Haunted

Sometimes when I walk down Krakow's narrow cobblestone streets I hear footsteps behind me. They aren't anyone's footsteps in particular, but rather the steps of the whole of history. They are heavy steps, burdened by the past. I think of all the shoes, ragged and new, that have tread this very street in the oppressive heat, in the bitter cold, in love and in war. Often, it is difficult to imagine Poland's not-so-distant past with the glare of the neon signs from the shop windows. But looking down, at the worn stone beneath my feet, the past somehow becomes present, alive with ruin. The ghosts of this city are everywhere.