Clouds rolled over the mountain side like a blanket hitting the edge of the bed. Malek awoke to the roar of the storm hitting his city of Lublin. Lublin had always been home to young Malek. It is where he had grown up all his life. Throwing on his jacket, which had not fit him anymore, and pants that had been too big, he set out for the storm. Leaving through the front door of his small home, to touching the tall grass the had grown to his waist. The air gloomy. Wind squealed through pipes as if the spirits were trying to reach Malek.
“Co ty mo?wisz,” he had asked, What are you saying.
Malek never learned to speak English as a young boy. He never wanted to. The world around him was his oyster and he was the pearl. He wanted to learn about the spirits and the whispers that had surrounded him all his life.
“Odezwij sie? prosze?!” he stammered, Please speak to me.
He heard no response. The wind kept slamming with all its might against the town. He kept running.
Malek stopped to look up, seeing a tall black man standing in front of him.
“Czes?c?, sir,” Malek said, Hello, sir.
The man stood firm in his position, not caring to see the young Malek in front of him.
Malek waited a few minutes for the man to move. He decided to run around the man as he knew he could not be wasting his time waiting for a man to say hello back to him. Running around the man in a jogging motion, the man turned.
“Hello,” the man replied.

“Hi,” Malek tried to say in his best English, “you, you, um, took a little while to an-answer”
“I’m very sorry boy, I’ve had a long day today. What is your name?”
“Nazywam sie? Malek. Oh, wait I’m sorry, I do not speak English very well, My name is Malek.”
The man took another long pause staring into the mountains.
“Is the something there,” Malek estimated.
“Yes boy, many memories are buried up there.” The man uttered.
Malek turned looking to the mountains. He looked back to talk to the man, but he wasn’t
there. He never asked the man’s name. He never asked the man’s age, though he was taught to never ask the age of his elders. The wind uttered in his ear. He knew he had to find the man, so he started to run straight toward the mountains.
Malek soon touched down in the mountains nearly an hour after his departure from seeing the man. He remained walking into deeper forest areas. There were so many trees and branches covering his eyes as if it was his birthday as a young boy. His sight became dense but soon refueled when an opening in the woods appeared, uncovering a small hut. It was too daunting to go into. It looked abandoned and untouched for many years. He was worried that if he had tried to walk in, he would run into the trouble makers who live across the way from him. Though, his courage and stamina built up in his system. He knew he had to find out what was in there. There was so much to find out. What if this hut had belonged to an elder.
Malek lost all thoughts of the old black man he had bumped into, all he could think was how he needed to go into the hut.

The door creaked. The wood floors shifted between his footsteps. He looked up, no one home, but there on the wall. There was something. Something Malek recognized. It was his name on a piece of paper, and the paper was a letter to him. The letter explained his encounter with the old man.
This was his home. This was the old man’s life. The man was dead but only Malek had seen him. He had been dead for over one-hundred years.