You reached the edge of the world and flew. While everyone thought you'd fall. You didn't have any wings when you started. And you don't have any now.

But after you conquered the earth, who was to stop you from braving the skies? Some say your journey had been so intense that you had grown so lean and light,  you just floated.

Others say someone gifted you with a hot air balloon in payment of a debt they owed you. Or perhaps, it was a trick of the camera or some photo-editing wizardry.

They would not have themselves believe that you learnt to fly somehow. No! There should be a reason, something unrelated to hardwork and sheer grit.

Another group of people is afraid. They say if you've learnt to fly, what next will you do? Will you find a way to extinguish the sun?

Will you pluck the moon from our skies? Will you upset the eagles so they take out their revenge on our children? Who is to say what you'll do next?

Tomorrow, there will be a gathering of youth. They've been commissioned to stand outside and look into the skies until they spot you.

They are to shoot you down with whichever weapon they find effective. Most of them own catapults. A few own guns, the ones with the long snouts. And they will be rewarded if they succeed.

Don't fly close to home, my brother. Take my warning to heart. I know you planned your return the first day you stepped on foreign soil.

You planned to return at your largest; after you had accomplished all the impossibilities you knew you could achieve. I am not sure what made you think yourself so capable. Did you ever have any doubts? Tell me. Did you?

Were your weaknesses ever exposed to you so that you had no choice but to confront them? I tell you: I was strong till my weaknesses swallowed up my strength and digested my confidence. In the mirror, I see the image of a victor housed in the body of a loser.

Among my peers I was the champion. You know that. But for some reason, success didn't walk in step with me. It overtook me and went ahead.

I guess I should have learnt to run without resting. That way I could have caught up. It's sad. Forget my sorry state and let's talk about you.

You really outdid yourself, brother. How did you manage to shine so brightly among them? We had always known you were brilliant.

We had always known you'd do great. But to go where the best live and find that you're indeed better than the best? You must have been surprised yourself, weren't you? They celebrated you.

And they gave you all the room you needed to grow and extend and become as large as you are now.

I am still not sure why you have decided to return. You say the world is not a fair place. That colonialism never ended and you would have failed our people if you didn't return.

You say the see-saw is tilted so that all our resources including our best men are sliding into their hands to develop their lands while leaving ours to rot.

You say for every year you invested your strength and immense intelligence in their land, ours lost a year of growth. You call that lost man-years.

It's an intriguing thought. That means that the thousands of intelligent indigenes who have moved overseas are costing us millions of man-years. My God, we will never catch up.

I try to tell you it wasn't your fault. See, they celebrated you. They gave you fertile land to germinate and become the tree you are now.

We wouldn't have done that. Our land isn't fertile? And even if you had found fertile ground, we would have dug you up and cast you on to the rubbish heap behind the cassava plantation.

You know this. I don't have to tell you. Why are the youth gathered outside with their eyes to the skies waiting?

Look at our leaders. Yesterday, we found out that billions worth of the money your overseas people gave us to fight this disease that was spreading like a harmattan bush fire cannot be accounted for.

I know money is like camphor and it can vaporise if you don't use it well. I mean I myself was not a good steward of mine. But this money wasn't theirs to misuse.

It was money that was given to them to fight a disease. How could they not use it well? If you would steal someone's cloth, not that of the leper.

It's outrageous. This is what we face daily. We are not only losing the million man-years you talk about, we are also making nothing of the leftovers.

And come to think of it, no one forced you to go over to them? They didn't steal you away. You went on your own free will to make a better life for yourself and your young family. And they made you a big man.

But I do get your point. Colonialism exists in that collective neuro-space of our people where we have the shared belief that we can't become our best - whether intellectually, academically or financially - in our own home.

That we have to lend our strength to another's system to find our self-actualisation. They know this so well. So they will offer scholarships to our brightest. What magnanimity!

And they will offer them the best roles. Every year our people will spend with them is a plus for them.

It would have been a plus for us too, if our people would return after they have peaked to fill up the years they denied their home.

But alas, when that time comes, home loses its luster. Because home has fallen years back.

You are a selfless man to want to return. The research lab you want to build, forget about the partnership with government you proposed.

Our leaders somehow find a way of milking money into their personal coffers with every project. Look for a private investor.

I will convince those sky-watchers that your return will bring them jobs. I will prepare the ground for your return.

After munching on all you told me, I have something to share too. I don't mind that there is a leaving. It's important that we learn all we can from wherever there's knowledge and earn all we can from whichever currency is heaviest.

But there should be a return too, in as equal a measure as possible. The motherland needs all her children. See you soon, my brother. I am glad you've proved that the edge of the world is not too far home.

The writer is a Ghanaian medical doctor currently working in the UK. His short fiction has been published by the Ama Ata Aidoo Centre For Creative Writing and the Kalahari Review.

He was the winner of the Ananse Prize For Literature at the inaugural Ghana Writer's Awards, 2016.