Translation of Alejandro Jodorowsky's "¡Arde, Bruja, Arde!"
Earlier today I found this text by happenstance in the library. I read it and saw something of what I had written in there—and more—in the same way one meets a kindred spirit, a friend. I translated and revised it and here it is in its entirety through translation: The nun was being burned alive. A beggar, chased unrelentingly by the cold, had arrived at the church asking for refuge. Because she had nothing with which to make a fire to warm him, the nun used a wooden carving of the Virgin. Now the abbot, the dried geriatric who no one had seen smile, burned her, accusing her of sacrilege. The stake burned, her body burned, her body burned, her body burned, her body burned, the hours passed, the days, three weeks, and the flesh continued spewing flames without being consumed. The nights of the village were no longer dark, the roosters crowed incessantly, the neighbors couldn't sleep. They formed lines, buckets filled with water were passed to douse her—yet the fire did not cease. Like that—lancing out tongues of flames—they tossed her in a ditch which they then overfilled with dirt. From that deep sepulchre emerged an intense heat which attracted flies, spiders, and snakes. They decided to exhume her. They found her, still, in flames and, still, alive. They begged her to stop burning. Without saying a word she walked towards the church, she lowered the abbot from the pulpit and pulled him with her arms and pressed him against her chest. "Enter in His heart!" When the old man was consumed without leaving any ashes, she stopped burning. She took a broom and, as though out of habit, she began sweeping the floor. The villagers brought her pieces of firewood fearing that some other beggar would arrive to ask her for refuge.