I’m quarter gone … I’m half gone … I’m three-quarters gone … I’m all gone!

1523 – Nicolaus Copernicus proposes one of the first heliocentric models of the solar system, having realised that we go round the light rather than the light going round us

1723 – A small confectionary-based being leaps from a confined space and then flees for his life, pursed by various parties who want nothing more than to see him brought to a brutal end

2023 – A musician and composer lies on his back in a room in a low-budget hotel in a Polish city he doesn’t know while his world spins out of control around him

What connects these three?  And who is the mysterious figure who seems to stalk all three time-scapes?