Retrograde

starting at the end, working backwards
 

‘Hallelujah! It is clear that this boy is alive, yet he was considered dead! Now he’s found, despite being, understandably, reckoned to be lost!’
 

The party continued, as the father celebrated the son’s return. 

The boy showed off his new coat, ring and sandals, remembering with great pleasure the moment when his father had bestowed them upon him, along with many expressions of affection. 

He’d still been a long way off, starting to say ‘No longer worthy to be called your son, but make me one of your hired hands.’ He’d planned this while on his journey from the pig sty, where he said to himself ‘I will go to my father, once I have arisen.’
 

This decision followed the realization that even his father’s hired men were being fed every day, while here he was thinking that the pig food looked good… This was on account of his great hunger, which in turn was due to the great famine. His pockets were empty, and his friends were gone, despite his former lavish exuberance in spending and wild living, which had started some time earlier, almost as soon as he got to Dissipation City.
 

The moment of arrival was the natural consequence of a journey away from the home farm, bags stashed with large wedges of cash garnered from his father as part of a positive response to a simple request: ‘Please give me my share of the inheritance.’ He was the younger son.