„Halloa! Below there!“ came a shout from the roof top. As I only had opened the window to get some fresh air, I involuntarily let out a shrill cry. You must know that I live on the fifth floor and there is just the roof above my flat. Normally you hear the cooing of pigeons there, and just once or twice a year the horrible howling of a fierce catfight. However, never before had I looked out of the window to hear a human voice calling out to me from above. As I leaned out to see who had tried to get my attention I discovered a young man’s face looking down at me. “I am truly sorry, if I startled you. But I am sort of stuck on the roof top and I wanted to ask you if you would most kindly let me use your window sill to make an escape to the world below by means of trespassing through your apartment.”
I still was too shocked to make any other reply than a kind of “Hmm, ah, yeah.” Alas, that seemed reply enough for the man to go on. “You see, I got into this situation quite involuntarily and I can assure you that I don’t want to steal from you or harm you in any way.” This kind of talk did not help at all. Had I not been thinking about such a possibility before I most certainly did now. The man must have seen his error and continued with his tale: “Now there, don’t be afraid. I will not take a step onto your premises, not even your windowsill, if you do not allow me to do so. However, I am in dire straits as you can imagine. I got locked out of my own apartment some roof tops down the street. Silly me, shut the door behind me without taking a key. I only wanted to water the philodendron outside my flat.” At this point of the story, he showed me an old watering can, as if to illustrate and verify his story. “As I could not get into my flat again I tried to get out of the house but somebody must have locked the entrance door. I knocked on all the doors of my neighbours but nobody seemed to be at home. Therefore, I could think of no other solution than to climb out of a window and onto the roof. From there I got onto another one and so on but nowhere so far could I find any possibility of getting down to the pavement. That is the reason why I sat down here to look around me and to decide where to try it further. And just as I sat there in growing despair you opened your window. Maybe now you will understand why I had no other option but to ask for your help.” Of course, now I understood his request perfectly.
Therefore, I gave him permission to enter my premises via the windowsill. At first, he passed me down the watering can so that he had both hands free for the difficult climb. As he saw my sceptical glance at the old and even perforated object, he begged me to put it down carefully as it was his beloved grandmothers who had passed away some years ago. Of course, this detail stirred my heart and I handled it with the utmost care. Having completed this task, I watched the man’s quite artistic performance of lowering himself down from the roof to my windowsill. From there onto the floor of my living room seemed only a minor trouble to him. Within seconds of entering my apartment by means of the window he had shaken my hand, bestowed the most grateful wishes upon me and having taken up his dear old watering can begged me to lead him to the entrance and to let him out into the world to find a locksmith to open the door of his flat. This I did and we parted company in the most friendly fashion within short time.
As you can imagine, this incident was the most extraordinary situation that had happened to me in quite a while. Nevertheless, what was even more outstanding was the article I found on the front page of the newspaper the next morning: “Most precious antique watering can stolen from Vienna Art History Museum! How the burglar entered the premises is not yet known. But police have found evidence that the thief escaped via the roof of the museum.”
As I read this first paragraph of the main article, I marvelled at how a thief could have been such a nice young man. Had he not been in such a hurry I would even have invited him for tea…and maybe even more.
This short story originated at the VHS-course "Short Story Writing" by Nicole Kovanda (see LinkTipps). The only specification to the story was the beginining of "Halloa! Below there!" which is the beginning of "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens.
Deutsche Übersetzung s. https://sites.google.com/site/gedichteit/kurzgeschichten/abenteuer/eine-hoechst-bemerkenswerte-situation