Story Telling and Commission Premise of the Story There is a very basic message to the story which is simply,

You cannot cheat death. In this story death has been personified as a character similar to the Grim Reaper. It shows a Janitor who attempts to cheat death. Logline of Story Janitor Jerry dies from getting electrocuted whilst inserting a light bulb and then finds himself in Limbo. He encounters different personas of Death, ending up in the limbo cemetery Death gives him another chance at life through completing a challenge; the challenge is to tight rope walk across a giant chasm. Having no history with tightrope walking Jerry still completes the challenge and goes back to him putting in the light bulb; he finishes but then dies again due to the ladder breaking and falling over on top of him because Death made it so. The Janitor then arrives back to the world of Limbo and is then dragged into the entrance of the Underworld by Death. Step Outline of Story Scene 1 Brockshire School Janitor Jerry is walking down the corridor of Brockshire School until he hears a bang. A light bulb above him has just broken he looks up in disgust. He grabs his ladder and climbs up with a new light bulb in hand and takes out and tosses aside the broken one. Not realising the power is still on or that his hands are still wet from where he has not dried them properly he starts to insert the new one but there is a big zap that rushes through his body as he is fatally electrocuted. Scene 2 Limbo Realising he is dead he finds himself standing in a cold foggy environment with a kiosk and Death as one of his personas behind it. He approaches, Death slides him a coin through the kiosk window and points to the right of him Looking confused Jerry takes the coin from him and turns to the left and sees an entrance to a great old looking cemetery with giant rusty gates. He enters, meets another one Deaths personas and bumps into a giant gravestone-like slot machine. Understanding that he has the chance to cheat Death he inserts the coin and pulls the leaver anxiously awaiting the result. To his amazement he wins the jackpot showing 3 thumbs up on the rollers. Instantly the surrounding area slowly disappears and creates an illusion of him moving forward at a fast speed. Scene 3 The Challenge The Janitor thought he would find himself back on Earth, but instead he is standing at a giant chasm with a wire sprung tightly all the way to the other side over the top of the Underworld itself. Looking very confused he turns to Death once again as a different persona. He simply points to the other side implying he must walk across the wire to truly earn his second chance. Jerry looks over to see a ghostly still figure of himself putting in the light bulb just before he died.

Understanding everything now, he takes a deep breath and begins. He gets almost a quarter of the way and Death starts pinging the rope to distract him, it does nothing to over balance Jerry but he does notice and Death acts innocent like nothing happened. Jerry continues and gets about a third of the way and Death becomes even more annoying by bouncing on the wire. This distracts Jerry a lot and throws him off balance. He falls but hangs on sweating, meanwhile Death is laughing at him. Jerry scowls at Death and pulls himself back up with all his strength and continues. Now Death is very angry cuts the wire with his scythe. Jerry jumps off just in the nick of time to the other end and he climbs up the ladder and enters his ghost self to get his life back. Scene 4 The Inevitable End In a flash the environment around him changes and the crafty Janitor is back to putting in the light bulb, this time without wet hands and the power is off. He finishes putting it in and smiles happily. As he is climbing down the ladder one step snaps in half and he falls taking the ladder with him, the ladder falls on top of him and he dies again. Arriving back at the world of Limbo, he looks very confused this time. Death approaches him on the floor and waves his finger in a disapproving manner and then drags him into the entrance of the Underworld.