Mother, my hands are not my own.

The ones I have are someone else's - they are useless to me. My old ones have been removed, and these old man's hands have been grafted on in their place.

I took a flower the other day and rolled its stem between these lumps I now have for fingers, trying to woo some sensation into them, but it was hopeless.

My feet, too, are different. I'm convinced they're not my old ones. It must happen whilst I'm asleep, when the shadows deepen and the forces of the [bad word] alive.

I have walked a lot. I have covered many miles, and I know each blister and crack that lurks between my toes. They are not mine. I am sure of it. My other ones were my two soldiers. Battled-hardened, as tough as a leather purse.

Now they are like . . . accountant's feet, milky and fine. More used to snuggling beneath a hardwood desk and they scream in pain when I put any weight on them.

Maybe the armies that spy on men's and women's hearts while they are asleep are irritated at me. Annoyed that I can sense them. That I challenge them, in the black, long hours before dawn.

So, a plan has been formed to cut me a new body, limb by limb. My old one is hacked from me, when I do chance to sleep, and the new one sewn on.

I know that it is hurried, because I can trace the fine stitching across my joints. It is like a . . . cobweb line, from a spider's web. You have to really look, or you'll miss it.

They are working at me, changing me piece by piece.

It will end with my eyes, because when they replace them they will have my soul.