So to Speak: Through a dark passage of time

The past is neither your friend nor an enemy. I heard the phrase when I was a child. I never understood its meaning until years later. Somehow, it found a permanent residence in my life. I recalled it recently after a ghost of my past forced his attention in my present life.
I received a call from a friend, and he said there was someone who would like to talk to me. I could not recognise the voice until the man at the other end said, “the little boy that never drowned.”
Memories flashed in my mind and my thoughts travelled back through a dark passage of time that I tried to shut out many years ago. He was a childhood friend and the source of many unpleasant memories. I was lost with words and when I finally found them, I stammered them out incoherently. There was a soft chuckle and I knew he was taking a particular delight in bringing back the source of misery that I had to endure for three long years. He knew the effect he was creating because my voice told him I have never really recovered from the ordeal.
“I thought you are dead,” he said and meant it to be a joke, but I could still feel the old threat from his soft voice, “where have you been hiding all these years...?”
The rest of the question was lost when a passing truck rumbled past me. It was in that particular instant, my wife, who was standing next to me by the side of the road, asked, “Are you alright?”
Later on, she said she was concerned because my face had turned white. But her gentle voice and her touch reminded me that I was a different person now. I was not a schoolboy hounded by a bully but a man with an inspirational woman by my side. I cleared my voice and with perfect composure, I told him, “yes, I never drowned and I am still here talking to you.”
I said those words after fighting off an urge to lash out at him. It would have been most uncharacteristic of me to do so and most inappropriate, too. I was determined to bury the ghost of the past once and for all. So, I invited him to my house so we could catch up with the old times. He accepted innocently but to me, the get-together would not be social. I finally saw him after forty long years. I took my time before stretching my hand to greet him because I wanted to take a good, long look at him. Suddenly, it occurred to me that he was not a cruel child he once was. He was thin, bony and a shadow of a bully that tormented me during the summer holidays. When he ignored my hand to embrace me instead, I responded heartily. I could see that he was now a man faced with the many harsh realities that had broken many of his dreams.
He was almost apologetic as he spoke of the old days. I joined in and in some strange way, I found him full of warmth. We also talked about how he dropped me into the sea and kept my head down for a minute. Only this time, it was the source of a happy memory. I finally rested the past ghost in an eternal peace.