He got off the bus, shoulders hunched, head hung low, dazed as if in a dream. So many times he had pictured himself going home, to her. So many years, in that cell, his life stifled, waiting for liberation, day after day he had remembered her face, wondering.
There was a time when he told himself he was the real victim in all this, but no hero came to save him. In the end, he set out to save himself and disappeared, deep inside, looking for his true face. When he found nothing, he was free.
Would anyone recognise him? He shuffled along the street. Passers-by glanced his way but he knew none of them. On reaching the house, he paused. To knock, or walk away? He raised his hands, took one deep breath, sensing it inside his body, then rapped lightly on the wood.
Finally, the door opened. She stood there. “Oh, it’s you.”