Professor Mauer opened the door to his top floor apartment and made his way over to the fireplace, allowing the suffocated flames to relieve his skin of the winter’s grasp. After heaving on the strained pulley of the curtain, a glorious light flooded into the dim room. He missed the rays of sun that now tended to be obscured by accusatory clouds. Diverting his gaze from the crippled branches that once accumulated in an intense blossom, his eyes moved to the man he often passed on the stairs as he moved out into the tired mist of morning. Today, however, the man’s scrutinising stare intensified so that he could feel him watching his every step, listening to his every breath. He could not begin to understand the reasons for this, but, as he continued to watch, the man turned to issue a glance directly at the window of the top floor flat, then disappeared from sight. The sun was hidden and Klaus returned home. He climbed the stairs passing each closed door, his face illuminated every so often by the shards of light emitted by the streetlamps outside. A community of distressed eyes bore through each spy hole from within their fragile existence. He continued until he heard the groans of his neighbour’s wooden boards under his suspicious weight.The door opened and Klaus looked at the unsuspecting old man with a wry smile before entering.The old man’s spine folded over a chair as he tried to obstruct the intruder.Trying to clasp the wooden frame, his weak elbows tore as his body collapsed. The old man’s interrupted breathing disturbed the silence as he lay on the floor. Slow sobs, distorted by his lacerated tongue, diminished as his mind began to relieve his body from the crippling pain which now overwhelmed it - but within a few moments he lay there, unanimated, unmoving, except for the terrible vibrations as his fractured bones convulsed in nervous agony. The body lay on the floor with its painfully swollen features, and skin sagging over protruding bones. A few threads fastening the
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