Hemingway. (ernestoic) wrote in spinningcompass, @ 2015-11-17 12:02:00 |
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Entry tags: | ~ernest hemingway, ~isabel lane |
Who? Hemingway
Where? The forest
When? This afternoon
What? Getting rid of his ghost
Open? Yes
Rating? Moderate - trigger warning; suicide.
Hemingway was depressed. He was beyond depressed by this point. He'd had horribly low periods before, times when nothing seemed worth it anymore, when he lost all that passion and fire. But it was always temporary, he could always see a glimmer of hope.
His father's death had hit him hard at the time, especially his mother's selfish, manic reaction to it. Before now, he would have thought that a chance to speak to him again would be a gift, but God, not like this. The ghost was missing most of his jaw, the back of his head; he was as mangled as a ghost as he would have been when his little brother opened the door following the gunshot. And he didn't know it had worked.
The ghost moaned and begged, felt at his broken face and wept, tried to speak but couldn't. Over and over, and no matter how many times he tried to tell him that there was nothing he could do, he wouldn't listen. So Hemingway had tried to shut him out; pretended to ignore him, hid from him, ran from him. There was no escaping it. For days- weeks - there had been no escaping him.
It was too much, and he felt broken now. He couldn't deal with one more minute of it. And so, he had grabbed his shotgun and headed out to the forest. He would hunt - but he knew what he was really doing. And sure enough when his father's ghost reappeared again, he turned the gun on him. The ghost made a sound something like gratitude, and Ernest took the shot, the ghost almost instantly reforming.
"You're already dead," he tried to tell him for the millionth time, although there was a lot more bitterness in his tone now. "It worked. Congratulations, father. No more debt, no more abusive wife, no more pain. Well, for you. Leicester was the one who heard the shot, and he was the one who found you like... this," he told him, and then regretted it. "I don't blame you. I would probably have done the same thing in your situation. Father, I- just wish you would have wrote me. I didn't know how bad things were, and I'm sorry for that," he told him sincerely.
Was it his imagination, or was the ghost flickering?
"You've got to move on now," he insisted. "I don't blame you. I blame her. After the funeral, she gave me the gun. She gave me the fucking gun you used to kill yourself, for me to use on myself," he admitted with a shaky tone."Don't you recognise it?" he asked.
With shaking hands, he lifted the gun and pressed the barrel to the roof of his mouth, wondering what the perfect angle really was, his heart pounding in terror, adrenaline rushing through him; what the fuck was he doing? Was this meant to prove a point? He looked to the ghost, finger moving almost reluctantly to the trigger, realising that he wanted his father to do something, to say something to contradict his mother's abuse. The ghost stepped forward, and shook his head, reaching out to take the gun from his son before he faded into the forest air. And now, Ernest was seemingly just a man sobbing and choking on a shotgun. His finger moved from the trigger again, and the gun dropped to the ground.