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Apartment for rent

A dream:

We reached the top of the spiralling staircase and we approached a door. The estate agent was young. He said the apartment was a ‘half-height’. The apartment was split into two vertically, and so was the door. We unlocked and opened the top half of the door. I lifted myself up and into the dark corridor and started crawling into the half height apartment.

The estate agent reached in and turned the lights on for me but stayed on the staircase.

I crawled around and it was hot. I knew that it had been recently renovated.

I slid open a door (perhaps two or three feet in height) to reveal a sleeping area. Another sliding door revealed a showering area. Everything was very high spec and luxurious.

There were no windows.

Turning on my stomach, I tried to locate the ventilation to save me from feeling claustrophobic. Opening further sliding doors finally revealed small area with a metal vent on the floor. I opened the vent to find a plastic lid inside – evidently, the inner plastic layer hadn’t been pushed through fully when the apartment was built. I pushed down the inner plastic layer – it dropped down, God know’s how many hundred metres, and subsequently cool air rushed into the apartment.

The same area also had a skylight. I knew that this would lead to the roof.

If I was right, I knew that I would be able to climb onto the roof and come here at night.

I lifted myself up through the skylight, onto a small platform. It overlooked the entirety of the city, with its millions of people, lights sparkling in the hazy night in every direction. I could see bright lights flashing and spinning slowly, like lighthouses, from other towers.