The way back was long. Nights went by and days of thought encapsulated months. Just when I thought there would be no return, a sign of civilization was seen peeking from trees in the distance.

Smoke serpentined out of homes. Carts passed by. Children played along the pond near the town.

They ran and splashed in the waters of their youth.

I walked by with thoughts of my own.

Upon reaching town I stared long and hard.

The world had continued to move on. I had pictured it as the one that wronged me.

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Yet much had changed

Old buildings looked renewed.

Shops and faces I'd never seen had been scattered across the forefront.

The realization of change hit me hard and brought me walking back toward the lake.

In the reflection, I did not see the boy harmed and pushed away.

A rugged man looked back at me, one that I hardly recognized. With a beard, dark and long. Eyes of a cool hazel, and a bundle of hair held in a ponytail with parts of tree bark.

The children had begun to stare, or maybe they had been the whole while.

I was a man of the mountains who had stumbled his way back into the life of men.

It was as if I came from another world.