In Cusco’s Almudena neighborhood there was a little old lady who was nice looking and all the people of the neighborhood knew her. It was not because she was pleasant and good with people. It was all the contrary. She spent her time watching and listening to people’s conversations, their arguments, fights, and so on. She would tell all this to other people in the neighborhood in order to make people look bad.
She was known as the old gossip. She always stood in her window to watch people go by and many times she would make fun of them to make them feel bad. The neighbors were all tired of hat the old gossip would do and they wanted to come up with a plan to get rid of her so she would not bother them anymore.
In those days they heard the story of the flaming carriage. It is pulled by horses and flames burn from it. It would come to get the people who would sin by lying, stealing, killing and so on. It would carry them away and they would never come back. The people of the neighborhood wanted the carriage to come and take the old lady away to solve their problems.
One night, one of the more well educated boys of the neighborhood were walking down the street by the old lady’s house. As was her custom she came to the window and began to say things that were not true. For example she said that the boy was coming back from visiting with his delinquent friends or from stealing, and so on.
A light surrounded by flames dropped from the sky and when it got close you could see that it was the carriage. It had come for the old gossip. She was not able to do anything more than scream and beg for people to come help her so that the carriage would not take her. The carriage took her and she disappeared as if by magic.
All the neighbors where frightened and hid in their homes. They all promised to never sin again in any serious way so that the carriage would never come for them. The old woman’s home remained empty. Many people say that at night you can hear coming from it the sound of horses and of the old lady begging for help so that the carriage will not take her.
