April Anomalies A –Z: Emim

The earliest inhabitants of the country were the Emim, a great race of warriors, so tall in stature that they might have come of Enac’s family; and indeed men held them to be giants of Enac’s breed, but the Moabite name for them is Emim. Deuteronomy 2: 10-11

We craned our necks far back, our chins into the air
to see them there, the Emim, giants,
warriors tall in stature,
great in size.

Dark wine dripped down from their faces
as they drank from barrel sized bowls;
we stood beneath that wretched flood
huddled, drenched below.

                                                                          

These dreaded ones,
these buzzing zamzummim,
who dwell in iron age castles
and disappear in a cloud of disowning,
they, they are the ones responsible
for sixteen thousand pigs
floating dead upon the river;
they, they are the ones to blame
for fear of fire and of sun.

Go back. Go back
to whence you came;
go back beneath the shadows,
to the netherworld.
The Emim are not wanted here.

While this is part of April Anomalies A-Z, a creative writing exercise and not intended to be an altogether accurate picture of the creature described above, the thing about 16,000 dead pigs in the river is far too real.