Narrator: Priya S. | Nevada, USA
I stayed in a hotel on the nineteenth floor for a work conference. Just after midnight somebody squeaked a rubber blade across my window.
I was still awake. The room was dark, the curtains partly open. A man in a dark jacket was outside, wiping a small square of glass directly above the desk.
For a few seconds I accepted it. Hotels do maintenance at odd hours. Then I realised I couldn’t see a platform, a rope or anything supporting him.
He put the blade down below the sill. Both his hands came up empty. He cupped them around his eyes and leaned against the glass.
I turned the bedside lamp on. He was gone. There was a wet square on the outside of the window and a long smear where his forehead had rested.
Reception sent someone up. The window didn’t open. Nobody had been working outside. The man from reception kept looking towards it while he spoke, which made his reassurance fairly useless.
They moved me. I made it through my presentation the next day and then cried in a lift because it had glass sides. I hadn’t known something could frighten you afterwards like that.
