Microfiction: You Can't Go Home Again

You Can’t Go Home Again

by Luke Evans © 2017

My feet hit the ground and I stepped away from the bus. I took a deep breath and sighed out the air and all that it meant. There was nobody waiting for me. I wasn’t surprised; I hadn’t told anyone I was returning and I’d been away for nine years.

I grew up in this old industrial town and I loved it instinctively as the place where I had started. That was a long time ago. Now, as I looked at it, I couldn’t remember why I had loved it.

It was empty and somehow lacking. The industries on which the city was founded had abandoned her for greener pastures. Shops stood empty, buildings run down. Graffiti covered their walls and marked them as damaged. And here I stood, older, jaded and lost, but for reasons that I didn’t really understand; I had come home.

We were both somehow hollow; lost lovers pushed back together. I looked at the empty storefronts and I knew she was empty, too. I turned back to the bus, with the thought of riding it until the end of the line.

The bus was gone.

*******

Published in 2018, this piece of microfiction won the Hunter Category for the Spineless Wonders and Newcastle Writers Festival joanne burns Microlit Award (yes, the lower case usage is intentional!). Artists working with Spineless Wonders adapted this piece into other media versions. Spineless Wonders is a... dare I say it... wonderful Australian publishing house, giving many publishing opportunities to Australian artists. Please go to https://shortaustralianstories.com.au/ to have a look at the books they have available and the opportunities that they are offering. As a part of my agreement to be published in the 2018 "Time" Anthology for Spineless Wonders, I retained the right to republish this work after the agreed-upon grace period, which ended in 2018.

-Pic: The cover of "Time" Anthology for Spineless Wonders © Spineless Wonders, 2018

The title for this piece was shamelessly stolen from a quote from a comic - an old DC Comic – Teen Titan’s Spotlight #14: Nightwing, written by Michael Reaves and with art by Stan Woch and Rodin Rodriquez and published in September, 1987.

- Pic: From the cover of Teen Titan’s Spotlight #14: Nightwing, by Michael Reaves,

Stan Woch and Rodin Rodriquez. © DC Comics, 1987.

I was reminded of a beautiful line from the book. Reaves had the grown-up Dick Grayson (the former Robin, now called Nightwing) return home to the Wayne Manor after having a falling out with Batman that had resulted in him leaving. Dick stood on the driveway looking at the mansion and thought to himself: “I confess – I never read ‘You Can’t Go Home Again’ by Thomas Wolfe… but I know what it’s about”. This quote had such a deep resonance with me. You don’t have to have read that book – the title says it all and anyone who has moved away before coming home knows what it is about.

- Pic: From Teen Titan’s Spotlight #14: Nightwing, p07, by Michael Reaves,

Stan Woch and Rodin Rodriquez. © DC Comics, 1987.

NOTE: The pictures used here have been sourced from different internet sites, always linked to under the picture. In the case of comic panels, the original issue numbers and creators are listed, as well as the company that owns them. All rights remain with the original creators and have been used here for entertainment and educational purposes only.