The Hand Running Toward You

The house is quiet now, and the silence feels heavy enough to crush you. You are lying here reaching out in the dark for a hand you convinced yourself pulled away long ago.

The night makes the distance feel absolute, as if the connection was severed by your own fear or failure. But the light does not operate on your timeline, and it certainly does not operate on your assumptions.

There is a father who saw his son while he was still a long way off — not waiting for the approach to finish, but running into the gap before the apology could even be formed. The hand you think is gone is actually the one that started running toward you before you even turned around.

You are not grasping at empty air. You are touching the hem of a presence that refused to leave.

The distance you feel is an illusion of the dark; the grip has never loosened.