BOYLE-BREATH BREATHES
by
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Chapter 11 – Sniper.
Damien had had a good number of bad lives on our little planet.
Re-incarnation we call the belief that we die but pick up someone else’s life at some point, be it that of a rabbit, a dog, plankton, or if one is especially unlucky, one of those human being things!
Damien however just seemed almost always to have been...a sniper?
King Harold had been easy (Damien always did favour the headshot).
Admiral Lord Nelson he’d got in the end, after taking half of his right eyebrow (blinding the right eye too) off Corsica 1794, getting him his right arm amputated at Santa Cruz in 1797, then hitting him askew yet again, through the left shoulder, at Trafalgar, though this time the musket ball luckily had pierced his lung, and resting in his spine, had killed him. At last!
J.F.K. had been simple and Damien hadn’t even been arrested! They’d picked up Lee Harvey Oswald running across the street from him, while he and the other two snipers (of the four that shot at Kennedy that day) walked away calmly from their own killing zones! Synchronicity indeed in shots from all angles, and in sauntering off; though two professional and two amateur attempts upset that perfection. The other two being silenced by Damien’s fair hand restored credibility to someone’s master plan, and he’d also been about to do for poor Lee until he’d copped the ‘celebrity’ completion option – if you can call getting shot up close and in the gut a glorious end...
Most of his hits were not such famous scalps, but oh so necessary nevertheless – in the American Civil War (though not Lincoln), Stalingrad (he had been Zaitsev), Israel, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and as a U.S. Ranger (50 successes).
Other briefer lives had included those of an iguana, and an alligator – snipers of a kind; the look-out on the Titanic; but a Lurcher dog, and a parrot? And oh yes Idi Amin, and mass-murderer Peter Sutcliffe? Mistakes – had to have been?
Long and short lives? Definitely. Some far too short / some far too long!
Evil beings seemed to dog his every step on this planetoid, indeed only recently he’d discovered that his own son had continued that sequence...
Himself? Well Damien had continued that sniper bug/gene/virus/fate thing but via technology as his XBOX 360 “Assassin’s Creed” and “Modern Warfare 2” and “Left 4 Dead” games brought him up to speed with the killing tech of this day, if his ‘sniper switch’ was pressed again, be that by ‘someone’ em ‘upstairs’ or ‘downstairs.’
He loved the modern telescopic-sights’ crosshairs, complete with Heat Sensors and Red-Eye targetting; if only he’d had those ‘extras’ in Stalingrad... a 12 ‘Kill-streak’...wow... a ‘Buzzkill’...even better! His new enjoyment “Dead Rising 2” had been a laugh, 1,000 dead zombies and counting, and it was great training for that immediate ‘response’ shot if tracked down by enemy forces as a sniper, that finger-touch swing-kill as a lopsided bloodied yet ‘human’ zombie ‘creature’ lurched at you suddenly – it was one to perfect. He had chortled his way through the game too, what with its ‘Soda Pop’ drink and ‘Slug of Whiskey’ point intakes; though the ‘Hot Dog’ eat took the biscuit, especially as his sports’ brain had sent him waves that an ‘HD’ meant a tennis shot on the run away from court and between your legs – a ‘Federer’ special. He longed to try the same in action, with a...well name your weapon, ‘any weapon and he could do it’ he bragged, to himself.
He loved that one split-second could make all the difference.
‘A single bullet can change history’ and all that jazz...
‘Death by Silence.’
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About the Book
READ THIS BOOK AND YOU'LL NEVER SMELL THE SAME AGAIN!
Bernadette Burnett should smell (she did die in 'Boyle-Breath') but instead she brings a breath of fresh air, and lots more, to Roquefort High School.
Not quite C. S. I. but 'Burt' wants to find out...first why she's back at all, then em why she killed herself!?
Bernard Boyle will help again of course, with smells, odours, whiffs and stinks, even 'The Comfy Chair'? Snipers and Social Workers, ghosts and ghouls, boils and bullying, dreams and surprises, angels and devils will as always get in the way...
