink first, then us.”

The woman walked over to the wire-mesh pen. The goat bleated in greeting, and the little kid snuggled against its mother. The woman threw a armful of dry, thorny bushes — which she and Atal had gathered from afar the previous day — behind the wire mesh into the pen. The hungry animal immediately began gnawing at the thorns.

Atal, still groggy, sat down on a brick near the hearth and silently watched his mother’s movements.

“Atal,” his mother said as she lifted the copper kettle off the hearth, “we need to go gather thorns again today. We’re running out of feed.”

“Let’s go to the same place as last time.”

“You’re right, Atal. Where we went last time, there was plenty of brush. Do you remember the way?”

“Yeah, I remember, Mom!”

“In that case, I’ve brewed tea. Drink it, and then go harvest some feed by yourself!”

“Okay,” Atal said softly, staring at the ground with heavy eyelids.

The boy’s exhausted body did not want to make the long journey so early in the morning, but thinking of their situation and the hunger of their goat — their only hope — he could not disobey his mother.

“Just go to that exact spot. Don’t wander off anywhere else and make me worry,” his mother added, unable to hide her anxiety.

The sun climbed high into the sky, scorching the earth even more relentlessly than the day before. The desert air quickly turned dry and oppressive.

On the ridge, Taylor still lay motionless. Though a small bush above provided a sliver of shade, he was soaked in his own sweat beneath his uniform, feeling as though he were boiling in broth. Every breath scorched his lungs with intense heat.

Hours after leaving, Atal’s figure finally appeared in the distance. Carrying a bundle of gathered brush tied in cloth over his shoulder, he stumbled forward with unsteady steps toward the house.

The mother, watching the path from the window, rushed outside the moment she spotted her son. She immediately relieved him of the heavy bundle, and together they carried it into the yard.

Exhausted, Atal lacked even the energy to go inside to rest. Dropping his load, he sat down on the brick by the hearth despite the blazing sun, catching his breath.

His mother picked up an aluminum bowl near the tandoor oven, rinsed it with water from the kettle, and walked toward the pen to milk the goat.

When she arrived, the little kid was nursing from its mother. The woman tried to shoo it away with a stick, but the kid easily ducked aside to the other side of the goat and continued nursing. Seeing this, she drove the kid entirely out of the pen behind the fence. As soon as it was out, she blocked the entrance with the hem of her dress to keep the mother goat from slipping out after it.

Left outside, the little kid bleated endlessly for its mother, pacing frantically back and forth around the pen. Sitting helplessly on the ground, Atal silently watched his mother’s struggle and the kid’s desperate movements.

The woman began milking the goat. The sound of milk striking the bottom of the aluminum bowl with a rhythmic sloshing drew the exhausted boy like a magnet. He listened with his entire soul — to him, there was no sweeter or more beautiful music in the world at that moment. Every drop sounded like a message of salvation to his dry throat and hollow, aching stomach.

The mother milked about a bowl’s worth of milk. She set the bowl atop the well, covered it with a thin cloth, and went inside.

Atal stared intently at the gleaming aluminum bowl. To his eyes, it shimmered like a heavenly blessing, drawing him with irresistible force. Before he realized it, he was standing at the well, holding the bowl in his hands. His heart pounding with fear, he lifted the cloth. Inside was pure, frothy white milk… to him, it looked like a lifelong abundance.

Atal could not resist his hunger. He raised the bowl and began gulping down the milk frantically. He drank with such greed that white drops ran down his cheeks, washing through the dust on his face and dripping onto the dirt.

Just then, the house door creaked open. Atal lowered the bowl slightly. Spotting his mother standing on the threshold, a jolt of shock hit his brain. Realizing what he had done, his trembling hands placed the bowl back onto the well.

“Hey! Boy! What are you doing?!” his mother rushed toward him in panic.

She picked up the bowl and looked inside. Only a few small gulps remained at the bottom. Lalmo’s share of the milk was gone. The woman’s face darkened, her eyes flashing with fury as she grabbed a stick resting against the well.

“What have you done, you foolish child?!” she yelled, swinging the stick at Atal’s back and legs.

Stunned by fear and pain, Atal began running across the yard, weeping loudly.

“I’m sorry, Mom!” he sobbed, his voice choking with tears. Dodging his mother’s strikes, he managed to scramble over the half-ruined wooden fence surrounding the yard.

