So this happened the other day…well, before I get into that let me paint the picture: the label on the tin of the place where I earn a paycheck reads, artisanal bakery but let’s call a spade a spade, it’s a bread factory, a business open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year that churns out bread daily and nightly.

Every flu season, the recent strain cuts a wide swath through employee attendance and the company needs to bring in agency temps who usually do the grunt work, schlepping and dividing containers of dough, shifting racks of shaped bread dough to the proofer for fermentation or refrigerator to slow the activity of the yeast, etc. The guy they paired me with was from Peru who spoke absolutely no English while I am equipped with the ghost memories of 7th-grade Spanish.

To give you an idea of how long ago that was, the US was in the midst of a Cold War, a Space Race, the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, an oil crisis and energy crisis, and Marvin Gaye’s single “Let’s Get It On” was the top of the charts.

I passed Spanish class by the seat of my pants. To say I half-assed it would have been generous, more like I 8th-assed it or better still 16th-assed it. The reason for refusing to embrace a new language was pure and simple childhood rebellion. Our 6th-grade teacher gave us a choice of learning French or Spanish when we returned after the summer recess and I chose the language of love. When I didn’t get the language of my choice I did the bare minimum to pass the class and quickly forgot it the moment school ended for summer vacation. That’ll show them! It’s funny how you never realize how childhood petty actions rob you, limit you, in so many ways.

But I digress.

My temp coworker for the day, despite the language barrier between us, was in a talkative mood so he asked me if I believed in vampiros. I tried to explain to him in my pidgin Spanish (assisted by hand signals and crude pictograms traced in rice flour on the tabletop) that I don’t believe in vampires, werewolves, ghosts, or even God for that matter but I wasn’t one of those radical hardcore atheists who gets in people’s faces about there being no transcendent will. I simply think we’re not smart enough to know our origins, arrogant enough to justify our existence, most certainly, but smart enough to know the truth? Sorry, not buying it. But, if your faith leads you to live a better existence and do no harm…good on you. I hope you’re right and in the end get the reward you deserve, because who knows? To quote the lyrical prophet, Billy Joel, “You may be correcto, I may be loco.”

Now, I’m not sure if he got all that but he smiled and nodded and when I was done, he kept repeating a word to me that I didn’t understand. Again and again he said it, more patiently than I would have been in his situation until the word began to make sense. It was a name: Lilith. Once I clued in, he proceeded to tell me about the primera esposa of Adán in the jardín del Edén.

When Adam lamented on his loneliness in Eden, Dios made for him a mujer like himself, from the tierra. God named her Lilith and presented her to Adam but they began to quarrel about everything, including sexo. Lilith, creado from the earth the same as Adam said, “We are both equal,” and would not give in to his demands.

Shortly after, Lilith deserted Adam, who immediately began to orar to his Creator, saying: “Maestro del universo, the woman that you gave me has fled.” God sent three UFOs (no, that’s not some atheistic typo, my coworker did not believe in angels) and said to them, “Bring back Lilith.”

The three UFOs found her in the sea at the place where the Egyptians were destined to drown. They said to her, “If you will not go with us, we will drown you in the sea.”

Lilith replied, “God created me to weaken infants from the moment of their birth until the eighth day in boys and the twelfth day in girls. After that, I have no dominion over them. I know my purpose, so I know you will not drown me.”

The UFOs told her that if she didn’t return with them, she will be filled with the desire to mate and bare a legion of children and each day one hundred of her children would die. As she couldn’t bring herself to return to Adam, she accepted her fate. And as the UFOs who turned against God’s grace crashed to earth, Lilith mated with them and bore many demons, one hundred of which died as the sun set each day.

When Adam and his new mate, Eva, began propagating the human species, Lilith turned her attention away from the UFOs and began seducing both men and woman alike, becoming the world’s first vampire. But she wasn’t driven by a constant hunger for sangre, she was fuel by a constant need of sex. She didn’t have to bite her victims to gain their compliance, the feromonas she secreted any living thing equipped with a sex drive.

My coworker traced “666” in the rice flour and asked me what it was. I asked, “The mark of the beast,” to which he shook his head. He explained that “666” was really “www” as in the world wide web. The internet was evil and was created by Lilith to lead humans astray. Also, “Satan” wasn’t a being, it was an office run by Lilith, and the serpent in the garden was none other than Lilith, who instead of tempting Eve with fruit, seduced Adam’s second wife into an asunto lesbico that opened her eyes to the truth.

My coworker swore that this was all true. The original Hebrew writings were revealed to him when he became a member of the Freemasons in Peru, writings that were subsequently changed by the Greeks to cover up the terrifying truth that Lilith still walks among us claiming victims each day.

And I could tell it was a topic he was extremely interested and invested in because he talked about it for the entirety of our shift. Definitely a twist in the sobriety of my normal working day.

I wonder what surprises are in store for me next flu season?

©2019 Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys