Of Mice and Men


    
For a moment Lennie seemed bewildered. And then he whispered in fright, ‘I done a bad thing. I done another bad thing.’
 
He pawed up the hay until it partly covered her. He quivered and shook as a cool breeze swept over the barn. Outside, the sounds of happy cheers met Lennie’s ears, but the barn was placid. The birds chirped cheerfully in the golden sun bouncing on the bunk house’s roof and back. The dead pup lay next to Curley’s wife. Lenny looked at it, uneasily.
 
‘I gotta throw him away, or else George’ll get really angry. I gotta hide him somewhere, or else....’.
‘Lennie? Lennie,’ said George as he popped out of the bunkhouse’s door. Lennie quickly tossed the pup behind him.  ‘Lennie I’m outside with the other boys. Just came to check on you. You okay in here?’
‘Sure George,’ answered Lennie covering the dead body with his big bulky body.
‘Well I’ll be back in here in a half hour. Sure you’re fine?’
‘Course George. Don’t you worry,’ said Lenny sceptically, praying that George would not ask him any more questions.
‘Yeah ok,’ said George, as he walked out of the barn and back outside. Lennie realised he was holding his breath. He let out a worried sigh.
 
Everything became quiet once again. The birds had stopped chirping, and clouds covered the sun. Slowly, Candy’s voice came near.
‘Lenny? Oh Lenny? Lenny I think we could take...’, trailed off Candy. He hesitated as he noticed Curley’s wife lying amongst the strands of hay.
‘Ma’am didn’t know you was here,’ he said. And as he moved closer he saw the damage that had been done to her.
‘Who could have....George?’ called Candy. ’George!’
George approached the barn. ‘Candy, what’s the matter?’
‘Look George....look at this.’
 
As George came close to what Candy was showing him, he started to get dizzy. George knew exactly what had happened. He knelt close to the dead body praying that he was seeing the wrong thing, that his eyes were playing tricks on him. But the body was soundless and stiff, and matched the silence in the barn. What seemed like after a couple of minutes, George stood up and buried his face into both hands.
‘I should have known something as bad as this would have happened,’ he leaned against the barn’s entrance.
‘But George, what about the little place we’re gonna get? What about that George?’ asked Candy.
‘I’ll end up livin’ a simple life like the other men,’ replied George, not quite paying attention to what Candy asked him. ‘I’ll get my money and go off to another ranch, and after that another.’ After a long pause, George said ‘Candy will you do me a favour? I’m off outside for a bit. You pretend you just seen the body and call the other men here. I don’t wanna have nothing to do with this....can you do that for me Candy?’
‘Sure George. I’ll do it.’
Candy sank to the ground and covered his eyes with his hands, realising there was no hope for the ranch anymore.
 
 
         As Lennie walked past the fresh green leaves next to the river, he thought about what George would do to him when he found out about the bad things he had done. ‘Would George give me hell? Would he leave me alone and go away? No, George would never do that. George cares about me.’ But as Lenny said this to himself, he knew that George could leave him and go away. He shivered at the thought.
 
         He knelt down close to the Salinas River to take a drink. The water was green. Each time he saw a snake slip amongst the stones he jumped at the thought of it winding tightly around his neck and choking him. He quickly gulped the water down and sat down on the nearest rock. Slowly he started picturing all the ranch men closing in on him. As they got closer and closer, he figured out they were chanting something.
‘Death to Lennie!’  they chanted. What surprised Lenny the most was that he could see George approaching with the other men.
‘No...no, this can’t be possible,’ Lennie said as he started fighting against his own thoughts. ‘How can....George! George where are you?’ Lennie’s cries were turning into a bear’s roars, but soon George appeared out of the corner of the brush.
‘Lennie? What you doing yellin’ bout?’ asked George.
‘Nothing George. Just had a bad thought.’
‘Ok.’
‘George?’
‘Yeah?’
‘George, will you leave me and go away?’
‘Course not Lennie. I need you. I can’t leave you even if I wished to.’
       Lenny was just about to ask George another question, when out of the long bamboo strands came Curley followed by Candy, Slim and Carlson.  This time George had the strangest expression on his face as he wondered how every one of them had got there so quickly.
‘Your game is over George,’ said Curley as a smile of triumph spread across his face. Come on now, hands up.’
‘But how did you all...’. started George solemnly.
‘How did we all find you, right?’ finished off Curley. ‘How ‘bout you ask Candy that?’
Slowly, George started understanding what Curley was talking about.
‘Candy, you?... I mean why ... how could you?’ George stared at Candy intensely watching his eyes look nervously from one way to the other.
‘George I didn’t want to, honest. I was helpless. They- - ’.
‘That’s enough. You’ve proved your honesty.’
‘Stand straight up and follow me now,’ said Curley.
As George got up, Carlson’s Luger slipped out of his lap.
‘Hey, my Luger!! You crazy madman. Should have known you would steal it,’ said Carlson as he looked at George and snatched the Luger, his face boiling.
 
Suddenly, George made an attempt to run away, but Carlson quickly realised this. He picked up his Luger and aimed at George. In what seemed like a second, everything was destroyed. The bullet hit George on his chest and made him fall right to the ground. As he fell, Lennie let out a painful cry.
‘George!’ he shrieked.
 
That had taken Lennie’s life, more than George’s. Slowly Lennie stood up and made his way over to Curley and grabbed him by the neck.
‘Today, you’ve killed my only hope of livin! You were the crazy madman all along! You will die for what -’.
Curley waited to longer. And as the second bullet hit Lennie, the air grew even gloomier. Curley smiled as Lennie fell to the ground.
‘Curley, what did you do?’ asked Slim surprised.
‘He had to die, that crazy idiot. Sooner or later he hadda’, Curley replied confidently.
 
There was nothing left to say. Everyone slowly started heading back towards the ranch, with the dull expression they all had once before. After that, the ranch became again what it used to be before – a need for living. No one had friends or hope. No one ever dreamed the way they used to.

 
Shyla


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