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# The Long Way Back
- URL: https://route59.ghost.io/the-long-way-back/
- Published: 2026-08-26T00:57:27.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-26T00:57:27.000Z
- Description: A musing on comics, childhood, and the strange ways some things find their way back home.
- Author: A Passerby 
- Tags: Musings

About twenty-five years ago, on a hot Sunday afternoon, I remember hurrying home after Sunday school with a borrowed copy of *Volume 2 of Batman: Black and White* tucked under my shirt.

Amma had serious reservations about a grown man in a cape, wearing a mask, and snooping around on rooftops being the best influence on an eleven-year-old.

I remember rainy nights with that book. A companion through sick days from school. Friday evenings at the start of a long weekend, staying up late, convinced it would make the weekend last longer.

I held on to that issue for as long as I could before reluctantly returning it.

Only to borrow it again during the summer holidays.  
And again around Diwali.  
And a few more times after that.

Batman comics were never easy for me to own.

Every winter came with a reading allowance just before the long train journey home.

It was enough for two or three paperback novels, but never enough for a single Batman digest.

Two books from those years never really left me: *Volume 2 of Batman: Black and White* and *The Long Halloween*. I still remember reading *The Long Halloween* through a week of chickenpox.

About twelve years later, after I got my first job, I found that same *Batman: Black and White* volume at Landmark.

The price tag still won the argument.  
I told myself I’d come back for it.

Another ten years rolled by.

I never kept my end of the bargain.

**Someone else did.**

Today, the entire *Batman: Black and White* collection sits on my shelf.

Every time I look at it, I think about that borrowed copy I carried home after Sunday school.

**Some things take a little longer** 
**to find their way home.**

![A quiet village road winding toward a childhood home beneath mango trees, illustrated in sepia ink.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/c5/30/c53005b6-87ba-4480-a73c-0afbbb2d6fa9/content/images/2026/08/LongwayHome_Feature-2.png)