Empusae

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Written by Priscilla Wong

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I witnessed my first Empusae on a beach in the sunset. She said, "Call me Em. My mother just died." She cried and I experienced a shortness of breath. 

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I didn't care what anyone said about Em. Didn't heed the warnings of my well respected companions, who all bade me to stay away from what they described as a greedily seductive female demon. Her mother was Lilith. No good may ever come from the daughters of the witch.

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In the night, they warned, moonlight will reveal Em as the asshaunched fire donkey of her true nature. You could tell from her mismatched legs of lore. One of a mule and the other brazen like a goddess. I must have been attracted to the leg that shined. She must have been part fish and part dog. This Empusae woman had a slippery torso and barked when spoken to. When she opened her mouth to speak, I stuffed it with a turkey leg. All the rumors were true. She was notoriously lecherous and infinitely cruel. When her breasts spill onto the floor, all glitter and slime, the swarm of gadflies that came to gnaw on her flesh sparkled like jewels. The more the flies stung her fire donkey skin, the more difficult it became for me to look away. When she instructed me rudely on how to apply lip gloss or style my hair, I wished to grab a fistful of it and toss her head across a football field.

 

But I didn't, now didn't I?

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There are only certain Empusae who are ambidextrous enough to flip their bodies right to left, bending backwards and upside down like a rainbow with ease, until their bodies levitate. After I got her up into the air, I set her on fire.

 

Did she really deserve to be thrown into a snake pit? Perhaps she did, if she truly enjoyed being burned and bitten alive.

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"I have a baby," she said as she held up her sweet child.

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"You have a baby? Apologies," I smiled, glancing downwards sheepishly.

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She didn't flee shrieking, as formerly described in myth and legend. Instead, she sobbed gently painting her face for a new day, after bathing graciously in the River Styx. She scooped up her flesh into a tattered designer gown, with her child cradled betwixt her breasts, zipped her cash and jewels into her groin, and danced out to catch a plane for the next hyped Chola extravaganza, as Lilith smiled upon her living daughter.