LALENA

                           LALENA

 There were hundreds like her, but she was the first. She was always the first, though the others couldn't possibly know that. People called her Lulu, like all the other demonic female creatures inhabiting the invisible world of myths. But she didn't like that name at all and had chosen the beautiful name Lalena for herself. Unfortunately, she couldn't find a way to proclaim it; she only forced men to utter it during energy-draining erotic dreams where she sucked them in like a whirlwind.

 And now, Lalena skillfully levitates in the darkness of the night, fully aware of where she's going and to whom, because the object is the only man capable of taming her sexual frenzy. Her eyes cut through the darkness like the lanterns of maritime lighthouses, which the Phoenicians had not yet invented. No mortal was worthy of confronting her raging femininity except for Gilgamesh, and he awaited her in his dreams as a cherished nightmare. "Like a cherished Lalena," she smiles at the wordplay during her swift flight as a demon, simultaneously diving through the open window of the palace in Uruk. The king sleeps as always, naked and in erection. His monstrous phallus rises like one of the marble columns supporting the arches of the royal palace. Lalena stands by the equally enormous bed on which the object of her insatiable desires has awakened with his gigantic stature. She skillfully slips into the dream, guiding his hands in caressing motions and her entire body in those thrusts that make her pour out like a spring stream onto the bed. No one could measure how long this lasted, but the marble column no longer rises upward, and the demon-woman flies back to her sanctuary, now deprived of the juices that once removed her adequacy...

 In the Hanging Gardens of Inanna, there is a single tree resembling another, found in the midst of Eden, also known as Paradise. Lalena had nestled her nest in its crown, justifying another name given to her by humans, namely that of the night owl Lilith. The sycamore reminded her of different times, when her external appearance and essence were vastly different from the present, utterly diametrical. And as she had done many times before, she directed her memories backward, even to a time before her birth. Her divine origin afforded her the ability to do so, by returning to her own blood, to her molecules, her chromosomes, and genes, to "see" what had been...

...Then the God-Creator shaped two bodies from the vital clay and breathed his spirit into them. The first humans came to life as a man and a woman, resembling each other and yet distinct. But Adam seemed not to notice these differences, accepting the woman as a companion and comrade in their walks through the Paradise, also known as Eden. In countless immortal hours, he conversed languidly with her, ate, slept, and upon awakening, ate again and slept again. She was something entirely different—curious, inquisitive, searching and contemplating, hardly sleeping in her pursuits. And even without knowledge of the phrase that Orpheus would write above the entrance to the Temple of Delphi millennia later, recognizing oneself, mainly on a physical level, she surveyed her naked body in the waters of the Euphrates, striving not to miss a single part of it. Then lying in the grass, she touched herself everywhere her hands could reach. Through this self-exploratory method, she discovered some especially sensitive places, responding in specific ways to these auto-caresses. She quickly learned to attend to them to satisfy her feminine essence. However, it still wasn't complete; just looking wasn't enough. She recognized the need for something she couldn't provide herself and found it in Adam, who was entirely oblivious to possessing it. Her study of her own body transitioned into studying Adam's, which wasn't difficult at all, since he enjoyed being massaged. He purred, stretched, and even emitted gases of pleasure, but that was it. Nothing more. Thus, her needed attribute hung there completely inactive, in the place where she possessed a completely different structure. The trickster devised new tricks in the art of massaging. She rubbed her breasts against his, caressed his intimate area with one hand and herself with the other, but to no avail. No response from the male part of the duo that would later vie for dominance. Through whole nights, the first woman of the world reasoned about one of the first questions to arise under the sun, yet she found no reasonable answer except one—Adam was irreparably dull, unfeeling, blind, and impotent. He had a body, soul, and mind, but apparently lacked any emotions, while she was all fire and flames, geysers and volcanoes, earthquakes and hurricanes. She couldn't and didn't want to endure this state anymore. She couldn't foresee this form of the future in Eden, as it would not be any paradise at all; quite the opposite. The idea of escape germinated within her, the quest for another object to quench the flames, tame the volcanoes and hurricanes that were no longer contained. And she didn't realize how she found herself outside of Eden, cast out from the all-seeing eye of the Almighty. The Creator couldn't accept that his creation could know itself without consuming the Fruit of Knowledge, which was strictly forbidden. With a mere flick of his thought, he expelled her from the paradise garden, showing no further interest in her fate, as if a worm had been stepped on. She approached the slumbering Adam, took one of his ribs, and created his new partner, about whom countless writings would be composed, praising and cursing her, for participating in the creation of Humanity was also the cause of the "Original Sin." And Lalena, in her solitude and exile, became the first cynic, self-cursing himself to be barren, miserable, and embittered beyond measure.

 Gilgamesh, on the other hand, decided to share his nightmares with Inanna, because although pleasant, they drained a significant portion of his strength, and he worried that he would lose his authority among the inhabitants of Uruk. In just seconds, the goddess discerned who and how was causing these unpleasant sensations in her favorite, revealing the personality hidden in her Hanging Gardens. Before sending him on a dispelling mission, she gave him wise advice to paint the handle of his axe in red, as demons cannot resist this color. The demigod quickly adorned his axe handle with red, swiftly found the only tree in the Gardens, and without caring who was concealed in its crown, he began to chop the thick stem. For not too long, the colossal sycamore was brought down, and no one heard the scream of Lalena, departing into the Chaos.

 Wandering, she nearly collided with Satan, Lucifer, or whatever he was called in various corners of the Earth:

– Where are you flying, beauty? – his majesty, the Devil, stopped her with a smirk.

– I just lost my home, so now I'm homeless and thrown into nothingness, – she answered without any coquetry, this one who would be called Lamia in fairy tales for centuries to come.

– But I have an entire kingdom. My father made it for me, thinking he could easily get rid of me. What do you say if I show it to you, and if you like it, you can choose a home within it?

– Is it far away? – the woman-cynic asked reflectively, and in the blink of an eye, they were there.

 Hell as hell. With flames, cauldrons, furnaces, and the other places of torment. The sinners were just as they were depicted on the walls of churches and monasteries. Only where their bodies were immaterial, somewhat holographic. In short, a standard hellish image, resonating with screams, moans, roars, and cries.

– Look here, there's a little hill from which everything is as clear as day, – the king of the Abyss acted as their guide.

 They climbed and looked. Indeed, wherever they gazed, everything was palpably and demonstrably present. The sight pleased Lalena, and as she focused on the personal torments of individual sinners, she felt how the flames subsided and the volcanoes extinguished, the hurricanes quieted, and the geysers dried up. She realized that others' agony provided her with divine pleasure, that she didn't need that Gilgamesh's column to satisfy her demonic female desires.

– This is the place, – she murmured, as if to herself, but the One heard.

– So be it, – snapped his fingers, and she petrified like an epitaph upon a monument. Only her eyes remained alive to eternally relish others' suffering.

 Lalena-Lilith ceased to levitate, to seek whom to torment with nightmares and pollutions. Yet the myth about her continued its journey through the centuries, reaching us in hundreds of interpretations...