OF MICE AND MEN: EPILOGUE
Midnight had fallen.
George had already spent three hours on the train, at a corner, sitting in a sullen matter while he eyed the blackened sky and mountains through the window. He had already spent the last hour discharging tears from his eyes, longing for the years of his simple life back, from the first six hours of his birth to the day he met Lennie. George's simple life had spawned twenty-two years. Now, he was twenty-three, and the next couple of decades in his life looked, and even felt like a gateway to not only a downward spiral but a journey to see how far below zero he could go, only for him to say that it was always going to be like that.
The first moment of George's imminent journey to Hades began earlier this evening, at a pond surrounded by trees, near a ranch, when he did what only an animal that would pass himself off as a human would commit: murder. The man he had murdered was that one person he had been a guardian angel to ever since he met him. That one person who had a good heart and didn't give a shit about his own strength, but gave a shit about the meaning of life.
Lennie.
And now, Lennie was lying dead near the waters of the pond, blood having escaped the bullet wound planted on his head. Even thinking about the strange red liquid pouring from Lennie's head gave George the goose bumps. Rest assured, this was euthanasia George had committed, because Curley, the son of the ranch's owner, was willing to blow Lennie's head off first. In fact, Curley wanted Lennie dead the first minute he saw him. George had fled earlier that evening, not sure if Curley felt relief or regret.
George took his attention out of the blackened sky and stared at his pistol: An old-fashioned Smith & Wesson spin 'n shoot capable of holding seven rounds at a time. Since the future didn't look right for George, he had three options: 1) Throw the gun out of the window; 2) kill the six other people (including the train's conductor, a hardbody with 34 C breasts, a golden tooth, blue eyes, and an unusually deep voice) on the train with him, then turn the spin 'n shoot on himself by putting the barrel of the gun to his mouth before a wave of blood pours from the back of his head at the sound of the gunshot, or 3) waste another hour crying his eyes out, thinking too hard about how much of a brother Lennie had been to George as he had been to Lennie. Small bloodstains were on that gun. Lennie's blood.
Then, before George knew it, the train stopped at a small town simply named Mantua. Mantua had been well-known around Northern California for being a whore factory. A good bulk of people who lived in this town was either high-class prostitutes, she-males, homosexual men who hung out near the town's bank, and the homeless. The town's visitors mostly consisted of rich real-estate tycoons from the East Coast and notorious Western outlaws looking for a quick blowjob or a sex session. George got up from his seat and stepped out of the train, only to be greeted by a couple of drunk cowboys holding out beer to him, as if he was one of them.
"I ain't takin' your germs, friends," George said to the cowboys before leaving them to wander about.
George needed something to take his mind off Lennie's dead body, at least for one or two seconds. Hell, it'd be easier for him to get someone, anyone, to chop both of his nuts off. That way, he'd feel the pain rather than the guilt, because pain hurt and guilt was forever.
He stopped at a pub. Near the entrance, a bum was spending his time mourning, holding his arm out to anyone that could give him something to eat, or better yet, some money. Nearby the bum was a sign that read, "THE FORLORN TAVERN. CRY YOUR HEARTS AWAY." Without noticing the bum, George entered the pub only to be greeted by the smell of vomit that was engulfing the air. A bearded man was in one corner of the pub and played a slow, mournful tune on his rusty guitar. On another corner was a sleeping farmer who was drooling on the table, but he didn't know it. At one of the tables sat four cowboys, one telling a story about a legendary outlaw, but George's attention wasn't focused on that.
No, his attention was focused on a dame waitress at the counter, sipping on a glass of tequila sunrise, looking over at the bar as if she were the overlord.
As if the waitress were the only one worth talking to, George walked to the counter.
"What'll it be?" The waitress asked with a gruff voice.
"Get me a bloody mary, will ya?"
"What size?"
"I want a small shot," said George.
The waitress took a nearby jug of bloody mary, poured some in a small, empty glass, and passed it to George. Within milliseconds, he gulped the drink down.
"So," The waitress began. "What brings you here on a night like this?"
"The hell do you care?" George responded weakly.