“Why did you do that?! That milk belonged to your sister too!” the mother cried. Her voice trembled as angry tears gave way to bitterness.

Atal stopped a short distance away. Wiping his tears with dirty hands, his face became a smudge of mud and tears. “But I was the one who brought the brush for the goat! I suffered so much in the desert… Are you really beating me this badly over a single bowl of milk?!” he wailed, his chest heaving.

“Oh really?! You’re boastful now because you fed the goat and gathered brush once?! You only went once!” The woman, lacking the strength to chase him further, sank weakly onto the brick by the hearth. She threw the stick toward Atal as tears streamed down her cheeks. “Ever since your father went off to war, I comforted myself thinking we had a man in the house, a pillar to rely on… But I was wrong. I raised a selfish boy who cares only about his own belly! Thank goodness I don’t have to depend on you!”

His mother’s words — especially the word “selfish” and the mention of his father — stung Atal deeper than any blow from the stick. Standing behind the wooden fence, he felt overwhelming remorse. “Don’t say that, Mom… Forgive me,” he whimpered, filled with regret.

“Don’t you dare step foot back in this house!” the woman snapped, standing up and slamming the door behind her as she went inside.

On the ridge, observing this scene, Taylor pulled out a small notebook from his pocket. He jotted down a brief note: “Head of household — fighting with insurgent forces.” To him, it was merely another piece of intelligence, a cold fact. Finishing the note, he stowed the pad away and resumed monitoring the yard through his scope.

Leaning against the wooden fence, Atal sat on the ground, weeping in silence. Several hours passed in this quiet manner. The boy occasionally walked around the perimeter, but shame and his mother’s words kept him from climbing back over the fence or entering the house.

As afternoon set in, Taylor set his weapon down, pulled out his radio, and contacted base. He relayed the intel that the head of the household was actively fighting alongside the insurgents. Ending the transmission, he reached for his sniper rifle again when his elbow accidentally brushed against his field ration box. The plastic container filled with dry rations tumbled down the steep slope of the ridge.

“Damn it!” Taylor cursed himself. But leaving his position to retrieve a single box of rations was too dangerous. Remembering he had additional reserves in his pack, he didn’t worry further.

He returned to his optic and carefully scanned the yard. Atal, who had been wandering aimlessly near the fence earlier, was nowhere to be seen. Taylor panned his scope back and forth searching for the boy, but found nothing. “He probably moved to the other side of the house,” he thought to himself.

He continued his watch, alternating between scanning the compound through the lens and lying silently with his thoughts in the baking heat. Time in the desert seemed frozen, moving at a agonizing crawl.

Through Taylor’s earpiece, the quiet voices of Lalmo and her mother echoed from inside the house:

“Mom, I’m really hungry. Did you milk the goat?” Lalmo asked.

“Yes, my sweet girl. But there was very little.”

“Why? Did the kid drink it all?” Lalmo asked innocently.

“Yes… the kid drank it.”

“Well, that’s okay then. At least it got to eat its fill today. That means it was meant for him,” Lalmo said happily.

“I’ll bring you the milk now,” her mother replied.

Through his scope, Taylor saw the woman step outside. She walked over to the well and stared somberly at the couple of swallows of milk remaining at the bottom of the shiny bowl. She picked up the copper kettle used for boiling water, added water to the milk to stretch it out, poured the diluted milk into a bowl, and returned inside.

Moments later, their muffled conversation drifted through the receiver again:

“Here, sweetheart, drink this.”

“What about big brother? Let brother drink first, he’s older.”

“Your brother already drank, honey,” the mother reassured her.

“Mom, why is the milk so watery?” Lalmo asked, puzzled.

“That’s just how it came out today, my sweet…”

More minutes, perhaps hours, slipped by. Yet Taylor still could not spot Atal in his scope. Suddenly, his eye caught a moving shadow directly below his position, halfway up the slope.

Without moving his rifle, Taylor shifted his body and peered down. To his absolute astonishment, Atal was searching for a path up the ridge. After a brief struggle, the young boy found a small trail and scrambled halfway up the steep slope.

