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Lost To The World
Sometime after five in the morning, I lay in a bed wrapped in sheets I hadn’t
washed since I moved in four months ago. I was also on my third spell of insomnia
since traveling to the Czech Republic. From my window, the sun fell and rose. I lay
awake, paralyzed—five hours of sleep in the past three days. The perpetual weight
of sleeplessness. A maddening purgatory. I burrowed my chewed fingernails into my
cheeks to test whether the two-dollar bottle of wine I guzzled had any effect.
Undeniably, it had fallen short of its catatonic guarantee.
During these bouts I did anything to fall asleep. I would get drunk at nine in
hopes of going to sleep at midnight, to no avail. I took Xanax, masturbated and
smoked bad weed, which I bought from an old woman with purple hair. I
hallucinated her crude face and cracked skin staring at me from the room’s ceiling.
She was laughing at me.
To pass the time I studied my four walls. I read existential classics by Kafka,
and smutty stories by Bukowski. Spiders snuck through my windows and spun webs
in the corners of my room, finding refuge from the cold. My ears rang from the
deafening silence that echoed in my flat.
That day, the first of January, I decided to break my solitude and go for a
walk. I twisted free from my sheets and dressed. I left my single room, and
descended the stairwell from the fourth floor. I stepped outside of my apartment
complex and onto the stoop. It had snowed for the first time since I’d been in
Olomouc. Rounded, grey mountains blurred through the overcast and surrounded

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the city. They rippled through boarders and stopped in Krakow and Bratislava. I’d
never seen snow as serene as it was that day. Completely untouched, lying atop of
the cobbled streets, my boot prints would be the first to disturb its bliss.
I often took long, slow walks. Normally I walked down two paths that snaked
through the park and into the center of the city. Taking a direct left would lead me
down a familiar path. However, a right would send me down a route I’ve never
taken before: one that led to a rural, neighboring village. I turned right.
The dirt path was veiled with white. The sun rose to the color of love. The
snow burned pink and red and orange. I walked for nearly an hour until I reached a
lifeless Czech settlement. All the houses were built with stone slabs, topped with
light auburn roofs. They were built in an asymmetrical maze that wound up and
down a hill. The village seemed vacant. I was alone.
As I walked, I heard a monotonous scraping sound, which grew louder with
each step. The sound in the stagnant air began to grate. The hair on the back of my
neck stood up, and I clenched my jaws together. The billowing clouds draped over
the risen sun. In the distance I could make out a figure. An old, old man, who seemed
to struggle to even stand, worked at his covered walkway. His hair, as white as the
snow he was shoveling. His tapered coat matched the somber setting, and his hair
stuck out like it was running away from him. His hands gnarled with arthritis; His
ragged pants, barely hung on to his waist.
I approached him and said one of the few Czech words I knew—“Ahoj,” an
informal hello. He twisted towards me until we made eye contact. He grimaced and

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flared his top lip. He smelled like mothballs, so pungent my eyes started to water. He
never said a word, just stared at me. I counted his teeth. He had eight.
I finally put my hands outs, made two fists and put them together, and then
made a shoveling motion towards the ground. He continued to stare back, this time
unimpressively. He sized me up several times. He started to laugh at me, as if he had
won something. He gave me the shovel, turned towards his house, and treaded to his
door. His boots were at least three sizes too big, and his heels would be the first to
drop down, making a steady, memorizing beat. Accompanied by the awful noise
from my newly acquired tin shovel, we harmonized together.
I wasn’t wearing gloves. When I finished, my hands were numb and it was
hard to let go of the shovel. The old man had been watching me the entire time from
his window. I imagined him standing behind that window for his entire existence:
The world and his body, crumbling together. As I scooped the last of the powdered
snow, he opened the door and motioned for me to come inside. I threw the shovel
down.
We walked through his front door, and were standing in his muck room. He
hung his jacket on the coatrack, slung his boots in between two boxes filled with
potatoes and slid into a pair of slippers that had two holes: one at the point of his
right foot, allowing his big toe to protrude just enough to see the fungus spreading
under his nail, and one at the very top, which seemed to be from a cigarette’s ash. He
pointed to my shoes, and waved at them like he couldn’t control his wrist. I guessed,
untied my shoes and placed them behind his; he nodded and shuffled to the next
room.

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He led me into the kitchen. The room was small and nothing was out of place.
Light beamed from the window he’d watched me from. Dust suspended in mid air,
circulating in the light, trapped. There was a stove with cabinets attached, an old-
fashioned icebox, which probably only fit a liter of milk and a carton of eggs, and an
old clock mounted on the wall. A chestnut-colored counter was built from under the
window. Two adjacent chairs slid under the surface, and two adjacent mugs of
coffee perched above. Trailing tentacles of vapor rose from the coffee until it
blended in with the beam of life.
This was his life—a sack of potatoes, a window and an icebox. I lived a half-
mile down the path from him and had everything. Since I was American, the
university gave me every luxury—a stove, an oven, a microwave, a kettle, a toaster,
a private bathroom. At this moment, I knew he sensed my privilege. Living in his
village, lost to the world. From his window he’d watch his country’s hardship: the
ascent, decline and sustained impact of the Soviets, followed by the overwhelming
influence of Western societies. He knew who was shoveling. He resented me; I knew
that. He scrapped for every potato in that sack, for every drop of coffee in my mug
and for each of the hands that spun around the mounted clock. Unlike me—born
into privilege. Born into middle-class America. Born into car-sized refrigerators
filled with leftovers and chocolate milk. The old man knew all of this and celebrated
his small victory from behind his window, watching privilege finally bend its back.
We sat at the table, unable to communicate. The sink was dripping but
seemingly didn’t make a sound. I looked around his kitchen, but he looked through
me. Everything was still, except the hands on the clock. I nearly finished my coffee,

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leaving one last sip. It swayed at the bottom of the mug. I tried to think of how to
leave—nothing came to mind.
I looked back at the old man. His left eyebrow slightly rose higher than the
right. He was still staring at me, this time unsure. I stood up and pushed in the chair.
He rose slowly from his seat, awaiting my move. I stuck out my hand. He slid his into
my palm, and squeezed faintly. We looked at each other one last time.
I spun around, and walked through the kitchen and into the mudroom. I
slipped my boots back on, and let myself out. My footprints were still the only trail
back to my flat. I left him and nothing changed. The old man lost to the world and I
bounded by privilege. From his window, he burned a hole through the back of my
head, and watched me trek back.

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