At first, she and I did not know its needs. We let it hang about all day long and sit on the balcony, soaking up sun. Vaguely, we surmised that the sunlight filtering through would be converted to energy, the rain provide natural and sufficient hydration for it to grow and evolve with the seasons. After all, it did not come with instructions, and it simply did not occur to us that it may need special care.

In those first weeks and months it seemed to flourish without much thought. I would come home after a long day to find it back inside, glowing in the kitchen light, its spirits eager and glad. At night it curled neatly into itself or luxuriated about the tiny apartment, unfolding on couch or chair, stretching to great lengths. I marvelled at its variability and wondered whether I would ever get used to its presence in my life. She told me she asked the same.

As time wore on it gradually became more comfortable in my presence, and I grew more comfortable in its. Still, in those early days it would come as a shock to stumble home from the bar and find it standing in the entry, glaring, its fledgling feathers spiked in disdain. Its backlit figure cast a shadow that swallowed me whole; I shrunk and tiptoed down the hall in fear it may attack. Stories played in my mind, learned over the years from friends, books, movies, magazines — of jealousy, ire, vengeful attacks often ending in devastation and a return to solitude. In such moments it became clear that my choices mattered, though I held resolutely, if drunkenly, to my convictions, unwilling to cede control and allow it to dictate my behaviour. After all, I was the host and it a mere guest in my home. But in the morning guilt gnawed. My failure to negotiate this new kind of conflict weighed heavy, and so I made efforts to repair the damage, allowed concessions: left doors open when I would otherwise have preferred them closed, held my tongue at the loose feathers that fell on the floors and formed little nest-like mounds under the couch, the bookshelf, in the corners of each room.

What unnerved me most were its eyes, always peering at me. They frightened me with their sincerity and made me feel watched in my own home, stole furtive glances or stared expectantly until at last I had to admit this space was no longer only mine but something we shared, for better or worse. At any moment I might look up to find it gawking wide eyed in wonder, bewilderment, or perhaps fear, for I did not yet understand its mind in any real sense. And so I guessed and often got it wrong, and learned.

In time this feeling of being watched would start to feel more natural. Weeks turned into months and the initial awe in its gaze mellowed to appreciation, meek curiosity. I hoped it would not soften more or vanish altogether. Or worse, fall upon someone else. Its eyes, still on me as I moved around the apartment cooking or cleaning, had now begun to feel welcome. Soon I would find myself glancing up only to feel a small pang when I did not meet its gaze.

It happened suddenly, our realisation that it in fact needed care: a moment of panic in which its languishing health was suddenly so apparent she and I thought we might lose it forever. Despite its access to the elements its scales were dry and cracked. Its feathers had lost lustre, their oily iridescence gone. They littered the floor more than usual. The only sound it made was a croak and instinctively we knew how to care for it. We cradled it, weak and helpless in our arms, and nurtured it back to health, whispering words we didn’t know we had. Words that came from within, a place we thought lost to time: memories half forgotten of warm milk, lambskin blankets and lullabies; of bedtime stories, the smell of summer air at dusk and the sound of sprinklers on grass, glow-in-the-dark planets and stars, gleaming bone-green overhead on a black ceiling at night. We held it tight as we rocked gently, felt its strange body twist and collapse into the crooks of our arms, its weight heavy on our thighs. We fed it boiled carrots, hardy greens and scraps of meat from the fridge, felt its purring strengthen and reverberate through us as it crunched down on gristle.

Later, we discovered it had eaten all our tins of sardines in the pantry, colourful keepsakes from a summer trip to Portugal.

Not only this, but it demanded ever more attention. Where once it had been content to lounge silently around the apartment or hide in shadow under the desk, it now sat front and centre on the living room floor, contorting its body expectantly. It would coil its arms around our shins and stare up, yellow eyes glinting. We’d hear it ratcheting from the other room, feigning pleasure or guffawing loudly, trying to catch our attention. Claws would scratch at closed doors and its ludicrous dancing grew increasingly audible in the next room, footsteps lurching to an awkward beat. At first this was a nuisance, a frustration we railed against. Soon we grew used to it. The creature’s quirks filled the empty space between one thing and another, and gradually we came to realise it was these hitherto empty moments that comprised so much of our lives. Moments in which nothing much happens, which we would otherwise have spent preparing for life.

We no longer had time to prepare, and so, unready, were thrust into the world and forced to exist at all times. It was exhausting. Exhilarating. We felt ourselves beginning to change shape. The words we used to describe ourselves to others changed.

Organic peanut butter, cans of smoked line-caught salmon. Our packets of instant noodles, too, were consumed in full.

We had always known these creatures existed. Yet still it came as a shock to find one actually living in our midst — and, to all appearances, settling in for the long haul. Soon our lives began to form around it. Friends took time to negotiate its presence. Some fared better than others. New acquaintances were scrutinised and the bad ones promptly devoured, torn into and dismembered more or less upon arrival and swallowed, never to be seen again. We didn’t mind. This we accepted not as a sacrifice, but a natural course. In a strange way it gave us strength to witness its savagery. We washed the blood from our floors and used the chance to mop up stray feathers. We didn’t complain. Its teeth sliced through long-standing ways of being until all that remained was mutually beneficial, symbiotic.

Some days its body would swell and take up the whole apartment, suffocating us. Others we would hardly notice it. Slowly, persistently, a balance was found. We hoped it would be enough, and wondered how others managed.

On perfect nights we did nothing special. We stayed at home, spraying mists of water over its scales and wiping it clean, brushing its long back, preening feathers right down to its tail as we whispered urgently to one another in our shared language. Its presence now felt indispensable. We could not quite remember our lives before its arrival, nor could we imagine our futures without it. Our bodies wrapped into one another as we sipped whiskey and fell asleep on the couch to the sound of its deep, violent purrs, like some ancient motorcar, robust and indestructible, roiling steady, a great metal behemoth that would run forever and roll us safely into the future.

Other nights we did not sleep. Instead we lay awake fearing that no matter how hard we might try we could never hope to truly understand such a beast. And as we leafed through scenes from our past all we saw was this creature and we felt ourselves overrun, our dreams, once distinct, compromised, never fully reached, taken over by this inhabitant whose presence loomed all-consuming and inexorable in our minds, whose grotesque, uneven snoring ensured no sleep would come.