Destined To Burn

~Destined To Burn~

by C L Rayner

They would scream as they burned and he would smile, knowing he had served his god well.

It was raining the day she walked into the village, soaked to the skin and mud splattered, yet she did not react to the cold. She simply asked for food - and from that moment she was destined to burn.

   Springtime had been warm and full of promise. Primroses quivered in the hedgerows; crops swayed tall and green in the gentle caress of a breeze. Pigs grew fat.

   Now mud ran in thick torrents along the countryside, sucking at feet and bogging down wagons. The flowers were gone: battered into the dirt by relentlessly rain, saplings torn to shreds by the wind.  And livestock fell sick.

   Destined to burn.

  

They watched her from the damp protection of their homes, for the village was little more than a scattering of hovels. None would take her in, and she had known they would shun her. Their welcome was as warm as the bitter wind; expressions as ugly as the rain clouds.

   To the east the church loomed into the sky: a tall superior master looking down on the poverty of its parish; graves spread around like pox.

   Mud sucked at her feet as she slowly pressed against the wind. Lashing rain stung her upturned face. She would not hang her head. Her eyes were cast to the grey stone of the church, where mud ran in rivers between crooked crosses. And there she waited, in the grave yard, a grey sky overhead, grey-brown mud beneath. The air smelt of sewage; of fetid decay.     

   The graves were flooding.

   She cast her eyes to a place beyond a rough cobbled wall, not marked by crosses; a place where no stones had been set to speak the names of the countless girls buried beneath: charred bones shovelled into a pit; skulls smashed beneath boot heels. There had been no blessings or prayers – grave diggers had spat and pissed on the remains. That was their service.

   She heard the screams of young girls, some little more than children, felt the weight of foul river water press into her lungs; tasted blood and vomit and excrement. The reek filled her nostrils. Hot iron scolded her skin as flesh was flayed from her body.

They approached her warily: men in crude dull armour and mail, pointing chipped blades.     

   The holy man had not come.

   Rough hands gripped her arms and shackled her, pulled her so she fell to her face in the mud. Boots kicked at her back. She was numb from the rain and cold. She felt no pain.

There would be no trial for her. Others before her had admitted their sins, repented their evils and begged for forgiveness before going to the fires. 
   They had been young, weak servants of Satan, this one was strong, so the holy man had told them. This one had demon in her.

Burn, burn, burn burn! The chant was spat from mouths contorted with anger and hatred.

   Rocks and mud skimmed across the bars of the cage as horses pulled the wagon to the pyre.

   She stood, as best she could, gripping the bars, unflinching against their hatred. Her face was covered with mud, fingers bleeding where stones struck them; knuckles bruised by boot heels. She stunk of them; her ragged clothes stained with blood and filth and urine.

   The abuse of the crowd was deafening in her ears and it filled her till she could feel their hatred. It seeped into her head like the cold; sluiced against her body as the rain had. The rain had ceased but the sky remained an ugly stain, black on the horizon.

   Strong hands pulled her roughly from the cage. She lost her footing and fell, pelted with small stones and rotten food. She had not eaten in a week. Children spat at her, kicked at the mud so it flew up into her eyes. They knew only hatred; had forgotten all else.

   She was dragged to the pyre. They clamped her hands into shackles; chained her to the thick charred stake where countless women had been chained before. She could hear their tears above the clamour of voices, felt them, scolding against her cheeks; felt the anguish flow from the ground at her feet. The ash of their flesh lay sodden beneath her.

   Wood was piled on. Her nostrils filled with the smell of oil.

   Then he stepped before her and the crowd was instantly silent.

   ‘You are found guilty of the crime of witchcraft.’ His face was pink and well fed; lips running with spittle.  ‘You have brought sickness and disease upon our holy soil, and for your crimes your body shall be burned slowly in the purifying fires, till your soul sinks back to the hell from whence it came.’

   Her eyes fell upon him. They were grey as the sky, and they churned like a storm.  

  ‘I will not burn,’ she said simply. Her words were barely above a breath, yet every soul in the village heard her.

