A dewy fog spread around the trees, and the sun frowned as dark clouds blocked its path. Few tears at a time, the sky began to cry. Droplets fell one after another, each patter on the leaves echoing through the desolate woods. But life moved on. The cars on the nearby highway continued to speed. The herons in the trees continued to devour the snakes. And George and the others continue to make their way out of the woods. They didn’t discuss what had happened, for they all simply ignored it. It was as if Lennie had never died, let alone ever been alive. And George could feel it. 

  This feeling reverberated through his body, reaching from the tips of his toes to the longest hair on his head. It ate at him, nagged at him, and tore apart his conscience piece by piece. He thought about Aunt Clara. He thought about that day at the Sacramento River. He thought about the rabbits. His palms grew sweaty, and soon his forehead as well. Suddenly, his collar felt chokingly tight around his neck. “You doing alright there, George?” Slim asked, but there was no response. The silence was loud. Deafening. George wiped his head with the edge of his sleeve, saturating his dirt-covered shirt. Slim asked again, and then once more until, finally, George was ripped from his trance.

     “Yeah, yeah. I’m alright. Jus’ thinkin’, that’s all,” George mustered, incoherently.

     “What’s that?” 

     “Nothin’. Listen, I think I dropped somethin’ back there. Give me jus’ a second, I’ll be a back,” George said. 

     The men nodded their heads in approval, and the rain began to come down harder. Slowly, but surely, George walked through the trees, waiting until he was out of their viewpoint, and then he was gone. Sprinting through the woods, he was scratched and scraped by loose branches. The rain water stung in his eyes, turning them a subtle, but bright red. He tripped over rocks, splashed in mud, and stumbled over tree stumps, but none of it mattered. Nothing was going to stop him. The pile of ash became bigger and bigger as his legs quickly led him to it it. Like a ravenous dog, his hands tore through the pile. His wet body became covered in dark ash until he was unrecognizable, but there it was. The gun sat in his right hand eagerly, the hand that had thrown in only minutes before. Before his mind could provide any resistance, the gun was pointed to his head, his finger on the trigger. He looked around. He listened. The cars were still speeding, the birds were still eating, and the men were still making their way out of the woods. 

     And life moved on.