My Own Ghost

The mid-summer rain tapped lightly onto the roof of the bunk house. All of the men were sound asleep, preparing for the next day of work. Everyone but George that is. Because earlier that hot Sunday, George was forced to make the most emotionally painful decision he's ever made. Earlier that day he killed the man he traveled with,his best friend and most importantly, his family.

He was lying in bed staring continuously at the ceiling that stared back at him. He kept hearing the band of the Luger as he sent a bullet into the boys head. The sound of the boy's muffled cry as he took his last breath. To think he was so happy,hearing his favorite story,his own future. Carlson thought it was ironic that he was so happy with his future, the impossible future that lies months ahead of him yet he wouldn't be capable of living minutes after the thought. The boy would have been so happy for what was to come if he were still here today.

The boy thought George. Only a matter of hours later and he couldn't bear to hear his name. The memories would be too violent, too vivid for him to handle.

George looked around the room, in hope of seeing the boy suddenly appear in the room. Alive. He would hope that the boy would run to his side and say how much he missed him,because George needed to confess the same statement himself. Unfortunately nothing of that nature happened and George just stared at the ceiling. He burst into a quiet fit of tears and whispered to himself "Why did I have to do this?"

Crying himself to sleep, George managed to just manage to sleep until morning.

"George, tell me George. Tell me!" The boy cheered in excitement. George forced himself to fully awake from his slumber. He looked around to everyone who was casually walking about getting ready for today's horseshoe tournament . Carlson was brushing the dirt off his shoes, Curley was bursting in the door looking for his wife, Slim was telling the boy to quiet down, and the boy was smiling with excitement he couldn't contain.

"What'dya doin'? What's goin on?" George asked the boy. The boy kept looking at George as if he was still asleep.

"George, please George." he sighed "Wake up!" The boy shook him but George felt nothing. George crept out of bed in pain, which is a feeling thats too familiar to him.

"Slim," George said approaching him. " What the hell happened las' night?" Slim kept tending to his needs, as if he were invisible. George turned back to the direction of his bed and was stunned when he saw himself lying where he recently got up from.

He saw himself get up out of bed after the boy begged and pleaded. Again, he looked around the room but this time he had a look of terror on his face. His jaw was hanging to the floor and his eyes were peeled open. No one else in the room seemed to have noticed what was going on.

"G-George! It's eleven o'clock, the tournament is gon' start soon!" The boy followed the man who appeared to be George,even though George was already in the room, around the room and said "Win us some money, George."

Time passed on and George knew what was happening. He was reliving his past before it was time to face the future. He watched himself play horseshoes with all the guys, and snuck into the barn. There wasn't a need to sneak in, no one could see or hear him. He could make all the noise he wanted to, and no one would even look twice at his direction.

He saw the boy sitting on the hay crying over what he thought to be a puppy. "Why do you got to get killed? You ain't so little as mice. I didn't bounce you hard." George walked over to see what, maybe even who, the boy was talking to. He saw the boy bend the pups head as he said "Now maybe George ain't gonna let me tend no rabbits , if he fin's out you got killed."

He watched the boy worry more about the pup while thinking to himself how much he love the boy had for the small creature.

"What you got there, sonny boy?" The familiar voice of Curley's wife chimed in. Her charming smile lit up the room and cause the boy to panic. "I get lonely ." she cried. The lonely woman droned to the boy. George looked devastated when he knew what was going to happen next.

"You stop it now,you'll mess it all up." He heard the cry come from Curley's wife,and in no time she was lying on the floor half covered in hay.

George didn't wan to be around for what happened next. Too heart breaking, he though. He slowly walked to the bunk house while his thoughts ate him alive. The pain. The regret. All of the feelings were beginning to make George feel so over-whelmed, he stopped in his tracks and turned around, then glanced at himself running into the barn as Candy called him.

He watched himself get Carlson's Luger and intensely and heard all the things he spoke softly under his breath. Along with that, he followed himself to the brush the boy was hiding in.

George saw himself and the boy sitting,staring across into the water with a gun behind the boys back. He heard the story he always told the boy and tears slowly started streaming down his cheeks. He wiped them off and thought something along the lines of 'pull yourself together this is something you had to do'.

George's eyes fell to the long grass he was standing in. Did I really have to do it, he thought. We could have kept running, could've ran into another state away from all this trouble. Could've met a nice girl who would've loved the two of us and cared for Lennie while I made some money in a ranch. Could've lived together,the three of us.

Before George had any time to look back up at himself and the boy, the shot was fired and it was too late.

Happily ever after, George thought. Something that would never be possible for him.