Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng

by Kylie Lee Baker

Apparently, people do strange things when they’re scared of dying, and one of them is hoarding toilet paper.

All are welcome in God’s house, Auntie Lois says, but she always emphasizes the all, as if God is especially generous for letting someone like Cora in, like there’s something about her that’s inherently unholy.

Cora doesn’t like thinking of all the parts that make her up, all the glands and sacks and tendons and flaps. She wants to exist like a Lego person, with one singular body that exists in and of itself, solid, no room for anything inside.

Her table has bite marks. The crescent shape of a human mouth has bitten through the varnish of her table, split the wood.

BRUH

But the thing about hungry ghosts is they don’t care if you believe in them.”