Judge a fish by his ability to climb

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I was born into a long line of assassins. Not just any assassins, mind you. My family were snipers for as long as anyone remembers. We were proud of our ancestors who had elevated sniping into an art form. And, for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to be a sniper too. Even before I knew what it meant. And seeing my happiness at being a sniper’s son, my father always assumed that I would be a great sniper too. But fate had other plans.
You see, all kids go to school and they mix with a great deal of people and get taught how to handle many, many weapons. And no one can control what kinds of weapons get taught in school. I hoped and hoped and tried and tried to be a good sniper. But I was not my father, or my mother, or anyone from my family. I had not their patience or their steely fortitude. I had not my cousin’s trajectory mapping or my uncle’s natural ability to compensate for high winds. I struggled with my feelings of inadequacy and had resigned myself to being a mediocre sniper, unhappy with myself, for the rest of my life. And then I saw her.
She was a Mauser C96, sleek and deadly looking, even among all the other implements of war on the table in the "Other weapons" section where all the discarded or less desirable weapons were stored. I gave her a look over, checked the distinctive box magazine and the barrel. She was all I asked for in a gun. Sure! She was short range and had none of the stopping power of a Barret M82 or the accuracy of a Springfield M1903. But she was easy to clean, easy to conceal and I could field strip and assemble her in the blink of an eye. Her range gave me no chance to stop, strategize or even think. But at that range, instincts took over and I was an unstoppable hurricane of lead and resolve. It felt as if that piece of metal had been hand fashioned for my hand and my hand alone.
I practised with her day and night, getting to know her better. I was becoming a better assassin, my grades improved, I was fighting old habits of lethargy and depression because I saw the brighter future she had opened up for me.
But all dreams end. My teachers, to celebrate my better grades, took me to a sniper shop. I thought it was just one of those breeze through visits. All window shopping and no buying. But this time was different. They took me into the shop with proud, hidden smiles and asked me to choose one of the many rifles the shop had. The shopkeeper went completely overboard at the thought of my teachers, the best in their field, patronising his store and brought out a complete catalogue of exotic, hard to find sniper rifles. Complete with accessories.
My heart broke at the thought of going back to sniping. I just wasn’t good at it. And I had a strong affinity to my beautiful Mauser. I thought of saying something to my mentors, about how I just wasn’t what they had expected of me. But it would break their hearts, and then I would just be another disappointment in the Alumni. The black sheep. Imagine getting close enough to an enemy to see his features, smell his cologne. Unthinkable! Barbaric! My mentors had a great store of jokes about such people and their shortcomings for me to have any hope of being accepted the way I was.
I thought long and hard.
I picked up a Colt M16A1 and slung her over my shoulder. My teachers couldn’t be happier. And me? After my first assignment on graduating from assassin school? I couldn’t be more dead if I tried.

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