Chan Ziqian - BGSS_The Mysterious Animal lyrics

Sightings of this creature are clearest at dusk in the winter, when the tree it is perched in has been reduced to nothing more than a few dark strokes on the sky. It was on one of those evenings, as I stood staring out of my window, that I first noticed what seemed like a large cat or bird among the branches. It could have been a lion or a swan, a menace or a blessing that had lighted upon this garden, but I did not run to call the police or to inform the other tenants of my discovery. The animal, though as real as a tree, inhabited an entirely different world, a space in which telephones and neighbours did not exist. Standing in my room, listening to the muffled voices and footsteps from the rest of the house, I knew it could not touch me. Stray cats and birds have wandered into the garden but this creature was nothing like them. Drawn to its full height, it would probably be as tall as me, too large for the rectangular patch of gra** and the perimeter of brick. It clearly belonged elsewhere, a place it carried along with it even in this garden, this tree. An open field appeared when I looked at it, flattening the surrounding houses that had been built in a clutter of brick and concrete. Two years have pa**ed since that first encounter and it is still there, visible from my window, although its form remains unclear. On summer days like this, it is obscured by sunlight and bright leaves. Still, I have realised that it is neither cat nor bird but a cross between the two, the same creature that has appeared twice before in my dreams. Even when I was a child living in a different house, it had made itself known to me. Both times, I had walked (in my dream) to the window where I saw hundreds of birds on taut wires, and among them, a creature ten times their size. With the head of a parrot and body of a tiger, it did not exist in any book or picture I had ever seen. Everything else was exactly as it was in real life, down to the chipped tiles of the neighbour's roof. Although I would later awake frightened from the dream, I was not startled then. I only stood by the window gazing at the peculiar animal as it looked straight back at me. Perched on the wire with the grace of a trapeze artist, it displayed the same ease there as it would years later in the tree. It was in those dreams that I saw the animal most clearly. Around its eyes were thick lines like deep wrinkles, and on its body were intricate orange and black patterns I do not remember now. I would observe the design more closely if I had the chance but the dream has never returned to me. These days, in my waking hours, I see only an outline that swells and shifts with the wavering shadows and leaves. Masked by branches, it appears in a shade of black that is nothing like the ink of a pen or the shimmering feathers of a crow. The closest I have come to replicating it is by shutting my eyes and wishing everything away – this house, myself, the universe and the dark space it holds. The other tenants seem oblivious to it but perhaps they think the same of me. At times I have been tempted to point it out but how ridiculous it seems. Once I had tried to mention it over breakfast but as I began to speak I realised how impossible it was. We were surrounded by bread and spoons and half-empty trays of eggs. I said something about a stray tabby I had fed the other day instead. There was no way to talk over instant coffee about a creature half-parrot, half-cat. It had to be left outside in the garden, not dragged into this space where we cooked and ate. Just as a bed could not be brought into the kitchen, there were words that could never be uttered there. On the few occasions I shared my bed, I reached for the curtains and drew them apart, hoping to disclose my secret without articulating the absurd words. But each time, my companion only commented on the plants or ignored the window completely. I would then let him hold me and wait to fall asleep. I have never brought it up otherwise because there is no way to speak without irony, even to someone in the same bed, about the animal in the garden. I am not sure it would ever be possible to talk sensibly about this. As I attempt now to describe the animal on paper in the plainest and simplest manner, I am afraid it will be taken as a hallucination or a metaphor.