Safe as houses

There’s someone in my house. I don’t know who they are and yet they’re treating me like we’re friends. What do they want? They move slowly through each room, well dressed spectres. They note every aspect, you can read it on their faces.’

“Oh what a lovely garden…is it south facing?”

It dawns on me they’re here to buy the house. They want to rape my childhood memories. Expunging them in a blaze of IKEA purchases, a splatter of Dulex paint. Wiping clean all that makes the house mine and me it. Back, back, young family! This place is still mine but not for much longer.

The phone rings constantly, the bell tolls for thee. Slimy, sleuths speak down the receiver.

“Yes, that’s right there are now five appointments for today.”

Five memory rapists I have to smile at and welcome into my home, like a pretty actress making the sacrifice to further her career.

Some are trendy, some are common, some have children but all wish to take over. They want to evict me like a crustacean and don my shell. The house stands indifferent. Any connection I feel we have is not reciprocated by the mortar and wood. It is stoic as these cancerous cells infect every edifice. I the lone white blood cell have been infected too, fooled into thinking they're not foreign bodies. I placate them with anecdotes, all so they can stuff my throat with silver and gold in exchange for my history.

So be it then. They can have my home.


That was overdramatic wasn’t it? Still, it’s really an unsettling experience having strangers walking and perusing a home you’ve lived in most of your life. The bastards better fork out big for there to be some kind of recompense.