taking over

I think it was my childhood friend E, although at times he looked like B., my German high school mate, who I had met and invited to my house. I was waking up that . They were cleaning the house, one room at a time, but with every room they cleaned there appeared two or three sisters or brothers of my friend's who would take over the room. Nobody could tell me where my granddad or my mum were and I was concerned as they had been poorly. There were girls and boys of all ages coming in and out of those rooms and milling all around the house now. I caught a glimpse of a boy sitting on a bed in one of the rooms, clumsily trying to play one of my guitars.

I went to my room and my book case and bed-side table (and their contents) weren't there; instead there were some buckets and mops. So I went to my friend and loudly complained and he started to speak before I'd finished, me in loud voices, he in soft tones. Where were my books and the contents of my bed-side table? My laptop was there and all my books and music, where were they. 'Calma', he replied; nothing's lost, we're just cleaning them and pruning the things you don't need. What? shouted I, 'you're not to decide what I need or don't need! I want my stuff back now!'. He looked to me with a smile, the sort of smile that you would direct towards somebody who is ill and perhaps a little mad and doesn't quite make sense. Then I saw the two twelve year old girls carrying bundles of my books out to the yard. I told myself I had to be dreaming, this just could not be happening. And he said, as if he'd been able to hear me 'of course it is not happening to you there where you are, but there are many of you in the universe and this is happening for real to some of you and the pain will resonate in you, I hope…'

That's when I woke up, covered in sweat and breathing noisily, the silence in my room like an overstretched bow string..