Blobs
Where's The Soup Evan?
I wrote this for a writing class I was in a few years ago. We had to write from the POV of an accused witch during King James the First's reign. Definitely not one of my best pieces, but the better ones are unfinished, so I may as well share this one:
With all due respect to His Royal Majesty, King James is a lunatic. A raving, simpering lunatic surrounded by the filthy bodies and stinking breath of the unwashed masses who have also been caught in the clutches of lunacy. England is entering an age of pure, unfettered insanity.
Makes me long for the good old days, where you could go outside for a stroll through the woods and not get accused of witchcraft. Or ambushed by a small mob every time you’re seen with a book in your hand. Oh, of course I’m a witch that lures children into the forest and murders them in the dead of night to consort with the Devil. I’m most definitely bathing in the blood of Virgin’s pure for my youthful looks.
Idiots, the lot of them. Bloodthirsty idiots, who want to blame this country's downward spiral on anyone they could find.
I’ve been thrown into this jail cell for who-knows- how-long (certainly not me) with only the half-mad ramblings of my cell-mate to keep my company. Her name, from what I’ve managed to piece together between her mumbling about the “chickens starting to eat the ducks” or the “cows rotting off and bubbling in the fields”, is Margaret. I’m not usually one to consort with the mad and the slowly dying, but I have exceptionally slim pickings here, and it’s only getting exceedingly slimmer as the days crawl by.
The cell doesn’t have any windows. Every hour, the cell is dark, evening dark. I haven’t seen the sun since I was carted in here. There were others with me, at first. At least 17 from what I counted. The cells were always dismal and drab, but you could at least hear whispering. There would be some signs of life- a soft hum from the young girl with the pretty face, idle tapping from the women with long fingers, a shushed sob shared between a pair of women- girls, really. They couldn’t have been more than 15, 16 years old.
Now, the only sounds I’m able to parse out besides the clanging of the guard’s boots are the scuttling of the rats and the occasional mutterings of Margaret. When she was first hauled here, she raved and ranted every moment of the day. I silently prayed to Our Father Who Art In Heaven to grant me a single moment of peace. Now though, she’s starting to grow quieter. More contemplative. It’s almost as if she feels the very same sense of dread that has begun to perch on my shoulder as the moments tick by and more and more girls are whisked away to be hung. Or burned. Or beheaded.
A week before I was accused, I attended a public hanging for a small group of witches. One by one, they were strangled to death- slowly, ever so slowly- before they were thrown on the pyre and burned. Some of them sobbed and thrashed, even as they were being forced to the noose like lambs being dragged to the slaughter. There was one girl, though. She had brown hair, small in stature and hunched over. She didn’t sob or scream or kick- not once- even as the cord tightened around her throat. Even when a fire was set under her feet, as it spread along the pillar, up, up, up, until it reached her body and…consumed her. As if she was merely an evening meal. Afterwards, when the witches were dead and the fire had gone out, the ashes from the corpses rose up with the wind, as if still eager, even in death, to be rid of this earth.
The girls were from the village. I recognized a few of them, though I must confess I haven’t been the most social of women in recent years. The butcher’s daughter, Anne, had been the first to burn. She’d always been a pretty thing, Anne, with her shining gold hair and a biting smile. She had a beau- the woodcarver, Michael. They had been set to be wed in a few weeks time, if I recall correctly.
The small brunette, the one that had been stone-faced and silent during her execution- I think I recognize her. Her name, I do believe, was Marie. Her father was a traveling merchant, so the family usually followed him on his ventures. They traversed through the village a few times when I was younger, though I wasn’t aware they had returned. At a terrible time too, might I add; the witch hunts took hold of the town in a single fell swoop. When I was younger, people used to whisper about witches. They’d tell the old childhood stories I grew up hearing, about the old hag who lived in a flying cottage on the edge of the moor, or the enchantress in the forest who lived amongst the trees.
Yet after King James began printing out pamphlets and screeching to the heavens about the dark arts, these stories seemed to take on a new form. Never before had I had ‘Witch’ or ‘Demoness’ screamed at my face by the village I had grown up in. Never before had I been thrown in a cell to await my imminent execution for a crime I would never think of commiting.
The day, from what it has been reduced to in these four dark walls, has grown wane and thin. The guards are bound to arrive at the cell soon, with our customary mush for supper. I cannot let them see me with pen or paper- I stole these, by some divine miracle, from the bookkeeper. I’m still fairly baffled by how I managed to pull it off, yet I know to count my blessings. My time is coming. It’s only a matter of waiting until I’m dragged off to hang, as the filthy witch I am. Yet until then…until then, I believe that I am entitled to a bit of reprise. For now, I shall bid this makeshift diary Adieu- Elizabeth
With all due respect to His Royal Majesty, King James is a lunatic. A raving, simpering lunatic surrounded by the filthy bodies and stinking breath of the unwashed masses who have also been caught in the clutches of lunacy. England is entering an age of pure, unfettered insanity.
