The Enigmatic Nook of Returns
In one of the forgotten alleys of an old English town, where the houses bore the marks of time like wrinkles on an elder’s face, a peculiar sign appeared one day. It materialised as if from nowhere, a ghost of the past woven into the grey fabric of everyday life. “THE ENIGMATIC NOOK OF RETURNS. Lost items reclaimed. Terms—individual.” The letters, faded as if scorched by centuries of sun, seemed an echo from another world. Against the grimy, dust-cloaked glass, they looked like whispers from a forgotten dream that still tugged at the heart.
Oliver had walked this street hundreds of times. Once, there had been a cosy antique shop here, then a greasy spoon serving cheap tea, and finally, silence. The façade had peeled, the windows clouded with grime, and old signs drowned in dust. Oliver had long stopped noticing this part of town, the way one stops noticing pain that has grown familiar. But that day, the sign pricked his gaze like a needle pressing into an old wound he’d tried to forget.
He stopped. In the murky glass, he caught his reflection: weary eyes, hair streaked with grey, a worn-out coat. His face was a map of loss—wrinkles like roads leading to memories he’d rather erase. Eyes that no longer believed in miracles. A man who had lost too much to trust mysterious signs. Love, trust, his daughter—all gone, dissolved like smoke. Even the memories were fading, losing warmth and scent, flattening like sun-bleached photographs.
He pushed the door. It creaked open gently, as though waiting for him. Inside, the air smelled of old books and ripe apples—the scent of childhood, buried deep in his mind. Behind the counter stood a woman—tall, her hair neatly pinned, her gaze piercing deeper than skin. She wasn’t looking at Oliver, but at something inside him, as if she saw the shadows of those he’d lost.
“What can be returned?” he asked, his voice trembling as if spoken by someone long forgotten.
“Anything lost,” she replied calmly. “But the price is always your own.”
He wanted to laugh, to dismiss this strange game, but instead, something tightened in his chest.
“I want back that day,” he said quietly. “The last conversation with my daughter.”
Her face remained still, as if such requests were made here every day.
“Tell me of it.”
Oliver sank into a chair, movement heavy, as if carrying the weight of all his mistakes.
“We argued. Over nothing, as usual. She wanted to study abroad, and I… I accused her of abandoning us, betraying the family. I shouted that she was selfish, that she never thought of her mother, of me. She stayed silent, then snapped, ‘You never tried to understand me.’ I slammed the door. She left. A week later… she was gone. An accident. Since then, I’ve lived, but barely breathed. I keep thinking—if I’d just listened, held her, told her I was proud… Maybe she’d have stayed. Maybe things would’ve been different.”
The woman nodded as if she’d heard this story many times before.
“The price: you’ll forget every other moment with her. All of them. Her laughter, her first steps, morning chats over tea, trips to the coast. Only that day will remain—rewritten as you wish. The rest will vanish, as if it never was. No warmth of her smile, no sound of her voice. Just that one conversation.”
Oliver froze. His hands shook, clutching the counter’s edge.
“It’s like… cutting away part of my soul. Not flesh, but time. My life.”
“Exactly,” she said. “But you’ll have what you ask for. Word for word. As it might have been.”
He was silent. Long. His lips twitched as if replaying old scenes: her childhood giggles, the scent of her perfume, dinnertime quarrels. Then he stood, clumsily, like a man rising from a fall.
“Thank you. I need to think.”
She didn’t stop him. Only said, gazing into the void,
“We’re open until midnight. Then—we close. Forever. And we won’t reopen, no matter how desperately you beg.”
All day, Oliver wandered the town like a ghost. Every sound, every scent felt like a shard of the past. A song from a café reminded him of evenings with his wife. The smell of fresh pastries—his mother’s baking. Even a busker’s voice echoed what he’d lost. He caught fragments of strangers’ conversations, each word hinting at something he once knew but had let slip away.
He returned to the shop half an hour before midnight. The door was still open, as if expecting him.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said, lingering on the threshold. “I want a different return.”
The woman’s brow lifted, surprise flickering in her eyes.
“Which?”
“I want myself back. The man I was before the pain, the emptiness, before every step felt like a battle. I want to remember what it’s like to live without dreading each new day.”
She was silent too long. Then stepped closer, her movements slow, as if weighing not just words but his fate.
“That is the highest price,” she said, locking eyes with him. “You’ll lose every reason it ever mattered. All that makes you who you are will disappear. You’ll be weightless, but hollow. Without pain, but without meaning. Like a leaf carried off by the wind.”
“But the pain… it would be gone?” His voice wavered.
“Yes. And all you loved with it. Everything keeping you here will dissolve. You’ll become… no one.”
Oliver sat. Clasped his hands over his knees. Shut his eyes. Inside raged a storm—memories, guilt, love, fear.
Then he opened his eyes and whispered,
“I refuse. I’ll keep the pain. It’s all I have left of her. It tears me apart, but it’s alive. I won’t choose emptiness.”
The woman smiled—warmly, for the first time, as if in farewell.
“Then you don’t need the return. You’ve already found what you were looking for.”
Oliver stepped outside. The sign was gone. In place of the door—a solid wall, as if the shop had never existed. No scent of apples, no creak of hinges. Just him, the night, and the cold wind brushing his face.
But something had shifted inside. He hadn’t gotten what he came for. Yet he’d found what he needed. And for the first time in years, he didn’t regret his choice.
