Bill presents his latest dumpster dive catch on the living room floor; a washed-up cephalopod with sprawling tentacles. Their high-rise flat isn’t its natural environment, but Bill and Nita don’t notice it gasping for life as they kiss. For Nita, it’s better than the barely used spiraliser and the folding bike that needs a new chain; this can be displayed, glistening for guests. She holds it with wide, trembling arms, its body resting helplessly against her while Bill screws it to the ceiling.

It gently pendulums, dominating the space, prisms oscillating across blue woodchip as it settles. To cross the room means they must limbo beneath it, looking up into its core, seeing its keen hearts. 

They can’t sit on the sofa together as usual, dinner on trays, kitchen roll between them, as it blocks Bill’s view of the telly. He sits in the armchair opposite, and Nita gets out the Christmas napkins, Bill stifling his belches behind red cloth, Nita dabbing her oily lips instead of wiping. 

After, she takes their trays to the kitchen and returns with prosecco won in a raffle, pink ticket 80 sellotaped to the dusty bottle. Working the cork like a poultry neck, it pops, followed by a jangle and bang. On the carpet lies the cork and three little suckers it severed, still strung together. 

‘Chrissake! Why did you do that, Nita?’

‘It’s Anita, thank you!’

‘Since when?’

She tuts, then tuts again when her pour only produces foam.

Setting the glass down, she reaches for the cork as Bill reaches for the broken parts. Clanging heads, they fall on their backs, a view of its centre. It roars as it breaks free, spraying plasterboard flecks. Before it swallows them whole, they cover their faces, wondering why they haven’t reached for each other. 

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