Django Durango

Their new “home” in Lud’s Holm would’ve been positively quaint if it weren’t for the mad ravings of the plague wastrels outside at night.

James came down the stairs from delivering Dr. Faraday’s dinner to find Roger sitting at the kitchen table, pressing his ear to the wall.

“I think they’re speaking Old English,” Roger said. “They’re saying…” He leaned harder into the wall, trying to hear. “They’re quoting Beowulf,” he concluded with some disappointment. If they had been communicating with each other, then that would suggest they still had some cognitive function and could be helped. That they were only all reciting lines from Beowulf probably meant they weren’t really thinking at all and were just repeating what they heard from other plagued wastrels. He did wonder how they came to be so fixated on the poem though.

“You gonna go out and form a book club then?” James said, sitting in the other chair and pouring himself some tea.

Roger scowled at James’ dismissiveness, but immediately shifted into a smirk that James didn’t see, busy as he was with the tea.

“If they still have command of language, then perhaps we could still communicate with them.”

“Fuck’s sake, Roger!” James set the teapot down alarmingly hard. “Just cause they know some words from a language no one speaks anymore don’t mean you can reason with ’em!”

Roger snickered at James’ reaction. James stared, confused, until he realized Roger was just trying to get a rise out of him. He exhaled hard out of his nose, harrumphed at himself for taking the bait so readily. That only made Roger laugh harder.