a soldier's tale

sergeant bivins cleared the slide of his m1 and fastened the pinhook. he reached under the cold metal and instinctively found the screw for the stock ferrule and secured it as tightly as his frozen hands allowed. "you want games you bastards? i'll give you games." he grumbled as he snapped the rivet guard over the catch scabbard. he tweaked the windage knob three clicks and popped the bolt to expose the brassy gold projectile casing. he took three deep breaths and slowly trained his eye down the fixed metal sighting, the silence broken only by the soft ticking of his wristwatch. it was probably twenty minutes before the mouse peeked his head out of the small crack in the kitchen base board. "crack! crack! crack!" the report of the m1 deafened his ears to a high pitched ring. the smell of gunpowder hung in the air in thick plumes of toxic victory. sergeant bivins picked himself up from his position behind the bunker he had made with the couch cushions and shouldered his smoking rifle. he took in a deep breath of the lingering gunsmoke, then calmly took a knee out of respect for the dead. "i never asked for this war damned you! but if war is what you want, than war is what..." "what in god's name do you think you are doing?!" mertle bivins scolded as she emerged behind the old soldier in her pink bathrobe. "there...there was a mouse dear" his voice trembled. "give me that damned thing!" she said yanking the rifle from his hands, "and after you've put back all my couch cushions, you can start repairing that damned base board!"