Excellent choice of words, Robert. The ‘Notes of Madness’ was accented, in my opinion, by the sentence: ‘Carl grew bored’. Not “tired” or “sleepy” but ‘bored’. Well done sir! Question: Is it ‘shrill’ or “shrilling”?

In the 1st paragraph, Carl’s thoughts should be either italicized or quoted to make it clear that they’re something special within the narrative.

In the 3rd paragraph, ‘for some time" appears to be misplaced. I suspect that putting immediately after “waited” would fix it up. That same sentence is a bit too long and expresses too many ideas. I’d suggest breaking the sentence immediately before ‘scarcely’ and then change ‘straining’ to ‘he strained’.

Similar if lesser issues happen in the 1st sentence of the 2nd paragraph. “Open” is fine where it is but it could also be moved to follow “pulled”. The point about the oil lamps impedes the flow of the sentence in which it’s located. I don’t know what that point serves except to establish a time frame for the story.

It’s a bit like Chinese water torture. :)

I agree with August on the first point: the apparent switch from first to third person jars the flow.

It does indeed sound like torture: like my flatmates screaming at all hours of the night.

A great start to the challenge. This is basically what life is like in my apartment during the school year, except it’s dance music instead of pan pipes.

Fixed/Re-edited!

I quite like the edits that you’ve made, Robert. Even the ones that no one commented on, such as changing “something from my collection” to “dross”, if I recall correctly.