The well-worn house, faded denim blue, was black as pitch when I left.
It was lit forgivingly and warmly upon my return.
I saw a man, an elderly man rocking on the porch.
I did not know this man. I did not own a rocking chair. My porch wrapped around the entire house, and I would circle it incessantly, always clockwise, like a medieval guardsman.
The elderly man tipped his cap to me. He stopped rocking for a split second, having gone backward as far as he could and smiled, and then he descended, cheerful as a child barreling downward on a snarling roller coaster.
I spied my neighbor raking leaves in the fading daylight. I beckoned him to me.
Do you see him, I asked.
Who, my neighbor replied. My neighbor and I had never spoken before this.
That man on my porch, in the rocking chair. I pointed. There!
That is not your house, my neighbor said as firmly as cold butter. We’ve never met, sir.
Ignore that fool, the man said, waving his hand as a flag might accept an absent breeze. He stopped rocking, stood, opened the rusty screen door, and beckoned me to him.
Welcome home, he whispered, longingly, barely audible above the torment and cries of the autumn leaves crashing to Earth. It’s been too long.
A lot had changed while I was gone.
Now that I am home.