White line drawing of a hooded grim reaper holding a scythe, with the words A WASTED LIFE IS WORSE THAN DEATH above and below, on a black background.

Grim reaper with scythe and slogan

Black and grey · Flash

A hooded grim reaper stands in profile, holding a tall scythe upright, with a skull face visible within the hood. The bold, even white outlines are drawn on a solid black background, with simple interior lines for the folds of the robe and no shading. The slogan is set in white capitals curved above and below the figure, which is centred in the square composition.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the cider, and let the little ones shuffle closer, because this is the tale my grandmother told at Tom Ashby's wedding, the year the reaper came up the lane to dance. Nobody believed her then either, and the fiddler swore he'd never played a note for a ghost.

Keep reading

The reaper came as the fiddles were still tuning, his hood pulled low and his tall scythe leaning against the lychgate like a farmhand taking a rest. He asked for the groom, Aldous Penhallow, a clockmaker's son who'd spent seven years promising his father he would start his own shop. The skull inside that hood turned slowly toward the bride, who had her skirts bunched in one fist and a wooden spoon still in the other.

Maud Harrow told him he'd not have Aldous yet, because Aldous had done nothing wrong. The reaper said that was exactly the trouble. A wasted life, he said, is worse than death, and he had come to collect the years that were owed to him. Maud asked what he meant by wasted, and he named them one by one: a loft full of half-mended clocks, a letter to a brother in Bristol never posted, a workbench gathering dust while the bells rang for other men's weddings.

So Maud made a bargain with him. He could have the whole afternoon if he would sit and watch them begin. Aldous was dragged up to the loft that very minute, and by dusk the reaper had seen the first wheel turn. They say he still keeps a chair at the back of every wedding in Penhallow, and if you lay your hand on the seat, it's always a little warm.

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