As I build a profile for the ghost character of my new novel, Les Gillespie, I have decided to have the family involved in a mystery of long hidden letters and the secrets they keep. Les is an enigma in his son's life. Someone to despise and yet his now discovered letters play with Joe's mind. Drop in for a look now and then to come inside Les Gillespie's tortured Mind.
This is one of his letters.
January
10th 1969
Darling
Helen,
The
evil returned tonight, it was all I could do to contain the rage, and writing
to you about it is the only way I can bring myself under control.
I was killing a sheep for the week’s
meat ration when it happened, the shed was a bit dark with the evening light
flickering, casting eerie shadows across the boards. I flashed back to the
jungles of New Guinea and suddenly the sheep was the Jap Officer. I was euphoric,
overcome with joy. I could kill him again and enjoy the sensation even more.
The blade was my normal knife the
same one Dad had used, but tonight it was more than a knife in the killing
shed, in my hand was the bayonet, the one I had fashioned into a short dagger,
its handle warm and comfortable. Something as normal as this before the war was
natural, and one many of us do to provide food for our family, but since I
arrived home, nothing is the same. Every time I have to do this the memory returns.
Once again the sheep was my nemesis, the Jap
officer. My left hand, two fingers in his eye sockets and my knee in his back
and wrenching him backwards, I heard his last gasp as the knife raced deep
across his neck, blood oozing from his arteries pumping, spurting as air from
his lungs escaped the open windpipe. It felt good, I was vengeful and satisfied
as I took another life. I told myself I was avenging the mates who died on the
airfield, but I am worried my love, I fear my anger will cause me to harm Joe
one day.
I can’t tell you to your face, in death, you’ve
escaped the daily witness of my actions and for that, I’m thankful. Joe is a
fine young man and will be much more than me, and I’m sure when the time comes he’ll
be a great Dad, you only have to see how he protects Mary’s girls.
The doctor tells me to write these feelings down to
help me cope and writing to you does that, but I long to feel your skin against
mine. I open the drawer of your dresser every day, to smell the perfumes and
powders, it helps me remember an earlier time and fills my need to be close to
you again.
I miss you Helen, and my biggest fear is that, when
I reach the gates of Paradise, I will be turned away, rejected, never again to
see your smile, hear you sing, or feel your touch. forever condemned to stoke
the fires of Hell.
Your loving husband,
Les
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