My things began moving around me in the night. Worse was to come. Now the moment my back is turned they rearrange themselves, faster than the eye or mind can catch, following some imperative of their own. Occasionally I fancy that there, at the limit of my hearing, there are sublime, cold currents and eddies of command, a language flesh is dumb to.

It was subtle at first. A cup out of the cupboard, a chair on the wrong side of the table, my telescope spun around and pointing inquisitorially back into the room. Small enough for me to imagine that the fault was mine, lapses in attention, the small patches of forgetfulness that slowly burgeon as the years steal upon you, until life is a panicked stumbling from one trough and pothole to the next.

Slowly though they have grown more restive, more determined. More and more I feel they are mocking me, calling me to something.

I turned away from my journal this morning, taking in the view, the sea cold against the shore, the blunt rocks grinding it up into glass, momentarily lost in the pale December dazzle, only to find the order of the objects in my room exactly reversed. As though I had slipped through the looking glass and was caught now forever on the other side. The table, the piano, my books and charts, all my equipment. Where would I find the strength at my age to put them all back? I retreated here to study the stars, to leave the chaos of life behind and now I am besieged by the very things which were supposed to anchor and provide for me.

Dismayed I shuffled out to the kitchen. On returning I found the room back as it should have been, except for my chair which was turned away from the window now, facing me. I paused, the teacup shaking slightly in my hand, head cocked, listening, the chair posing some question to me I could barely detect, let alone understand.

Perhaps they intend to drive me out of here, this house where I had planned to spend my last days. Where I have lived so comfortably and for so long.

Perhaps they have a use for me I have yet to fathom.

I shall sit here and wait, in this vortex of matter and soundless speech. Here in my home.

Yes. I shall wait.