Heaven and Hell basically, i. e. Life on the Planet Earth continues...
Zeronia, that 'Social Workers of the Galaxy' orb, tries to help again with all those other everyday human problems - families, especially teenagers; gangs; pregnancy; with firestarting, dyslexia, alcoholism and UFOs; vampires, love and money? Crossing the road...
Human beings try to help, a dog does also!
HELL IS A PUNCTUATION ERROR
About the Author
Having been working on four of my 'Boyle-Breath' books at the same time, all connected in various ways as they are, I'm happy to present my second, 'Boyle-Breath Breathes' which is more or less a straight sequel to the original 'Boyle-Breath'.
'Boyle-Breath Begins at the End' (No.3) is almost complete, and 'Boyle-Breath:Beginnings' (No. 4 but a prequel) is at its beginnings?
A teacher for over twenty-five years ( I got offered an early 'retirement' deal though still do 'Supply' cover) my focus has been on teaching and teachers, student behaviour and misbehaviour it seems forever! Life as a teacher is always such a mixure of the good, the bad and the ugly, and I have experienced all three; as hard work by teachers is mostly not balanced by hard work from students, and the 'ugly' nature of modern technology means that they don't view reading (or proper writing!) as at all necessary.
Starting as a teacher of English at my own High school, Victoria Drive Secondary, in Glasgow, Scotland, was an unusual twist of fate but one which I enjoyed. Promoted to Assistant Head of Department at Dumbarton Academy along the River Clyde, at least I did not experience the bulldozers moving in to reduce my school, Old Building and Extension, into a pile of rubble then houses (as did happen a number of years later!).
At The Drive and from there my teaching life has included so many other things, like Coaching and Managing Football (Boys' then Girls' teams); working for a Diploma in Special Educational Needs; being a Mentor for Individual students; taking Supported Study Classes. Also I taught English at Night School in our local College of Education for two years.
I was part of Staff teams taking Overseas School Trips to Holland (ran one on my own, by plane to Spain!); and always I have Tutored, be that local children or youths whose parents find out you are an English specialist, as well as for East Dunbarton Division at the homes of children deemed 'School Phobics'.
In my home, now just outside Glasgow, there lie two collections of Poetry, one BY me, one ABOUT me. I must publish both some time! A huge photographic haul of Apostrophe and Spelling errors from the world around me I will commit to a book of some type some time!
Personally, I have always been into sport especially football, though I even ran the Glasgow Marathon! Too many old injuries now act up to do much at all. As a teacher I've coached, now watch football; indeed watching sport is my main hobby, especially football of course, tennis, golf, cricket... but anything... darts, snooker... I used to read LOTS, the classics, then as much Stephen King as Irvine Welsh, Iain Banks (and Iain M.!)... Now I em write!!!! Love the cinema, but watch more TV than I should, at night especially, and when no football on (!) er watch TV Series like Bones and Silent Witness. We have loved all the CSIs espec NCIS! Dexter, Game of Thrones, House, and Hung! Medium, Six Feet Under! Currently, Spartacus, Body of Proof, Unforgettable and Suits are favourites.
On my third (and last) wife, Edith, and she is the 'bestest' (it's a family in-joke)! My three children Ben, 13, Jasmine, 11, and Gregor, 8, my second wife chose to have with me before she was unFaithful, so we share contact. Edith's two girls, now ladies, are Mhairi, 24, a Sculptor now in London; and Hannah, 20, an Interior Designer, we see less of, geographically, but as much as Ed can she sees Mirren who is Hannah's daughter, and her beloved grandaughter!
A car crash, well my car and a tree, robbed me years ago of my sense of smell but also gave me the idea for my Mr Boyle; though it is weird to write about smells that I can no longer experience. Sometimes, the very odd time, I do get A sniff, or an hour of real 'sense'!