Cupid

"Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." -- Oscar Wilde

It was the fifth month of her eighteenth year when she discovered her true calling in life.

It was so brilliantly obvious. Her supernatural ability to spot her target all the way across the quad during the busy lunch hour. Her expertise with Internet search engines, untraceable proxy browsers, and Google Earth. Her unparalleled skill in being able to recall the most insignificant details about her target without even remembering how or when she had learned of such information.

If the CIA ever learned of this girl's existence, they would have snapped her up in a heartbeat.

At least, that's what she thinks -- when she takes the seat in the fifth row next to her friend. Her friend, believing the girl's expansive musical interests have suddenly spread into the realm of chamber music, is oblivious to the true reason as to why her friend has suddenly become very interested in the chamber orchestra that practices in a town twenty miles away from their neighborhood.

But she hardly feels the inclination to explain herself. She can hardly explain herself most of the time, anyhow. She cannot explain how she knew of her target's impressive season average of 14.5 ppg or recent qualification as a National Merit Finalist. She cannot remember how she learned of her target's family members -- an older brother about to graduate from Princeton University, a mother involved in telecommunications, a father sitting at the president's desk overseeing a global Wi-Fi chipset manufacturing company.

And so she tells her friend nothing as she browses idly through the concert program. Idly, almost lazily, for she already knows that her target will appear into her frame of vision at precisely 4:08 pm that afternoon, once the orchestra concludes the first piece of the program (7:24, plus the additional time it would take for rounds of applause). Eight minutes later, her prophesy is fulfilled as a figure -- the first soloist of the concert -- walks to the center of the stage with a violin in hand.

The violinist shakes the hand of the conductor and the concertmaster before sweeping a gracious bow towards the audience. As his head lifts up from the bow, their eyes meet for a split second.

And the split second is all she needs. Ready, aim...