Sniper

As if part of the land Masha merges into the rubble. A file of battle-weary Wehrmacht fighters passes.

The last is in her sights.

She had hunted deer in Siberia. They never detected her, so camouflage in Stalingrad’s snow-clad ruins is easy.

Deer, she respects, sharers of the Motherland, killing only for meat.

These Nazi scum are vermin. She would exterminate them all if she could.

She aims for the chest to mortally wound. He falls.

Two comrades rush back to help.

Her next two bullets pass through their foreheads.

She scurries off undetected, three more notches to her name.

From Guest Contributor Ian Fletcher

Dandelions

Passersby might have been forgiven for thinking the playground was host to a psychedelic staging of an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, but it was just Cassie and Bobby, who'd rubbed dandelions on their skin until their faces were streaked with yellow. They wanted to camouflage themselves like the soldiers on TV, but all they had was mud and flowers and imagination.

When the real life soldiers came, Cassie and Bobby hid in the drainage tunnel as they'd been taught. The gunshots echoed like firecrackers in the air around them while they waited in vain for their parents to find them.