The Father Who Ran Before You Spoke

The afternoon stretches out, a long gray corridor where your absence feels like it would barely ripple the surface. You wonder if you vanished right now, would the world even pause?

Would anyone notice the space you leave behind? There is a father who saw his son coming home from a long way off.

He ran. Before the apology, before the speech — he ran.

The light does not wait for you to be visible to the crowd before it sees you. It sees the one who wanders, and it leaves the ninety-nine to find the single lost soul.

You are not a statistic in the middle of the day. You are the one being sought.

The light inside you cannot be hidden, even when you feel invisible. You are known by a name no one else hears.