The Man In The Glass

Looking up, I saw a figure bathed in red light pressing against the window of the flat next to mine, except there was no flat next to mine. Mine was the last on the floor next to the final outside wall, but it seemed that another flat had mysteriously appeared while I was at work.

There were no lifts in the building, which I believe was pre-Victorian, so I climbed the old staircase up to my flat and where there should have been a door there was just the finality of the brick wall.

I banged on it, but it was just brick. I got into my flat and did the same on the wall that was adjacent to the figure in the window that I had seen, but again, the wall was solid.

I went to my window and leaned out, and I could see the extra window and the distraught figure pressed against it. I could not reach the window with my outstretched hand, but I found a twelve-inch ruler and used that to tap the glass and grab the figure's attention. Maybe he would respond, but he didn't; he just remained pressed against the window.

I then went downstairs to look again, and the only extra window was the one on the fourth floor; the other floors were plain brick.

As I went back, I checked the wall on each floor, and they all ended where they should have done.

I came back up and found a long, hefty steel bar, with which I would try and smash the window, and hopefully find out why the figure seemed so distressed.

I opened my window and started hitting the mystery window. It was difficult to get any traction, but after about the tenth blow, I heard a crack, two more and the window shattered, some red mist blew out, and the figure fell, hitting the pavement four floors below.

I ran down calling an ambulance to see if, by some miracle, the person had survived.

When I got down, he could still talk; he had survived the fall. He then spoke:

"Are you the one who broke the window?"

"I am"

"I have been trying for two hundred years to escape the hell that Sartori consigned me to for stealing his lover. You have let me out, but my time here will be short. I will be returned to Sartori's Hell, and I will have to wait another two hundred years to try and break free. I hope next time in will be an easier egress"

With that, he died and left this plane to return to the hell he had just escaped from. He was imprisoned by a maestro's jealousy.

Did he deserve it? I don't know, but there was nothing I could do, he was lost to me.

The lesson I learned is to never cross an evil maestro.