Vantage Point

I could see the beach from up here on the tiled rooftop. I had been lounging all morning, watching the surfer’s unending conquest of the waves. From this distance the water sounded like a gentle hum of static and the surfers looked like toys. I sipped on my Bloody Mary and looked at my watch. Ten minutes to go—never enough time.

Then the air raid siren started blaring. The boys on the beach scrambled ashore while I watched. There must have been head winds for the planes to be so early. The fighters and bombers roared overhead moments later, ripping into the anti-aircraft guns and the ammunition depot. A door opened softly behind me.

“I’m a little too late, Colonel, but it seems that you were perhaps a little bit too cavalier in your liaisons. Margaret told me everything.” He held his pistol out and smiled with disdain.

“Thomas, always the clever one, eh?” I had never liked Thomas Welzinger and his do-gooder attitudes about the war. “You should be more pragmatic. The war of morals you think we’re fighting is manufactured. It’s purely economic.”

The anti-aircraft batteries were operating now, thudding the sky with black pock marks. I saw a plane go down in a stream of oily grey smoke. It dashed through a building, bricks everywhere.

“If it were only about the economy then it should have been a diplomatic issue. The use of force always implies morals. But, I feel my time is not best spent lecturing traitors.” He fired.

I staggered back into my chair, blood coursing down the front of my shirt and onto my neatly pressed khaki shorts. My head lolled, and Thomas was gone when I regained my bearings. All I could see now was the waves. They were empty. There were a few surfboards scattered across the beach.