Terrifying thoughts raced through Taylor’s mind. “Do I really have to kill this kid? No, no…” Taylor whispered to himself, trying to soothe his mind as if the boy couldn’t hear him anyway. He took a deep breath, fighting to control his surge of panic. Military duty was clashing fiercely with human emotion. Drawing his pistol from his tactical side pocket, he quietly threaded the suppressor onto the barrel. He stared at the cold steel weapon for a moment, then looked back down the slope.

The Mirage of Duty

Atal scrambled upward, clinging to every rock and bush. His presence threatened to compromise Taylor’s concealed position. It seemed Taylor had no other choice — to preserve operational security, the boy had to be eliminated without a trace. He leveled his rifle, taking aim and preparing to squeeze the trigger, when the sound of tumbling stones echoed from below.

Taylor glanced down cautiously. Atal hadn’t lost consciousness, but his footing had given way, causing him to slide down the steep slope. Fortunately, the decline wasn’t too steep, and he escaped serious injury. Taylor lowered his weapon.

Below, sitting in the dirt, Atal shook his head in dazed confusion. The fall had scraped his elbow and knee, drawing blood. Grimacing with pain, he wiped the blood from his elbow with his sleeve. As he braced his hands against the ground to push himself up, his fingers brushed against something hard and unfamiliar. Wedged between the rocks was the MRE package Taylor had dropped earlier.

The boy stared at the box in wonder, examining the markings and the paper packaging printed with illustrations of delicious meals and fresh vegetables. He opened the box. Tearing open the foil pouch inside proved difficult, but straining with all his strength, he managed to rip it open. Out came ready-to-eat dry rations, just like the pictures.

Atal’s eyes lit up with sheer joy at the discovery. Stomach twisting with hunger, he instantly moved to pop a piece into his mouth. But as his hand reached his lips, he froze. The image of his tearful mother at home and little Lalmo sipping diluted milk flashed in his mind.

He didn’t eat a single bite. Clutching the box tightly against his chest, he turned on his heel and sprinted back toward his house with all the strength he had left. Up on the hill, Taylor re-holstered his sidearm and silently watched the boy disappear into the distance.

Atal burst through the courtyard gate, his footfalls heavy, but pulled up short right in front of the door. Catching his breath, he peeked cautiously through the crack in the door. Seeing no one at first, he called out softly:

“Mother…”

No one answered. He waited a moment, then raised his voice slightly:

“Mother!”

In truth, his mother was inside, lying beside her daughter and pretending to sleep. Though she heard her son’s voice, her heart was still heavy with resentment, and she refused to answer.

Then came little Lalmo’s quiet whisper from within:

“Brother, Mother fell asleep.”

Still not daring to step inside, Atal peeked through the gap again and beckoned to his sister:

“Lalmo, come here! I found food,” he whispered.

“No way! Really?” Lalmo’s eyes sparkled with delight. She immediately began nudging her mother. “Mother, wake up! Brother is back — he found food!”

Seeing Lalmo leading their mother out, Atal dropped the ration box by the doorstep as a precaution and took a few steps back. Stepping onto the threshold, the woman picked up the strange box. She turned the opened food pouch over in her hands, examining it from all angles.

“Where did you get this?” she asked, her brow furrowed with suspicion.

“I found it up near the hills. It was just lying on the ground…” Atal stammered, intimidated by his mother’s stern look and ready to bolt at any second.

As the woman inspected the foreign writing and shiny packaging, she instantly realized it belonged to the foreign soldiers patrolling the area. Sensing that this object brought nothing but trouble, she tossed the box to the ground.

“Take this back where you found it immediately!” she commanded.

“Why, Mother?” Fear and disappointment resurfaced in Atal’s eyes.

“Why? Because it belongs to someone else! Put it back where you found it — if the owner comes looking for it, it will bring disaster upon our heads!” With that, she took her daughter by the hand, turned sharply, went back inside, and shut the door behind them.

Atal picked the ration box back up. He longed to take just a small bite, to share some with his sister. But his mother’s words bound his resolve. At the same time, reluctant to make the long trek back up the sun-drenched hill in the blistering heat, he decided on a different course.

He slipped into the woodshed at the edge of the courtyard. Locating a deep nook in the dark corner of the wall, he shoved the box deep inside and concealed it beneath a pile of old rags.

A harsh day, heavy with hunger and heartache, drew to a close as the scorching sun finally ceased its relentless burn over the helpless family and Taylor on the ridge.