Gehenna

I have been accused of Sorcery and Witchcraft. I will be burned at the eve of tomorrow. It is lies! I have been a faithful woman of God, a loyal servant. One of his most loyal. Since childhood, I have not been absent a sermon. I have raised abandoned children as my own, donated to the offering each mass, and held no God before him. I have aided this community and served as the village nurse. I have buried loved ones and prepared new marriages. I have repaired old marriages! I have counseled and advised. Lightened hardships and toughened bonds. Been a devoted wife to my husband; a descipable man that abused and neglected his duties, though a word was never cast from me. The secrets he contained. He fancied the younger girls, he did. Chasing after them as a rabid beast hunts its prey. Though I mended his threads, warmed his baths, and served his feasts. Silently.

I will be burned. Torched. Desecrated. Ashened. Incinerated. My flesh will be melt of me and I will become a mush. A “once-what-was” human goo. They do not know the severity of their execution. For our Lord says unto us, thou shalt not murder. But they have murdered and they will do so to me. Unrighteously. In Blasphemy. For they use the tactics of Satan's tool. Fire.

The stocks have been in its place since the village was built. It stands in the town center, where all can see the burning. They do not replace it. They just peel the body off it when it is dead and replace a live body onto it. It stands in view of the cell, which I possess. A reminder that my day would come. Though, I need no reminding. Rather, the community prefers to spare a message when they pass. Ensuring that I am a witch. Satan's favorite, I have been called. His whore. Spoken to me by my own husband. I have been spit at, foods thrown at me, mud. Laughed and mocked. They do not fear witches. They look for them. To torment and murder. They are amused by death. It is made a hobby in the spare time.

I am starved and of thirst. I have been gowned the same gown since I was accused seven days ago. It had worsened. I was given no trial. I am not worthy of defending, they speak. I am not worthy of defending myself. This is not the love I was once given. I was once praised and adored. A respected member of this village. That girl over there at the wells, I had aided in her labor. A child she still was, birthing a child. Complications were sought for her and the baby. I cared for her and ensured they both survived. I adopted the child and raised it as my own. And there — that man, the blacksmith. A man of thieves is what he was. I made him the man that he is now. I provided to him the opportunity to change his way and become a man of God. The Priest. I had never been absent a sermon. When he became the Priest, I assisted him in writing the sermons he spoke. Mindful, he called me. Devoted.

It was he that had me taken to the cell. My husband's mistress had called to me that I was a Sorceress. A succubi, she claimed. The young bitch that she is, tussling with a married man. And I a witch?! Angry she was when I caught her lurking about in my home. The home I share with my husband, as if it was a home she had made with him, herself. The Priest was the first to arrive and I had thought he would see through in rationality the circumstance. I was wronged and I was wrong.

The morning has came, and they prepare for me, my burning. I will be taken to the stand and shamed until my burning is to commence. After given thought, perhaps it is better this way. To die than to live amongst those who do not live for the word of God. Those who live against him and defy as the heathens they are! I will not bow my head in my death. Not in shame, I am not an embarrassed woman. I know in my love of the Lord, I will be brought to the gates of heaven and serve him more so than before.

I have been tied and I listen to the Priest as he calls out to the crowd that surrounds me. Their cheers and chants of excitement. A sense of self-righteousness fills them. Until it is they who stand where I stand. The words fade of me and I begin to heat. He had cast the fire upon me and I began to burn. The agony of its touch, I let out with screams. There is nothing more one can do when dying, but scream. A useless defense given to us that serves no purpose. The brutality is not to bear, I beg for my death to quicken. Anything to escape the pain that consumes me. I can not scream more and I am in bliss. My eyes close and my head hung. There was nothingness. The pain had gone, I felt again like myself. Wholesome. Healthy.

I opened my eyes and found myself standing in my home. I had gathered the plates from the table as my husband stands to take his leave. Steps are caught coming from within the stairs and I turn to see whom has welcomed themselves into my home! Our children has been raised, it is only my husband and I that reside here. And I saw her. The same She that I had suspicions of for the last sum of weeks. The mistress of my husband. She wore my gown and her blonde locks curled gently down her breasts as she pranced down the stairs. Leaping, like a harlot, into the arms of my husband!

He kissed her as he left the home and she faced herself towards me. I stood in shock, had my husband lost his mind? He is fulfilling the demands of Satan in Adultery. I pace quickly to her, in verses of the bible, reminding of her that she is to be a woman of God! But she screams, piercingly. Abruptly, Witch! She screams, Witch! The Priest, my dear old friend arrives first and I begin to explain the circumstances as they had occurred, but I am silenced. A sudden Hush and his hand raised to me. He spoke to her in the privacy of my own home, holding her to the side. They shared in whispers and with exchange of looks at me, as I stood held by the later arriving parties. I was brought to the cell and faced with the others of mutual accusations. Though, I am not as they are. Time will prove my release, I swear it by the hand of God!

And I write to you now because I have been accused of Sorcery and Witchcraft. I will be burned at the eve of tomorrow.