Pet

We found it in the dark, resembling bird. The night felt hungry for an unknown feast.
Wind wrapped its knuckles in bare trees, fingers lacing our long locks. I missed you already.
We decided the readings on the Geiger counter were not of concern.
We took it home.
It had downy feathers as if young, but its eyes belied seasons of sorrow.
A faint light pulsated from it, yet the cold-pimpled skin remained opaque.
Its milky, useless eyes span like planets; it whispered close to sense.
It seemed very important.
It was ravenous for anything with white flesh.
I wanted to feed it peeled peaches and the insides of asparagus steams.
You dangled strings of shredded chicken down its throat.
I wasn’t sure that was kind.
You said nothing. Sometimes our eyes matched over its cardboard box.
Sometimes yours slide across mine like ice cubes across the kitchen floor.
I was always dropping them, trying to get liquid into it the only way it would accept.
Solid and cold.
It became clear no escape was possible. We perched the box on an old cat tree.
It was now in closer proximity to the garden’s ivy snarls and ordinary birds.
If it noticed, I couldn’t tell. Maybe its eyes swirled a little faster in their orbits.
I spent my time guessing.
We tended to its strange, limited needs, and did not speak of it.
There was little sign of anything except the whirl and whisper, whirl and whisper.
Our live’s rhythms synced to predicted whims.
I wondered if it hurt.
In time, the cat tree came to resemble an altar. Untouched offerings strewn.
We were attempting to summon its spirit; presuming omniscience.
You were always more successful, and I was wrong.
If you knew something else, you never told.
It grew, slowly and nocturnally. I discovered you observed it during the night.
I watched you watch it, transfixed by silent dissonance. Near absence.
Its glow had brightened, an eerie light in the darkness. Your eyes were so wide.
I wondered what they were getting full of.
I wanted it to be colour.
Years folded by. It seldom moved, and never got ill. It was not a secret. Simply hidden.
We built our lives quietly around it. We stopped allowing visitors.
You drew the curtains. You assured me it was happy.

I believed you more than myself.
One day, I came home unannounced and found you touching it. With your whole bare hand.
We did not touch it. Not directly. Not ever. This was understood deeper than words.
You withdrew your hand and left. I stood in the sparks of your wake.
You felt interrupted. I think I was ashamed.
That night, I tossed and turned, dreaming it swelled and swelled. I never dreamed.
It grew as big as a large dog, and it swallowed you whole. With difficulty.
It started with your head, and wetly gulped down each part of you.
You surrendered to its cavernous maw. I could not move.
I missed you.
The next day, you slept into a husky morning, and I sat bolt upright at dawn.
I went to the bottom of the draw and got out the Geiger counter we ignored.
Taking the little thing, I pressed it up against the gooseflesh. Touching.
I had not previously known how that machine could scream.
When you left to obtain chickens to boil, as usual, I journeyed to the ice machine.
I would get home before you, with a huge bag of ice, to begin preparations.
The sustenance ritual took most of a day.
Not this time.
I brought the ice bag straight to the altar.
It whirled and whispered, whirled and whispered, exactly my head-height.
I looked right in its unseeing eyes, and hoisted the bag high, and
brought it down with all my strength.
The ice made a wet crunch, and that little anomaly
made no audible sound. The very air curdled.
I never saw you again.