Cururu

CURURU

“Let her have no peace nor rest till her heart,

her body, her soul, and her life are ours again.”

Book of St. Cyprian

One day she told me that there are some creatures you can burn alive to ashes and then, if you sprinkle holy water on the ashes while they’re still warm, they’ll come back to life, ready and brand-new. Nothing but warm ashes and dust, mind you. And nothing but holy water from an actual catholic church.

And then there is the difference. A second life cannot be the same as the first. Because this second time the creature will be cold. What I mean is it will have cold blood, and its heart will beat just a little bit faster than before. It will be a different life, for sure, but it is a life, nevertheless. That’s what she said.

Dying like that, she said, allowed no room and no time for the proverbial snail to leave its shell. And with shell and snail thus fused into warm ash, the remains are ready to be brought back to life with a sprinkle of holy water. And among this specific set of creatures that can be revived this way, there’s us, she said.

Problem is, I thought, who’s going to burn alive to a crisp, willingly? But then she told me something interesting. She said that back in the day women people called witches did it to their own when they were burn to death in the Inquisition. Late at night the women people called witches would sneak back into the bonfires on the main square and did it – they would bring their own back to life.

We’re part of a group. What we do is we get together once a week, every Friday. We light candles, we turn off the lights, we open a bottle of wine or two. And we try things together and we learn new things together. There were thirteen of us, but now we’re down to twelve.

All we needed was a big, fat cane toad, some strong green thread, a good sewing needle, one holy host, and a little bit of blood. Once we got everything we needed, we started by writing her name on the holy host with the blood we got from me. Then we opened the toad’s mouth, threw the holy host inside, and sewed it shut, neat and tight. As we did all this we kept repeating let her have no peace nor rest till her heart, her body, her soul, and her life are ours again. Then the next day one of us discreetly released the toad in front of her house.

Sounds simple, right? Well, problem is when you squeeze a cane toad, especially around its neck, even if ever so gently, it squirts a milky venom so strong it can paralyze and then kill an adult human being. Problem is also that, if you happen to lock eyes with a cane toad, even for a second, a wound on the back of your hand will open, and it’ll take you seven years to heal from it. Problem is that skill and care are not enough – you have to do it all with tenderness. You have to feel actual tenderness towards an ugly, cold creature you can’t even look in the eye. Not an ounce of fear, anger, or disgust while you do it – just unalloyed tenderness. Where I come from people say that cane toads are so powerful because they are what the devil feeds to the damned souls in hell. Try to feel tenderness for that, for once. That was the hardest part, believe me.

Later we decided one of us should find and retrieve the cane toad after it worked its bit. Perhaps we can burn it to ashes and try the reviving trick with the holy water. Problem is I don’t think toads and frogs are one of those animals. After all, they are already cold-blooded to start with.

Either way, soon we’ll be thirteen again.