UNA

JASON #19

Coming back to your parents' house is never neutral, no matter how old you are, how big your own family is, and how often you actually see them.

Still, I was more excited than I had imagined I would be. When I approached the house, I searched for any traces of my mother in the garden. But there were no signs of anyone.

I went straight towards the entrance. But then I stopped halfway. I started to feel doubt crawling up somewhere in my leftside brain.

So I started to take a careful look at the building. Something was different. It took me a while to recognize it, but there was this feel of abandonment, like a layer of dust, that covered not only the house, but also all my fond and not so fond memories.

Was it decay that my eyes resisted to acknowledge? But an unhinged shutter, and windows that were hard to look through, were something that I would have never connected to the place that I had grown up in.

I started to feel uneasy. Questions like "Am I too late?" appeared unasked on my mind. So I decided to get to the bottom of all of this, and looked, whether the extra key was still placed at the same place I was used to.

Just when I wanted to kneel down, a hand tapped on my shoulder, followed by "Sir, could you please fasten your seatbelts. We are landing."

I woke with a start, relieved and confused at the same time. But the look out of the window promised me that everything was fine. Although, judging from my experiences, I would never say again, "It was just a dream."

Two hours later, I stood at the same point as before, full of doubt.

But this time I was hauled out of my twinge of existential pain by a figure running towards me. Calling me. And before I even realized my mother's voice, she already hugged me like the lost son that had come home from all the imaginable wars that mankind had ever fought.

And the love engulfing me was so overwhelming that I couldn't help but surrender by crying like the little boy I felt at that moment.