I awoke to discover both my home and my spouse undergoing an unnerving renewal…
It’s around 7am. I walk into the back bedroom of my house to find it in complete disarray.
There are trails of mortar and dust on every surface and a general disorder to the contents of the room.
It’s the kind of scene I’d expect shortly after a ceiling collapse. I feel profoundly confused.
I go downstairs to find my wife and ask her what’s happened, at which point I discover that the ground floor of the house is somehow different.
In fact, the more that I look around, the more I realise the place has undergone some significant remodelling.
My house has been changed completely
For a start, the floorboards have been stained a much darker shade. This change is made all the more jarring because most of our furniture has been removed.
I realise that the wall between our dining room and sitting room has been knocked through; a series of ornate Japanese folding screens is being used to partition the space instead.
Finally, the exterior doors leading to our back garden have been replaced by huge French windows.
As a result of these changes, the white autumn sunlight feels unusual bright, even harsh. It cuts through the empty and enlarged room with nothing to impede it, and I’m forced to squint a little to make out the new details.
I approach my wife to talk about the changes. I adopt a diplomatic tone, and decide to start by citing one of the more minor issues.
“There’s loads of rubbish upstairs,” I say, without too much inflection.
“Yeah, I’ve been sorting the house out,” she replies in a breezy, offhand way.
I’m surprised and annoyed by how flippant she seems, given the circumstances. I abandon my tactful approach all together.
“You’ve completely changed the house,” I point out, gesturing around us. “What time did you get up?
“I got up four hours ago,” she says, in a playful way – in a cutesy way that isn’t my wife’s style – and now it looks like she isn’t my wife, either.