   The priest’s eyes widened. ‘I have burned a hundred witches before you,’ he shouted, saliva flying, ‘and I shall burn one hundred more!’

   The crowd roared. The horses harnessed to the wagon, reared suddenly and charged away, terrified by the sudden upsurge of noise.

    ‘A witch cannot be burned.’ It was a whisper, lost in the wind, but the holy man heard her words and doubt flickered behind his eyes. ‘Today you will see that you have never before brought a witch to this pyre.’

   Behind him the villagers were frenzied, yelling for the fire to be lit.

   She raised her eyes to the sky and rested her head against the stake, waiting. ‘You are all going to die.’

When the flames rose about her legs the priest cried out in pain and looked down, confused. In the crowd a woman screamed as her skirts ignited and she ran, trailing fire behind her.  A chunk of flaming wood exploded from the pyre and crashed against a guard’s armour. He fell to the ground with a startled yell then thrashed wildly in the mud as his body inside the armour began to burn. The other guards backed away. People screamed; their cries of hatred now turned to terror. They tried to run, tendrils of fire slithering from the pyre to chase them, igniting their legs.

   The priest could not run: as though chained to a stake himself, he stood with a rigid back while his clothes smoked and his skin slowly blackened.

    In his ears rang the screams of every girl he had burned.

   He felt the weight of foul river water press into his lungs; tasted blood and vomit and excrement. The reek filled his nostrils. Hot iron scolded his skin.

  

He opened his mouth but the inhuman sound that burst from him was the pained scream of a hundred young women.

   Water spat from his charred lips as his body pitched face first into the mud.

   Above the church the sky turned black and lightning skewered its steeple, shattering it.  The mud spat and popped like boiling water, sinking slowly away beneath the foundations, sucking down graves.

   The heat of the pyre was intense. It raged like a sun, whips of flame lashing around it till the very air burned.

   The witch was an aura of light in the pyre. The chains melted in the heat and dripped away from her, shackles falling into the ashes.

   The fire parted and she stepped into the mud.  

   Her eyes were no longer grey. They were black as the storm cloud; like glass, reflecting the fire so she seemed to burn inside. She did not wait to watch the remains of the church sink into the ground; she did not glance even at the body of the holy man.

   Without expression she walked away, while the village and its people burned.

~

Mother's Wrath

I wrote this poem some time ago, but as time goes by, unfortunately, it becomes more relevant.

   It is about the arrogance of Mankind, and the abuse of the Earth. 

   Earth is a gift.

   Appreciate and care for it.

  

~Mother’s Wrath~

She stood on the beach and the waves spat acrid froth before her.

The sea churned and rolled.

The ocean screamed: fearful waves recoiling at her presence,

Rearing as though to crush her in anger,

To bring all its force to carry her to oblivion.

But to this she showed no fear,

For only one emotion remained:

All pity and compassion driven out beneath the black searing rage

That Man had fuelled.

She closed her eyes.

The ocean rose like steaming dew on a summer’s morn

And cooled her skin.

Man’s betrayal drove cruel and deep into her soul.

For all that she had done,

And all the infinite wonders of the world she had created for Him.

Yet He stood ungrateful amongst the litter of the Earth,

Reeking ruin and death in his arrogant way.

Blind to such a fragile gift.

Foolish as to his own significance.

She walked the dry ocean bed and the sky wept at her passing.

Tears steamed on the parched ground

And around her everything died.

The sky grew dark.

Forests withered and were as ash tossed on the wind.

Creatures turned to dust as they fled.

And Mankind despaired,

Felt the pang of such terrible realisation;

The pain of loss; of regret.

And as He fought for his final breath,

As his crops burned

And the very air He breathed became poison

Mother’s voice harried on the wind:

Heed my warning

And know the power of my wrath.

Should she let Mankind wake

From the deluded dream that was his supercilious life?

Should He have one last chance at redemption?

Man did not deserve the beauty of the Earth.

But the Earth itself was deserving.

This once…But never again.

~