The road back, The road beyond
At night, when the city finally quieted and the last lights faded from the neighboring windows, he would lie still with the decision he had been delaying. The darkness did not threaten him. It revealed him. Every unspoken fear, every unfinished dream, every memory he had tried to fold away during the day returned to sit beside him like familiar shadows.
He often found himself staring at the ceiling, tracing the faint patterns of streetlights drifting across the plaster. In those drifting shapes, he saw home. The old house with chipped paint and warm corners. He saw the dim hallway light left on for him, the familiar sound of utensils in the kitchen. The smell of dinner which his mother is preparing. His father sitting outside near the gate, pretending he wasn’t waiting for him, though he always was.
These visions came with the faint smell of soil after rain, with the distant sound of crickets, and with a quiet sense of belonging he had never been able to replicate in the city.
The thought of returning home, settled over him like a soft blanket. Peaceful. Familiar. A life where mornings felt gentle and evenings carried the comfort of routine.
But beneath that comfort, lay a fear he could not name. Going back meant accepting that some dreams would remain unfulfilled. It meant stepping away from the ambitions he had carried like a badge through the chaos of youth. The idea of surrendering them felt like letting a part of himself harden and fall away.
Then there were nights when distant trains or passing cars stirred something restless within him. A longing for motion. He would close his eyes and imagine airports, unfamiliar cities, new languages, new people, the slow thrill of always exploring. The thought filled him with excitement, almost enough to drown out the quiet ache underneath.
Yet this version of life carried its own emptiness. He imagined stepping into a cold apartment at the end of a long day, no voices calling him, no familiar footsteps approaching... Festivals spent alone... Missed birthdays... Moments with his loved ones slipping away, while he searched for something he wasn’t even certain he wanted.
He pictured long nights in cold apartments, meals eaten alone, phone calls that grew shorter as the years passed. He pictured himself drifting through places that never really claimed him. The loneliness of that life clung to him like a thin mist he couldn’t shake off.
Some nights, the choice felt like a quiet war inside him. There were no dramatic moments, only the slow pull of two lives tugging in his mind. He loved his roots, but he longed for the world beyond them. He wanted stability, yet he craved uncertainty.
He wished someone would tell him which path would hurt less... which future would ask for fewer sacrifices. But he knew, It was not simply a choice between two futures. It was a quiet dismantling of a version of himself.
Sometimes he tried convincing himself that he would eventually find clarity. That, people his age eventually figure out where they belong. But even those thoughts rang hollow. The truth was harder. Some decisions do not resolve. Some lives never settle into neat shapes. Some sacrifices leave marks that do not fade.
In those late hours, staring at the ceiling while the world outside gave up to silence, he felt a strange stillness settle over him. Not peace. Not acceptance. Just the realization. Realization that, the life he wanted and the life he could have were not the same thing. They never had been.
He lay there with this realization, his unfinished projects and characters of his incomplete stories sitting beside him, waiting for him. He knew that whichever way he turned, something in him would remain unfinished. Morning didn’t care about it though, it would ask for an answer!