Makes me long for the good old days, where you could go outside for a stroll through the woods and not get accused of witchcraft. Or ambushed by a small mob every time you’re seen with a book in your hand. Oh, of course I’m a witch that lures children into the forest and murders them in the dead of night to consort with the Devil. I’m most definitely bathing in the blood of Virgin’s pure for my youthful looks.
Idiots, the lot of them. Bloodthirsty idiots, who want to blame this country's downward spiral on anyone they could find.
I’ve been thrown into this jail cell for who-knows- how-long (certainly not me) with only the half-mad ramblings of my cell-mate to keep my company. Her name, from what I’ve managed to piece together between her mumbling about the “chickens starting to eat the ducks” or the “cows rotting off and bubbling in the fields”, is Margaret. I’m not usually one to consort with the mad and the slowly dying, but I have exceptionally slim pickings here, and it’s only getting exceedingly slimmer as the days crawl by.
The cell doesn’t have any windows. Every hour, the cell is dark, evening dark. I haven’t seen the sun since I was carted in here. There were others with me, at first. At least 17 from what I counted. The cells were always dismal and drab, but you could at least hear whispering. There would be some signs of life- a soft hum from the young girl with the pretty face, idle tapping from the women with long fingers, a shushed sob shared between a pair of women- girls, really. They couldn’t have been more than 15, 16 years old.
Now, the only sounds I’m able to parse out besides the clanging of the guard’s boots are the scuttling of the rats and the occasional mutterings of Margaret. When she was first hauled here, she raved and ranted every moment of the day. I silently prayed to Our Father Who Art In Heaven to grant me a single moment of peace. Now though, she’s starting to grow quieter. More contemplative. It’s almost as if she feels the very same sense of dread that has begun to perch on my shoulder as the moments tick by and more and more girls are whisked away to be hung. Or burned. Or beheaded.
A week before I was accused, I attended a public hanging for a small group of witches. One by one, they were strangled to death- slowly, ever so slowly- before they were thrown on the pyre and burned. Some of them sobbed and thrashed, even as they were being forced to the noose like lambs being dragged to the slaughter. There was one girl, though. She had brown hair, small in stature and hunched over. She didn’t sob or scream or kick- not once- even as the cord tightened around her throat. Even when a fire was set under her feet, as it spread along the pillar, up, up, up, until it reached her body and…consumed her. As if she was merely an evening meal. Afterwards, when the witches were dead and the fire had gone out, the ashes from the corpses rose up with the wind, as if still eager, even in death, to be rid of this earth.
The girls were from the village. I recognized a few of them, though I must confess I haven’t been the most social of women in recent years. The butcher’s daughter, Anne, had been the first to burn. She’d always been a pretty thing, Anne, with her shining gold hair and a biting smile. She had a beau- the woodcarver, Michael. They had been set to be wed in a few weeks time, if I recall correctly.
The small brunette, the one that had been stone-faced and silent during her execution- I think I recognize her. Her name, I do believe, was Marie. Her father was a traveling merchant, so the family usually followed him on his ventures. They traversed through the village a few times when I was younger, though I wasn’t aware they had returned. At a terrible time too, might I add; the witch hunts took hold of the town in a single fell swoop. When I was younger, people used to whisper about witches. They’d tell the old childhood stories I grew up hearing, about the old hag who lived in a flying cottage on the edge of the moor, or the enchantress in the forest who lived amongst the trees.
Yet after King James began printing out pamphlets and screeching to the heavens about the dark arts, these stories seemed to take on a new form. Never before had I had ‘Witch’ or ‘Demoness’ screamed at my face by the village I had grown up in. Never before had I been thrown in a cell to await my imminent execution for a crime I would never think of commiting.
The day, from what it has been reduced to in these four dark walls, has grown wane and thin. The guards are bound to arrive at the cell soon, with our customary mush for supper. I cannot let them see me with pen or paper- I stole these, by some divine miracle, from the bookkeeper. I’m still fairly baffled by how I managed to pull it off, yet I know to count my blessings. My time is coming. It’s only a matter of waiting until I’m dragged off to hang, as the filthy witch I am. Yet until then…until then, I believe that I am entitled to a bit of reprise. For now, I shall bid this makeshift diary Adieu- Elizabeth
