A barely audible creak greeted him
as he entered a still unfamiliar home.
Then a figure approached, step by step;
aged and wizened, unsteady at a walker.

Where it not for his gait and slouch,
he could have been any other.
Now, so much smaller, and frail;
not the monstrous terror of long ago.

There standing, a deer in the spotlight,
shaking off a child's phantom fright;
in the haze of ill-served remembrance;
realising that he loved his dad, all along.*



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