by Aran Dervin
The man sat in the chair for quite a long time. He was far too exhausted to move about again so quickly. His backache contributed the rest of his motivation.
Luckily the armchair was surprisingly comfortable. Just the right level between too soft and too hard. Of course, he didn’t know who he really was, but he was definitely proud of his furniture purchases.
His gaze wandered across the flat. It seemed to be a two-room apartment. The one he was in contained the armchair, and opposite of it was a long row of bookshelves, reaching from one side of the room to the other and all the way to the ceiling.
It all seemed a little bit pompous and gave off the slightly narcissistic impression of “I like to read”. Burke decided that he liked it.
He would have to take a closer look at the books later. For now, he was still not done with the room.
A massive oak desk stood at the far end. Next to the door. Directly behind it was a window. And that window was opened all the way.
“John” paused. That was peculiar. He hoped he wasn’t one of those weirdos who left windows open in the pouring rain.
With a pained face he hoisted himself out of the chair and staggered through the room to close it. But he stopped for a moment, when he saw the mess.
The rain had done quite some damage to the documents on his beautiful workspace. Water was dripping down onto the chair and the carpet. It had made an ugly puddle in the middle of it.
Suddenly he felt a thump from beneath the skillfully woven fabric.
“Hum? What was that?” He muttered to himself. Was something underneath the floorboards?
Right as he wanted to check it out, a strong breeze blew a fountain of rain all over his back.
Shivering he turned around. First things first.
Leaning over to close the window he looked outside for the first time and got a bad feeling right away.
Directly underneath the window was a fire escape ladder. So as long as the window was open, anyone could just climb in, if they so choose. Or out, for that matter.
Quickly he shut the window and let his mind run wild. He would never be so reckless as to leave such a security risk unattended.
Right?
A knock at the door snapped him out of his thoughts.
© Aran Dervin 2023-08-09