The Man Who Always Returned
The Man Who Always Returned
In an old coastal city known as The Seven Harbors, where the smell of salt clung to every stone and the cries of seagulls never truly faded, there lived a man named Salem bin Nader.
Salem was not known for a great achievement, nor for wealth or power.
He had no title, no position, no legacy carved into the city’s memory.
He was known for only one thing:
He was the man most familiar to the city guards.
They knew his face better than they knew one another’s. With every passing season, Salem returned to the same square, wearing the same faded clothes, walking with the same exhausted steps. His beard grew longer, his back bent lower, but his destination never changed.
He would be taken away.
Then released.
Then left alone.
Only to return again.
Some people whispered,
“He is a man who never learns.”
But no one ever stopped to ask:
What was he supposed to learn from?
The Beginning of the Story
Salem was born during a time when the city was flourishing. Ships filled the harbors, markets overflowed with voices, and opportunities seemed endless—at least for those who knew where to look.
His home, however, was not part of that prosperity.
He grew up in a narrow room with cracked walls and a door that never closed properly. He fell asleep to the sound of arguments and woke up to the absence of a father who disappeared one night and never returned. His mother worked endlessly, growing quieter with every year, until silence became the language of their home.
From a young age, Salem learned that silence was easier than speaking, and escape was safer than confrontation. Dreams felt like fragile things—things better left untouched.
When he grew older, he tried to live like others. He took small jobs, drifted from place to place, and attempted to blend into a world that always felt too loud, too demanding, too sharp.
That was when he found alcohol.
At first, it was nothing more than a companion—warm, forgiving, and silent. It never asked him who he was or why he failed. It never demanded improvement.
At first, he believed he controlled it.
Then the years passed.
And slowly, quietly, it was the alcohol that began to control him.
An Endless Circle
The city’s laws were strict. Anyone found unconscious in public places would be detained. Order was sacred; appearances mattered.
And so Salem became part of the guards’ daily schedule.
They knew where to find him. They knew how to lift him, how to search him, how to file his name. He was never violent, never harmful—just a lost man sitting where he did not belong.
Each time, the judge glanced at him and repeated the same sentence:
“We are protecting order.”
But the system never asked:
Who is protecting the human being?
Salem was released again and again—without work, without treatment, without guidance, without a place to return to. There was no bridge offered between punishment and recovery.
And so it was only natural that he returned.
Because the circle was never broken—
it was simply redrawn.
Salem’s Other Face
Despite everything, the people of the city saw another side of him.
On better days, Salem would play an old drum near the harbor, its skin worn thin by time. Children gathered around him, clapping and dancing, laughing without fear or judgment. He remembered the names of vendors, helped elderly women carry their bags, and greeted strangers as if they were old friends.
He listened more than he spoke.
An old woman once said softly,
“If evil were measured by cruelty, Salem would not be an evil man.”
But in the eyes of the system,
he was nothing more than a repeated number.
The Moment That Came Too Late
During a harsh winter night, Salem collapsed near the sea. The wind was unforgiving, and the harbor was quiet.
This time, he was not arrested.
There was no report to be written, no cell to hold him, no file to reopen.
When the city learned of his death, something strange happened. People gathered by the harbor, unable to explain the heaviness in their chests. They spoke his name in fragments, remembering moments that felt suddenly important.
A fisherman said quietly,
“He needed a hand to hold him… not a door to close behind him.”
The Wisdom
Not every fall is a sign of failure,
and not every return is stubbornness.
Sometimes, a person returns to the same place
because society never opened another path.
The harshest laws are not those that punish,
but those that repeat punishment
and call it a solution.
