Week 9 Storytelling: The Man Who Wished to Die

Once there was a man named Sentaro. He was a fairly well-off man, living comfortably in a large home by himself. He had inherited all of his wealth from his father. Sentaro spent his time as he pleased since he never had to worry about working to earn a living.

When he was about thirty-two, Sentaro started to feel sadder and sadder about his life. Living all alone with not a care in the world had once been the most magnificent thing in the world. But as he aged, Sentaro found he was more and more depressed, until the day he realized he very much wished to die.

“Why should I live,” he muttered to himself, “if all I do is spend my days alone. Without the comfort of any living soul. This life of mine is not truly living.”

He wondered to himself if it might just be easier to end his loneliness, pain, and suffering by ending his own life. Surely he could find some easy way to do it that would also be painless for him. He had heard stories of people in similar states that had done similar things.

Sentaro decided he would travel around and see what he could find out about these people, and if any of their stories could help him in his quest.

After a week or so, Sentaro had been through a couple of different villages, but no one had shared any information with him about people in his state who had come before him. Feeling even more defeated, Sentaro found his way to a local shrine. 

(Oomatono Tsunoten Shinto Shrine in Inagi on wikimedia)

The shrine was a simple one, it was obviously kept clean and there were only a few offerings there. Sentaro knelt down at the shrine and covered his head and prayed.

He prayed for seven hours, asking that whoever might hear him would give him advice about what to do. Sentaro still very much wanted to die, but he was unsure of how or what might happen to him afterwards.

At the end of the seventh hour, someone appeared beside Sentaro. Sentaro was startled and jumped to his feet in surprise. In front of him stood a man staring at him.

“I have heard your desires, and they are very selfish indeed. What man shall request help in killing himself, and to ask as if to absolve yourself of the blame? Do you now know what death is? Cold clinging to you until you draw your last breath? It is truly an unpleasant thing if it is brought about before its time.”

Sentaro listened to this person, and at the end he felt upset with the person. He stormed off, not looking back at the shrine, all the while muttering to himself about he was not a selfish man and he knew what was best for himself.

As he was walking back to the nearest village through the woods, he stepped onto a venomous snake. Before Sentaro could even react, the snake lashed out and bit his foot. Sentaro stumbled back and landed on his back on the trail. For a moment, his entire foot felt like it was on fire. Quickly after that, his foot felt ice cold, and that coldness started making its way up his leg, down his other leg, up his torso, down his arms, up his neck, and into his face. As Sentaro felt the cold wash over him, he became sleepier and sleepier. Letting himself embrace the cold touch of death, Sentaro closed his eyes.

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(Black Background on publicdomainpictures.net)

With a start, Sentaro woke up. He found himself no longer in the forest, and instead somewhere where everything was completely dark. He wandered around for hours, thinking eventually the sun would come up, or he might stumble across someone else in this place. But he found nothing. The sun never rose.

Sentaro spent years this way. For the first few, he found it easy to entertain himself with singing songs, telling himself stories, or reenacting some of his favorite things. After a while, however, he could no longer pretend that he was not incredibly alone and bored.

Even after this acceptance of being alone, Sentaro continued existing this way for many more years. Eventually it got to the point where Sentaro spent most of his time screaming into the black void, cursing everything he could think of.

One day, after having spent almost three hundred years in the black space, Sentaro laid down and closed his eyes. Trying to sleep, to die again, he wasn’t sure.

When he opened his eyes, though, he was back at the small shrine where he had met the other person who warned him about an untimely death. Sentaro jumped up and looked around, confused, but overjoyed.

He left the temple and headed back to where he was from, careful to avoid any snakes. As he walked, he had time to reflect. Sentaro’s dream version of death had surely only been a manifestation of Sentaro’s greatest fear and unhappiness, being isolated and alone. He decided, that is not what he wanted from the rest of his life. And he made a promise to himself that we would reach out to others, make friends, and maybe one day even have a family with a son of his own.

(Light Road Path on maxpixel)

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Author's note: In the original story, Sentaro is a man who does Not want to die. He seeks out a shrine and Jofuku to ask for the Elixir of Life so that he might live forever. Jofuku gives Sentaro a dream where he lives for three hundred years. After living for so long, Sentaro wants to finally die. He is eaten by a shark, but at the last minutes cries for help because he did not want to die that way. After waking up, Jofuku explains to Sentaro that he does not really want to live forever, but he needs to live a full human-length life, and then he can die satisfied. 

I wanted to write a story about a man who Did wish to die, but in the end realizes he really wants to open up to people to fill his life. 

Bibliography: "The Man Who Did Not Want to Die" from Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki (1908). (Web Source)