UnPoetia:The Cashier's Prologue and Tale (from the Canterbury Tales)

Poetry for people who hate poetry

The 31st Pilgrim

Chaucer claimed his intention was to write 124 tales in The Canterbury Tales. Each [alien] pilgrim would tell four stories. Chaucer only wrote stories for 30 pilgrims, however, and he would actually need 31 to make 124 stories. Chaucer is suspected of hiding his last pilgrim's tale because it contains information that was too modern for his ancient society to accept: it would be strange if a "car" was ever mentioned in 1340 AD. That's right! The missing pilgrim's text was discovered by Oscar Wilde three years after Geoffrey Chaucer's death and goes as follows:

The Cashier’s Prologue

A Cashier there is of a place far off,

Whose wit evades the every day scoff.

When the sun bakes down at the highest noon,

He begins his work with a rusty spoon.

Through the gap in his teeth he whistles well,

And his gruff voice drowns out the kitchen smells.

A man enough to return all the change,

A selfless cashier is really quite strange.

He’s never been seen without his red hat,

Which is stained from falls into the grease vat.

The Cashier’s Tale

Long ago on a magnificent May,

I recall the sky to be bright that day.

I had just put on three coats of hot wax,

On the car that belonged to my friend Max.

He was eighty years old and nearing death;

His wife wished every cough was his last breath.

I had told him this but he would not hear

Sad words from a butler in his old ear.

But he begged me to protect his last will,

A task for which I guess I have no skill.

His wife you see pulled evil countless pranks:

She has stolen from boy scouts, nuns, and banks.

I walked in the house and I felt a chill,

If you saw the sight your stomach would spill.

There on the floor my good friend Max was dead,

His wife near with a cold look on her head.

She looked at me and dropped the cold steel,

“I’ve made a story that you are to blame

I’m sure my lawyer will clear my good name.

I’m sorry my friend but you’ll take the fall

To get cleared in court I’ll just have to bawl.”

And sadly she was right: she won her case.

Sentenced to prison, my innocent face,

I longed for the day my name was made clear

And it took sixty months and now I’m here

Until I receive my law degree skill,

So I can unveil Max’s good will.