"Let me guess… bad day?"
"More like a good day gone badly. Really bad."
"Why so?"
"Broke up with my old girlfriend," he lied.
"Was she a bitch?
"What?"
"Was she a bitch?" The waitress repeated.
All George could say was, "Yeah, sort of."
"That's too bad," The waitress poured some more bloody mary into George's glass for him to gulp down. "But you gotta admit, it could be a lot worse/"
"Really?" asked George. "You say you've been through a lot worse, how so?"
Well, just be grateful that no one got shot or anything… Me, I've seen a whole lot of it…"
When the waitress mentioned the word 'shot', it made George feel dead on the inside. In a sense, he was dead already. He looked down at his cup, about to cry.
"Wow, that breakup must've been one painful death after all…" said the waitress.
"You have no idea."
The waitress sighed, thinking for a moment, and then…
"Come with me."
"Huh?"
"I want to go out of sight. Come with me."
Several minutes later, George followed the waitress through a hallway of a hotel that was abandoned twenty years ago. The hallway's doors were covered in spider webs and dust. The walls were filled with cracks, and the ceiling's chandeliers were struggling to light up. George and the dame walked until they stopped at a door unlike other doors. Unlike those other doors, this one was mint fresh, its doorknob in good condition. The waitress took out a key from her cleavage, inserted it into the doorknob's lock, twisted it, and opened the door to reveal a candle-lit bedroom: A queen-size bed was in one corner, a dining table was in the middle, a working desk rested on the other corner of the room, a royal carpet on its floor, beautifully painted walls, and a Van Gogh painting hanging on one of the alls.
"This room was my
daddy's," said the waitress.
"He lived here his whole
life?" asked George.
"No, he checked into this hotel several years ago, and this was the room assigned to because of his good luck and all that."
"It's beautiful."
The waitress strolled toward the queen-size bed, and felt its bed sheets.
"Pure silk," said the waitress.
George watched as the waitress undressed from her revealing outfit to reveal her buxom, golden body: 32 DD breasts, amazing curves, slim waist, long legs, and most importantly, her blond hair.
George slowly advanced behind her, and grabbed her waist as she softly caressed the back of his hands with her fingers. She caressed the hands until she pulled them to her waist, and she began to rub them.
George hid his spin 'n shoot behind him.
The dame turned towards him, put his hands around him, and sensually looked unto his eyes. She locked her scarlet lips with his. As they kissed, the dame reached to his crotch and rubbed it softly. George felt a pleasurable sensation go to his head as he lifted the gun from his back, and without her knowing, he aimed the gun at her neck. He squeezed the trigger, and a large bullet discharged from the gun, and was planted to her neck, causing a wound to be formed, and blood had quickly oozed from it, even as she collapsed on the bed, gasping and screaming for air as blood was falling from her neck. A look of horror crossed with facelessness covered George's face as he watched the dame gasp for air, her face red with hot tears, her blue eyes in shock.
George aimed the gun to her head, horrified of her suffering, and another bullet discharged, accompanied with a loud band. This time, the bullet was planted on the dame's forehead in a matter of seconds, and when the bullet hit home, more blood splattered on the bed, and some on the wall. She stopped gasping, screaming in pain. She no longer struggled for air. She was dead and George killed her.
He did it, and he did it good.
No tears were shed, no tantrums thrown.
Nothing.
George was still, not feeling anything. Then, he unzipped his pants, dropped them down to the floor, and at the same time, took his underwear off. He threw himself back first on the bed, taking off his buttoned shirt until he was bare naked.
George drew the barrel of the gun to his mouth, put his finger on the trigger, and took time to remember every detail, especially his friendship with Lennie and the warmth of his good other. He remembered her funeral, his dad's funeral, his favorite aunt's funeral, and pictured funerals for Lennie and that waitress. He took 10 seconds to remember the best moments of his life.
10.
9.
8.
7.
6.
At the same time, the timer on the ticking bomb in his mind was getting slower.
5.
And slower.
4.
And slower. He had three seconds to pull the trigger.
3.
2.
1.
And then…