Ciro lives near a big clock tower. He likes the clock tower very much. Every morning, he walks up the stairs inside it. The stairs are old and made of stone. Ciro goes up the stairs to check the time on the big clock. He does this every day. One morning, Ciro starts to walk up the stairs. He hears a loud noise above him. Someone is walking very fast up the stairs. The footsteps are very loud. Ciro stops and listens. The noise gets louder and louder. Then a man comes down the stairs. The man's name is Otto. Otto is Ciro's neighbor. Ciro does not know Otto very well. Otto looks angry.

He walks quickly past Ciro. He does not say hello. Ciro feels surprised. He thinks, "What is wrong with Otto?" Ciro calls out to him. He says, "Good morning! Are you okay?" Otto stops. He turns around and looks at Ciro. Otto says, "You make too much noise every morning!" Ciro is very confused. He says, "I am sorry, but what noise?" Otto says, "Every morning, I hear loud banging on the stairs. It wakes me up!" Ciro thinks for a moment. Then he understands. He says, "Otto, I think it is the old door at the bottom of the stairs. The wind blows it and it makes a loud banging noise." Otto looks surprised. He says, "Oh! I did not know that." Ciro and Otto walk down the stairs together. They look at the old door.

It is not closed properly. The wind comes in and blows the door open and shut. Bang! Bang! Bang! Otto laughs. He says, "You are right! It is the door!" Ciro laughs too. He says, "I am sorry the noise woke you up." They find a small rock near the door. They use the rock to keep the door closed. The banging stops. Otto feels much better now. He says, "Thank you, Ciro. I am sorry I was angry with you." Ciro smiles and says, "It is okay. Now we both know the problem." After that day, Ciro and Otto say hello every morning. They are good neighbors now. They sometimes walk up the stairs together to look at the big clock.

Ciro had a simple habit that he treasured deeply: every morning, he climbed the narrow stone stairwell of the old clock tower near his building to admire the view from the top. The stairwell was dim and cool, and the thick walls muffled the sounds of the world outside. One morning, however, as he rounded the second landing, he almost collided with a man storming down the stairs with a tense expression on his face. The man was Otto, a neighbor Ciro had only ever exchanged brief nods with in passing. Without slowing down, Otto muttered something under his breath and pushed past Ciro without a word of greeting. Ciro was taken aback by Otto's behavior, so he called after him. He said, "Otto, is everything alright?" Otto stopped and turned sharply, his jaw tight.

He said, "No, actually, everything is not alright. Someone in this building makes a terrible racket on these stairs every single morning, and it wakes me up before I want to be awake." Ciro frowned, genuinely puzzled, since he always tried to move quietly on the old stone steps. He said, "I climb these stairs each morning, but I do my best to be quiet. Could the noise be coming from somewhere else?" Otto hesitated, clearly not having considered this possibility. Together, they retraced their steps down to the ground floor, where an old wooden door at the base of the stairwell stood slightly ajar. The moment they reached the bottom, a gust of wind pushed the door open with a sharp bang, and then it swung back against the frame with an equally loud crack. Otto stared at it, and then let out a slow breath.

He said, "I owe you an apology, Ciro. I assumed it was you without any real evidence." Ciro found a loose brick near the entrance and wedged it firmly against the base of the door, stopping it from swinging. He said, "No harm done. These old buildings have a way of making the strangest noises." Otto smiled for the first time that morning, and the two men walked back up the stairwell together, their conversation echoing lightly off the ancient stone walls. By the time they reached the top and looked out at the quiet town spread below them, the misunderstanding had been completely forgotten.