Week 13 Story: Seeking Death

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The bartender sighed in frustration, while cleaning a glass. The three drunks were back, and they were making a nuisance of themselves, as they always did. They were young, they were stupid, and they did nothing to contribute to society. He hoped they choked on their own vomit.

The waitress resisted the urge to brain the three drunks with a beer mug. If they weren’t bumping into her and making her spill the drinks on her tray, they were groping her inappropriately. To add insult to injury, the jerks never tipped! She hoped someone would do the world a favor and kill the bastards.

“Did you hear Death got Old Maude?” The bartender asked the waitress as she served one of the tables near the bar.

“Did he now? That’s a sad state of affairs. I heard Death got Mr. Pennyroyal just yesterday.” The waitress replied. “Death sure has been busy lately. He got two whole families just last week.”

“Who is this Death guy? Where does he live?” One of the three drunks demanded.

“Where does Death live?” The bartender quizzically asked.

“Yeah, where does he live? Me and my friends will take care of him.” Another of the drunks chimed in.

Realizing that the drunks thought they were talking about an actual person, the waitress and the bartender shared a look of disdain. “Freaking idiots.” The waitress muttered under her breath.

“I think he lives the next town over.” The bartender decided to just go with it, happy for anything that would make the three morons leave.

The three drunks stumbled out of the bar and started heading up the road toward the next village. After a couple of minutes, they came upon an old man leaning against a fence.

“Look at the old man! Hey old man, what are you doing out here? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere else, being old? Being old must be terrible. Why would you do something so stupid?” Two of the drunks laughed at their buddies comment, thinking it the height of humor.

“Well, it beats the alternative.” The old man replied drily. “You would do well to show more respect to your elders. What are you ruffians out doing?”

“We’re looking for Death, old man. We’re going to kill him. I bet you know where to find him. In fact, I bet you’re a spy for him. How else would you get so old? Tell us where he is, or I’ll punch you in the face.” Once more, the drunks proved themselves deeply stupid.

Death smiled to himself in amusement. He hadn’t been sure what he’d wanted to do to the three drunks, but when they threatened the old man that he’d disguised himself as, he decided that he was going to play with them a bit. “Actually, I just saw him a few minutes ago. He headed up that path into the woods.”

Without even a word of thanks, the three drunks began walking up the path leading to the woods. They hadn’t gone far into the trees when they stumbled up a large pile of gold. Upon seeing the riches, they immediately forgot their quest to seek out Death, and began plotting how to smuggle the gold out of the woods.

“We have to wait until it’s dark so that no one sees us carrying it.” Drunk Number One said.

“Alright, then you head and get some food and drinks to get us through until dark.” Drunk Number Two replied.

Drunk Number One walked back to the village, and began plotting how to get all of the gold for himself. He decided that he’d poison a bottle of wine, then give it to the other two.

Drunk Number Two and Drunk Number Three were creating  plot of their own. “When he gets back, we need to kill him.” Drunk Number Three said. “That way, the gold will be split two ways instead of three. Drunk Number Two nodded in agreement.

When Drunk Number One returned, he was immediately pounced on by his buddies. They stabbed and they stabbed until their friend stopped twitching. To celebrate their successful murder, the two remaining drunks chugged the bottle of wine that their ex-friend had brought. The poison was very painful. It took them a long time to die.

The old man walked into the bar and nodded politely to the bartender and the waitress. “Well, none of us will be bothered by those annoying drunks anymore.”

“Why not?” The bartender asked.

“They went out looking for Death.” The old man smiled slyly. “It seems that they found him.”

Author's Note: The Pardoner's Tale is one story within the collection by Chaucer known as the Canterbury Tales. A pardoner was an individual in the Middle Ages who would go around the countryside and sell church pardons, signed by a bishop, that entitled the bearer to be forgiven of their sins.

The pardoner tells a story about a group of three revelers, which would be a general term to describe rebellious young men who are more interesting in drinking and partying than in being contributing members of society.

The revelers overhear a conversation about how Death keeps killing people. Death is being anthropomorphized, and is talked about as though he is an actual person, but it's difficult to tell if that is how everyone is speaking of Death, or if that's simply the way the revelers, in their ignorance, understand it. I think it's everyone, because I believe that the tavern keeper mentions that he must live in the village over. I decided that I preferred to have it be a misunderstanding on the part of the revelers.

The three young men decide to go and find Death and kill him. In their search, they come across an old man and make fun of him for being old. Then, they decide that he must be a spy for Death and threaten him. They demand to know where Death is. The old man tells them to follow a path into the woods and they will find him. In my story, I wanted to make it obvious that the old man actually is Death.

The revelers travel into the woods where they find a big pile of gold coins. One of the men is sent into town to get food so that they can wait and take the gold out of the forest at night, so they won't be seen. While separated, they all plot to kill each other in order to increase the amount of gold that they will have. In the end, all three die.


Bibliography: "The Pardoner's Tale: The Revelers," The Chaucer Story Book by Eva March Tappan. Web source.